David Adewumi

My name is David Adeyalo Adewumi. I am From Everywhere and From Nowhere.

There’s been recent talk about immigration in this country, with an ever-increasing backlash against those who do not speak English, particularly Latinos. But nobody asks “what about the kids?” What I mean to say, is that in this time of assimilation and a supposed ‘melting pot’ the truth of the matter is for many first generation Americans this country can be an incredibly confusing place.

My native tongue should have been Yoruba, a common Nigerian dialect, but I speak English, and am fluent in Spanish and have a Puerto Rican fiancée. My parents are named Michael and Grace, but were born and raised in the Yoruba lands of Nigeria.

We have no one to relate to. We are not fully (Mexican, Nigerian, Korean) but we are also not white Americans. We cannot blend in anywhere we go; we can never truly be accepted. When we go home to our families, we are made fun of by cousins, nephews, and aunts alike for being a “gringo” or “oyimbo” or “muzungu” which in three different languages, essentially means a white person, and not a pleasant term for one at that. I had a friend in my Spanish class (for bilinguals and native speakers) who is Venezuelan but was raised here in the US and speaks English with a slight accent. When she ‘goes home’ to Venezuela, her compatriots ridicule her for being a ‘gringa’ while here in the US of A she can’t escape the hate and racism against her as people mistakenly assume Mexican heritage. In a mostly western-European descended world, if your name isn’t Jessica Alba or Eva Longoria, olive-shaded skin often times does not bode well. Although this society, this country, worships stars of many different racial upbringings on the stage, silver screen, and playing field, up close and personal it is a very different story.

In fact black people have a saying for this peculiar phenomenon: “Can play for them, but can’t play with them.” It is a saying meant to describe a situation in which black athletes like Jerome Bettis, Lynn Swann, or Hines Ward can be idols to millions of white western-Pennsylvanians who may be adoring Pittsburgh Steelers fans, while a black classmate does not sit so well with these same parent-fans.

I got a fresh dose of this reality when I entered my first serious relationship.

She was a petite blond-haired blue-eyed belle from a small town not thirty minutes away from where I lived. I first went to one of her family gatherings, which included almost all of her paternal and maternal family members– almost all of whom live in a thirty-mile radius. One lady asked me “are you a foreign exchange student.” I was befuddled to say the least. My English is non-accented; I was born in the local community hospital and have never even moved from my house, much less come from another country.

However, it was not my English that got her small-town mind debating my land of origin; it was the color of my skin.

I am black and my then-girlfriend is white. I learned quickly in that relationship that black and white can be like oil and water for many on the outside looking in. Her guy friends at her high school, not exactly up-to-date on the political correctness of this day and age, pointedly asked her ‘why are you dating a nigger.’ Her girl friends often made thinly-veiled attempts at subtlety…’can’t you date someone whose, you know, not different.’ They often complained how anyone could find a black guy attractive.

At that naïve point in my life, this then 15-year-old kid thought that racism did not exist in the north. The history books we learned from in my university town showed good triumphing over evil, the virtues of the freedom-loving northerners winning out over the states-rights rallying southerners. I assumed that if racism did exist in America, it must be somewhere among our southern brethren. In fact my dad had always told me I shouldn’t go to college down South–not everybody accepts people the way they do here, he would say.

Here is the mostly middle-class white town State College, otherwise dubbed ‘Happy Valley,’ located smack-dab in the middle of Pennsylvania. Most of my friends and classmates growing up have been white. My family and most of those we spent time with at home were African. I often times now refer to Happy Valley as an “oasis in the desert.”

I don’t mean any disrespect to the towns in the immediately surrounding area, but needless to say when I went to the local bowling alley, one of my friend’s mothers warned him to keep a close eye on me. She didn’t want any trouble starting between me and some of the folks from outside the oasis.

I am not exactly sure when I first noticed a gap between my social upbringing and those I grew up with.

Maybe I realized something was wrong in the fifth grade when any time we talked about slavery, the whole class would shift their attention over to me, to see what my reaction was.

Maybe it was when I got to middle school, and white friends would gather around the black kids expecting feats of rap, beat boxing, and extraordinary basketball skills.

Maybe it was sitting in the back of that hayride with a white girlfriend and her family when I was mistaken for a foreign exchange student.

As I pondered the various social groups of whom I have vied for attention: the white educated people, the black people who act and talk ‘ghetto,’ or the Africans who ridiculed me for being an ‘oyimbo’– an English speaking stain and break in the hereditary chain…

It was then that I had an epiphany. The moment the clouds hovering over the sun-starved valley parted, and the light dawned on me…

I am from everywhere and I am from nowhere.