Gender Identity In Nigerian-American Culture

Nigerian-American is a terribly uncomfortable hyphen that’s not commonly talked about. In a Nigerian-American household, the parents only represent the left side of the hyphen. They were born and raised and lived in Nigeria. The children of the household represent the right side of the hyphen, whether they were born in Nigeria or not, their disposition always ends up taking on some of the ideals of their American environment. As a Nigerian-American I can speak of many of the conservative Nigerian Christian values that they have always wanted to instill in me but could never complete me. My father worked two jobs and occasionally the dishes or laundry. My mom went to college part-time while also working and cooking and taking care of us and the rest of the other housework. Growing up I’ve witnessed much of the same performance of gender behavior in many of the aunts and uncles …show more content…
Gender identity creates a distinction in order to create a sort of understanding between the “inherently untidy experiences” of sex (2549). In other words, a recognizable and common western boy is a boy because he commonly doesn’t wear skirts. Butler identifies that “Drag illuminates the distinctions between all states that are falsely naturalized as a unity through the regulatory function of heterosexual coherence” (2550). The gender behavior that an individual presents publicly and internally provides a baseline and a source of understanding for harmonic social interaction. The process of developing a gender identity coherent with anatomical sex functions as an identifier for an individual. Atypical gender behaviors test the margins and balance of social systems. Hence why a boyish female is more likely to be called a “dyke”, than a feminine female would. In Lagos, Nigeria, an openly lesbian female is more likely to be disowned by her father than an openly straight female