For the longest time, I treated my cultural identity like a smooth stone I could hand over and say, “Here, this is me.” I’d tell people, “I’m half-Nigerian, half-American,” and brace for the nod. The nod usually came, polite and quick, but I rarely got the follow-up I secretly wanted. Instead, I watched myself get sorted—dropped into a mental drawer marked “biracial” or “African diaspora.” And I hated it, because I never felt like something you could file. I felt like a long, rambling conversation that shifted every time I walked into a new room or remembered a forgotten story.
These days, I’ve stopped chasing the perfect label. Cultural identity, as I’ve come to understand it, works more like an ongoing dialogue—between me and my family, me and my memories, me and the stranger who squints and asks, “Where are you from, really?” The shift took years, and it’s been lonely and awkward and freeing in equal measure. I want to walk you through why I think we’re better off loosening our grip on tidy labels and leaning into the conversation instead.
The Day I Realized “Label” Wasn’t Enough
I was eighteen, slouched in a plastic chair at a university orientation. The facilitator asked us to go around and share “a bit about our background.” Students fired off clean, confident lines: “I’m Korean-American.” “I’m from a small town in Ohio.” “My parents are both doctors from India.” Then my turn came, and my mouth produced a scramble of clauses. “Well, my mom is white and from Kansas, but my dad is Nigerian, except he grew up partly in London, and I was born in Texas but we moved around a lot, and I don’t speak Yoruba but I can understand some, and…” I trailed off, cheeks hot, feeling like I’d just failed a test nobody told me I was taking.
That night, I kept replaying the moment. Why did I feel so much pressure to shrink myself into a soundbite? “Nigerian-American” was technically true, but it bulldozed whole landscapes. It left out the Kansas wheat fields my mom still dreams about, the scent of jollof rice steaming in my auntie’s Houston kitchen, the British phrases my dad lets slip when he’s tired. It flattened the tension I carried—people expecting me to be “more African” in one room and “more American” in another. No single term could hold all of that. And maybe that was the whole point.
Identity as an Internal Exchange
When I say cultural identity is a conversation, I mean it starts inside me. It’s the quiet back-and-forth between parts of myself that don’t always agree. There’s the Ziona who craves the loud, sweaty chaos of a Nigerian party—speakers rattling, aunties dragging me into dances I’ve never quite mastered. Then there’s the Ziona who loves solitary road trips through the American Southwest, windows down, nothing but radio static and wide-open sky. For years, I treated those sides like rivals. I thought I had to pick one or blend them into a single, smooth mix. But a conversation isn’t about winning. It’s about letting each voice have its say.
When I’m homesick, it’s not for a nation. It’s for a specific sensory jumble—the scratchy sound of my grandma’s voice on a crackling phone line, the weight of a beaded necklace from a Lagos market, the way my mom says “baby” with her soft Midwestern lilt. These aren’t contradictions. They’re lines in a dialogue I’m still learning to transcribe.
Psychologists sometimes describe identity as a narrative we build, not a fixed trait. That framing took the pressure off for me. I don’t have to be a finished product. I can be a draft—editing, revising, scribbling footnotes as I go.
When Other People Join the Conversation
The dialogue doesn’t stay internal, of course. It spills out every time someone asks, “What are you?” That question used to sting. It often comes from a place of real curiosity, but the phrasing frames me as a puzzle to solve rather than a person to know. I’ve learned to pause before answering. Sometimes I say, “That’s a long story—do you have a minute?” Other times I offer a simpler version and watch their reaction. The goal isn’t to educate everyone. It’s to protect my own energy while staying open to real connection.
I’ve noticed that the people who get me best are the ones who don’t rush to categorize. My closest friend never asked for a label. She just listened to my stories as they came—about my dad’s insistence that I learn the proper way to greet elders, about the guilt I carried for not visiting Nigeria more, about the small joy of stumbling on a West African grocery store in a city I didn’t expect. Over time, she assembled a picture of my identity that’s truer than any census box. That’s the beauty of a conversation: it’s co-created, not declared.
The Trap of “Authenticity”
One of the heaviest labels I’ve dragged around is the idea of being “authentically” something. For years, I worried whether I was Nigerian enough. I couldn’t speak Yoruba fluently. I didn’t grow up in Lagos. I ate jollof rice with a fork instead of my hands when I felt self-conscious in public. Somewhere along the line, I internalized a checklist I could never fully tick off.
But here’s what I’ve come to believe: authenticity isn’t a fixed standard handed down by a committee. It’s a feeling of alignment between your inner experience and outer expression. And that alignment shifts. At a family funeral, wearing the same Ankara fabric as my cousins, crying to hymns I only half understand, I feel deeply Nigerian. At a diner with my mom, ordering a stack of pancakes and talking about the latest home renovation show, I feel deeply American. Neither moment cancels the other. They’re both true, and they’re both me.
Culture as a Shared, Ongoing Story
Cultures themselves don’t sit still—another reason labels fall short. Nigerian culture today isn’t what it was in my father’s youth. It’s been reshaped by migration, technology, Nollywood, and the global Black diaspora. American culture is a churn of influences, constantly borrowing and remixing. So when I claim a hyphenated identity, I’m not straddling two fixed points. I’m standing in the river where they meet, feeling the currents shift.
I think of my grandmother, who grew up in a small Yoruba town and now sends me voice notes on WhatsApp. She drops proverbs I have to Google later, but she also asks about my “office work” and whether I’m eating enough. Our relationship is a conversation across generations, continents, and technological leaps. It’s not a label. It’s a living thread.
