It's amazing because, living through Nigeria, you know, again, we're not privileged. But I remember going to the embassy in Nigeria to renew my passport, that was when I realized, wait a minute, it sounds like maybe I'm important here, right? Because I saw as a citizen, it was just like, yeah, come this way, like, well taken care of but I saw the Nigerians. People were trying to get visas and they had their own queue. I was like, wow, okay. It's like being a citizen of the United States is something, right? But living in Nigeria, it was a struggle. Lekan

I came on August 20, 2004, and, you know, I was coming to the country, the United States of America. So, you know, my dad had some suits from the 70s while he was here, so I wore one of those. I just dressed up, yeah, coming to the United States in August, it was hot but I wasn't aware of all those. I was clearly overdressed, and my dad' s friend' s son was coming to pick me up. He hadn't seen me before, I hadn’t seen him before either, so. I think he was, like, holding a placard or something, trying to identify me. But he said, as soon as he saw me, he's like, yeah, that’s definitely him. Memento: Lekan's Computer class workbook. Origin: Nigeria

I heard that back then, things were thriving in Nigeria. So people that were coming were not trying to stay here. They were trying to go back to their countries. So he [my dad] was one of those. He went back. He did well for himself. The house that I grew up in, he built from before we were born. So we had that stability, the same house that we all grew up in. Of course, the typical family of six, like four children. I think that was almost like a standard. Things were good, but suddenly I think somebody came to our house one day. I can't remember how it happened. So, the person presented an idea to my dad that one of us could come abroad to study. I don't know why that man came to our house, but, you know, in hindsight, I would say it's God, right? Memento: Funmi's dress. Origin: Nigeria

How do you relate to black America? In my initial years, and I think this is something a lot of Africans would eventually find. Some of the racism can be much more present from then. And it's expected, and I think it's really because of the diaspora divide, you know. So, one of the earliest and most successful colonial strategies was divide and conquer. And that happened within colonialism, but even within the broader project of imperialism. So, with initial contact with exploitative relations with Europeans. So, the initial aspects of the slave trade, I think it really very successfully just enforced like a deep divide among the African diaspora, right? And so in America, that regressive image of Africa as, you know, full of poverty and disease and failed states was very successfully, that programming was very successfully enshrined in America. Lola

And very often, you know, the exposure to education because of structural racism is usually least among the African American population. So they might be the ones who might not have the exposure to be able to see Africa in different lights. And I think there's also some novelty to it. I think it's also been redefined by the current stage of neoliberalism in some ways. Because there were actually times in America where the pan-Africanist movement was very strong. So if we're thinking like in the 60s with black nationalism or earlier than that, you know, there was a very strong back to Africa movement. You know, so like Liberia, where my mother's family is from, many African Americans had opted to move back to Liberia, right? They call them Americo-Liberians, right? So there were times that I think the Americas still had, or the Black American population still had, a more positive engagement with Africa. But I also think that it’s coming back in some ways. I think now it’s like Afrobeats, for instance, being very big and Amapiano, you know. A lot of African American artists are engaging with African artists and going to their concerts. Lola

What do you think about borders as an abstract concept? They're very imaginary. They're very futile and made up. But they're also - it's the way we assign so much meaning to constructions. You know, borders are one of the things we do that the most with. And then we forget how much they also evolve. I do my research on colonial Nigeria. And, you know, the boundaries have even changed within the last hundred years. It's included parts of Cameroon. It's taken out parts of Cameroon. It's, in some ways, included parts of Benin and Niger. So they're such a fictitious thing. And they also just really exclude the people who live at them, who are border dwellers. Think about how if we decided to have, or if we wanted to have a Yoruba sovereign state, the lines between Benin and Nigeria have obscured that. Or the Hausas and the lines between Chad and Niger and Nigeria. So they [borders] really exclude and don't acknowledge the identities of the people, the experiences or even the autonomy of the people who exist there. That's one of the things that concerns me the most. Memento: Lola's diary Origin: Nigeria

What is your relationship with your family back in Senegal? What did you expect when you were coming, and what was shocking to you when you got here? My sister, I applied for her just to come to visit me. And I put everything the embassy asked for, like every paper and every document, and the guy didn't ask her anything. They just look at her like, “I'm sorry, we're not going to give you a visa”, for no reason. And you pay the fee, and the time, and everything, and I just tell the people I work with: I say, ' Like, you guys, you have your passport, you can buy a ticket, you can go anywhere.' And that's a privilege. For us to come in here, we got to go to the embassy, line up, have an appointment, and have everything they ask, and depending on that person, they can interview you, and if they don't like you, they don't give you, and they don't tell you exactly why, and you're wondering why all the time you're here. Madiop

If this door is open, people are going to come and be like, I don't need to be here, and they go back. But the mindset of that closed door. I think people are curious about what exactly life is [behind the closed door]. But some of the life there is better than here. You know, like, I see a lot of people have a good job thinking, like, oh, this is better, but they come here disappointed. Most of them have good jobs at home; they're lawyers, or they're doctors, and they come here, working, at restaurants, things like that. But there’s a mindset that thinking that here is a better life. A lot of things that you see on TV are not right. People are poor. You live in Africa, and on the TV, they show things that are nice. They don’t show you the real life like the ghetto or like places where people are homeless and things like that. and the way they imagine Africa, the media, they put images of everybody being poor, but when you go to Africa you can see it's not everybody. Everybody owns what they own. Here, people own nothing. Diop

