In the book Americanah by Chimamanda Adiche, she shows many themes in her book to explain the differences between two cultures. One of the main things she stresses in the book is the issue of race. She says in many points in the book that she felt like an outsider in America.  At one point she says “I did not think of myself as black until I came here.” This shows how in her home country, no one was judged by their skin color unlike how some people differentiate people in America. Race is sadly an ongoing issue and this book showed it.

Another thing I found interesting is at another point in the book, Ifemelu spoke Igbo to her nephew and her aunt told her not to speak the native language so it did not confuse him from learning English. This is evidence of her aunt making sure her children will be more accepted into America by learning English and not their native language but Ifemelu did not understand why it would be bad.

After reading this book, my view on race did not change much. From a very young age my mother taught be to be nice to everyone no matter where they came from or what color their skin was. To this day I still believe that eventually this problem with racial hate will go away one day.

The story didn’t really make me more alert to race or cultural identities because like I said in the paragraph above, I was brought up not to discriminate any one and that is how I go about life. I did think she did a good job in her story by explaining her traditions and how they conflicted with American views and even the Africans who assimilated into American culture.