When I started this blog, I wanted a space to explore that thread without having to tie it in a neat bow. I’m not here to perform a polished version of multiculturalism. I’m here to sit with the questions: What does it mean to inherit a culture you’ve only visited? How do you grieve a homeland you’ve never fully known? Can you be a cultural insider and outsider at the same time? These aren’t questions with tidy answers, but asking them feels more honest than any label ever did.
Why Labels Still Tempt Us
I don’t want to pretend labels have no value. They help us find community. They give us shorthand in a busy world. When I check “Black/African American” on a form, it connects me to histories and struggles I share, even if it doesn’t capture my whole story. The trouble starts when we mistake the label for the person. When we hear “immigrant” and assume a certain accent, or “mixed-race” and assume confusion. Labels are the opening line of a conversation, not the whole script.
I’ve been guilty of this too. I’ve met another Nigerian-American and immediately launched into a bonding ritual—“What part of Nigeria is your family from? Do you eat fufu?”—only to find they connect to their heritage completely differently than I do. Their label matched mine, but their conversation was their own. Learning to listen before assuming has been a humbling practice.
The Role of Language
Language is a particularly tender thread in this conversation. I grew up hearing Yoruba but not speaking it fluently, and that gap has felt like a locked door. At family gatherings, I’d laugh along with jokes I didn’t fully understand, piecing together context and tone. I used to think this made me less Nigerian. Now I see it as a specific kind of Nigerian experience—one shared by many in the diaspora. The loss of language is a wound, but it’s also a story. When I learn a new Yoruba phrase now, it feels less like catching up and more like picking up a dropped stitch in a larger fabric.
My mother’s side speaks a different language entirely: the plainspoken warmth of the Great Plains. “You betcha,” “I reckon,” “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” That vocabulary lives in me too, alongside the Nigerian cadences I inherited from my dad. Sometimes they collide in ways that surprise me, like when I end a serious story with “Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.” It’s not a flaw; it’s a fingerprint.
How I’m Trying to Live the Conversation
So what does it look like, practically, to treat identity as a conversation? For me, it’s meant a few intentional shifts:
1. Asking better questions. Instead of “What are you?” I ask myself “What parts of my culture am I carrying today?” The answer changes. Some days I’m steeped in my Nigerian heritage, cooking pepper soup and video-calling cousins. Other days I’m more connected to my American upbringing, debating college basketball or craving a specific brand of mac and cheese. Neither is more real.
2. Embracing “both/and” over “either/or.” I can miss Nigeria without wanting to live there permanently. I can love my American passport and still critique American foreign policy. I can feel fully at home in a London pub where my dad once worked and also like a visitor. These aren’t contradictions; they’re layers.
3. Letting go of performance. I used to code-switch aggressively—playing up certain mannerisms depending on the audience. Now I try to stay grounded in whatever feels natural, even if it means I don’t perfectly fit anyone’s expectations. It’s scary but freeing.
4. Documenting the small moments. This blog is part of that. When I write about my grandmother’s recipe for moin moin or the way my mom decorates for Christmas, I’m not just preserving memories. I’m continuing the conversation, adding my voice to a story that started long before me.
What I Hope for the Next Generation
I think a lot about the children who will grow up in even more culturally fluid worlds than mine. Kids with parents from three continents, or kids raised in countries their grandparents have never seen. I hope they inherit not a set of rigid labels but the skills to navigate complexity. I hope someone tells them that it’s okay to feel like a work in progress. That belonging isn’t always a place; sometimes it’s a practice.
If I could go back to that university orientation room, I wouldn’t give a smoother answer. I’d give a truer one: “My cultural identity is something I’m still discussing with myself. Ask me again in ten years, and I’ll probably have a different reply.” The room might have been confused, but I would have felt lighter. And that lightness is what I’m chasing now.
FAQ
How do you respond when someone insists on a simple label for your identity?
I’ve learned that my response depends on the context and my energy. If I sense genuine curiosity, I might offer a brief label like “Nigerian-American” and then add a small, inviting detail: “but my family story has a lot of chapters.” If the question feels demanding or reductive, I’ll politely deflect or say, “It’s a bit complicated—I’d rather hear about you.” The key for me is remembering that I don’t owe anyone a neat summary. My identity isn’t a performance for their comfort.
What do you do when you feel disconnected from your own culture?
Disconnection is a normal part of the conversation for me. When it happens, I try to engage with my culture in small, sensory ways rather than forcing a big gesture. I might cook a dish from my childhood, listen to a playlist of Nigerian artists my cousin recommended, or call a family member and just listen to their voice. I’ve also stopped framing disconnection as failure. It’s often a sign that I’m living between worlds, and that’s its own valid experience. Sometimes I simply sit with the feeling and write about it, which helps me see it as part of my story rather than a flaw in my belonging.
Can you claim a culture if you didn’t grow up fully immersed in it?
This is a question I wrestle with often. I’ve come to believe that claiming a culture isn’t about meeting a checklist of experiences. It’s about relationship—with the people, the stories, the food, the language, the land. You can have a real, imperfect relationship with a culture even from a distance. What matters to me is whether you’re approaching it with humility and a willingness to learn, rather than a sense of entitlement. I don’t speak Yoruba fluently, but my Nigerian identity is still mine because I carry it in my body, my memories, my family ties. I’m always learning, and I think that ongoing learning is a form of belonging.