Was it a difficult decision to move from Senegal to move here? It was very difficult because, first of all, the culture is different, and I never thought that I was gonna move here. I thought I would live in Europe because everybody speaks French. When you go to places where you're not speaking the language, you look like a child again. You’re not able to express yourself. You think what you want, but you can't say it to people. People don't understand you, and people look down on you because you can't speak the language. When I was in California, learning English, that teacher looked down upon a lot of people. He's teaching people English, but at the same time, he looks at you like you are dumb, but you're not dumb because you speak more languages. You’re trying to learn a language. It's not your language. And it's very hard to learn another language. And a lot of people, immigrant people, they speak in like five or six languages. It's not like they're dumb, it's just that a lot of languages are in your head. Memento: Artisanal chair Origin: Senegal.

do you even still consider Nigeria home and how long do you think you will continue to be home compared to this place? I have a dual home. Nigeria is always home. I'm always Nigerian. All my students know me as Nigerian. Okay, so it's it stays with me forever. My name is Nigerian. My accent is Nigerian. Maybe if I came at 10 or something, I could change it, but that's lost, no longer changeable. So I will always be Nigerian, so it's home. But for me, it's a little different, because I was married, before I came and I came with my wife. We went for our interviews together. We did everything together. We moved together. And so it's a dual home because I have my immediate family with me all the time. Yeah. So my home is where my wife is, my daughter is. That's home. But of course, I also have siblings, you know, family back in Nigeria. So even if I have no siblings in Nigeria, it will still be home. That is where I was born and raised, so it's home. Tope.

Nobody knows the future we're only trying to guess. I was married in Nigeria and I married a Yoruba person not on purpose but I married a Yoruba person. I could have been married to someone from a different country, and now the question of home becomes even more complicated for those generations you’re talking about. I think it' s everybody will always know where they' re from by stories and communication, and there's always something in people generally that longs to know where they' re from. Even the African Americans or some would say black, whatever it is, many people do DNA test in Ancestry dot com, 23andMe and all those kind of things just to have a sense of where am I from, so I think it's ingrained in everybody, and it's a vital component of people's identity to know where they're from. So by God' s grace, I don't think it’ll get lost on any generation that's connected to me in the future. At the very least, their dad or great dad was from Nigeria if there is a place still called Nigeria because during the slavery time, there was no Nigeria. Tope

As part of this project i'm asking people to give me like items from home and what you gave me is a complimentary card. How did that come about? There's no particular magic to it. It wasn't like I gave a lot of thought to that. I had a few things from home, that was part of it, and I wanted to give you something without a picture. So I still had my old ID cards, driver's license, tax ID and things like that from Nigeria but that was one of them. But why do I still have them? Even the money that was in my pockets when I was coming, the 500 Naira and all those things are still with me because why throw them away. What for? It's not heavy. And they connect you with where you're coming from as well. Yeah, so I don't plan to, and really have no plans to throw them away. Memento: Complimentary card Origin: Nigeria.

I moved in 2009. I came with the U. S. Lottery, so I came with a green card. And I stayed for about six, seven years, and then I filed for my wife. So when she was coming, she came with William first in 2018, and then they went back. And then my wife had Warwick, and when he was about three months, they came for the green card as well, and then went back home. And then the following year, she came with Warwick. When he was coming, he was one year old. A year and a half. I was working in a reputable institution in Ghana. I was working with Internal Revenue Service, just like the IRS. And I had this opportunity. And I decided to have to move. So, I moved to New York., I was working with CVS Partners. We were doing the inventory for them. Back home, I studied marketing. and business management. So, it was kind of related to my field. When you move at first, the accent is not going to go away, and then with your color, they're going to tell that you're not from this country. Andrews

The educated ones aren’t that bad. But some of them, some of them behave as if we Africans, we don't have even a place to live. Somebody asked me. Do you have beaches in Ghana? Somebody told me, you guys live on trees. Yeah. Yeah. So, I just went to Google, and googled some of the tourist sites in Ghana, and showed it to her. This is Ghana. She said, 'wow.' You even have an airport. You know. You even have an airport. If you go to Ghana, you will not even love to live in your country. Just that here, the system is in place. There's discipline and all that. Sometimes black Americans are even the worst disrespectful people. Those who look like us. One time, my friend who was living with me was on the street talking on the phone and this lady, I think she is a Jamaican, was yelling at me. She was yelling on the street at the top of her voice like everybody was hearing, go back home, you're not from this country, go back to Africa, you see that kind of stuff. Andrews.

I wish I would have come with my son, but I couldn't because at the time we were going to get our visa, I had only William and Warwick, and I was pregnant with Welbeck, but when I had a visa, it was a week before my flight that I gave birth so I couldn't like come. I would have maybe travelled with a pregnancy to come here. So, I left my son after three months. I wish I would have maybe put him in a suitcase, like putting him on my back, and then bringing him, but you can't do that. I went back to get him after six months Florence Memento: West African prints Dress Origin: Ghana.

My expectation was to come here and maybe further my education and do other stuff. But you know, when you get here you have so many challenges that you have to help people back home. We are good but not too good so we have to help. Helping my siblings or the whole family so at least they know that things have changed but you know, back home, if you've not traveled to this part of the world, you don't have the exposure. Yeah. So, you know, the perception that we have back home is different from when we travel here. And the realities of life are different from being back home. So, those back home, they always think that there's more money here. Yeah. That's right, yeah. So, the demand is like, you know, everybody is on you. But you being here, you know the realities of the world. You know, it's not very easy to come by money. Whatever that you get, you have to work for it. Yeah. And you have bills to pay. But back home, like, they don't know it’s like that. Memento: Andrew's Leather slippers Origin: Ghana.