With Christmas and New Year’s Day now passed, many immigrants to the United States are filled with memories of home — whether they could travel there in person or not.
The holidays bring forth beautiful memories for those who now live and work far from the places they were raised and where they still have extended family.
Amaka Ibekwe, a nurse practitioner who works at a family practice clinic in Houston, is one of them. The Christmas and New Year holidays bring back found memories of her childhood years in Nigeria.
Christmas and New Year, which for many people are tied together, always are a joyful celebration in Nigeria. “When I came over to America in 2001, it was a culture shock for me because I did not see the pomp and pageantry associated with (the season) in Nigeria. It was more like a family locking themselves in, decorating their outside. There was not much interaction with neighbors or people around you except if you had family.
“But in Nigeria it was more like Thanksgiving. We celebrated everything. We had food, clothing but we wanted family; we wanted to help people that did not have anything to eat but it’s not the same in America,” she recalled.
“It is always better to celebrate Christmas and New Year in Nigeria. It’s not the same experience over here.”
“It is always better to celebrate Christmas and New Year in Nigeria. It’s not the same experience over here. From a certain date like Dec. 15, everything starts to wind down. Yes, economically it could affect the government, but we are so used to it that we don’t know if it really affects us. From the 20th, almost all the offices are closed but in America it’s more of just buying gifts showing you care for people once a year. In Nigeria, we prepare for it for a week or two and celebrate it for more than two weeks but here is different.”
The cultural differences are hard sometimes, she confessed. “I’ve locked myself indoors and cried over it because there was nobody to celebrate with since I did not have (extended) family. By and large, everybody still wants to remember somebody and celebrate with.”
She would love to return to celebrate the season with close family members in her motherland, but that would come at great cost.
“Cost implications of traveling to Africa is actually what keeps most of us away from traveling to celebrate,” she explained. “Because you would have to remember almost your whole lineage or community in choosing to do that. … You must plan ahead. You have to start, say, from January to plan to go in December. You have to plan, make arrangements for your bills two months after you have come back. So sometimes when we think about it, it stops us from taking all our family or going every year.”
But those barriers often are misunderstood by family back home, she continued. “Do some people back home understand it that way? No. They think you are in a better place, you don’t want to mingle with them. But on the contrary, we so much want to go but the pocket does not allow as much as the heart allows us.”
Isaac Godfrey
Isaac Godfrey, associate pastor of Springs of Hope Christian Ministries in Bell Gardens, Calif., is another immigrant who is filled with memories of home at the holidays. Christmas and New Year celebrations are an unforgettable part of his childhood.
He was born and brought up in Warri, located in southern Nigeria. Every Christmas his family traveled to a village in the eastern part of the country.
The focus of the season always was religious, he explained. “Based on my upbringing, my Christmas was purely religious. That first exposure, being religious, taught about the birth of Christ. We went to church on Christmas Day to celebrate it.”
But there also was an important cultural element, he added. “In those days, there were different kinds of masquerades. It was on Christmas Day that you see all kinds of masquerades and cultural activities. At that time, whenever the church service was over, the next thing was to go back home and later, the masquerades — some friendly, some terrifying — start coming out.”
Throughout it all was family, he said. “As little kids we went to family relatives and friends asking to be given Christmas gifts. Sometimes you are offered coins or food and drink to eat or things like candy. The visits were often to uncles and aunts that lived in cities like Lagos or outside the country. At the end of the day, when we met and checked our gifts as siblings or friends, we found out how much we got on the day. That’s the fondest memory I have about the season.”
Anthony Akaeze is a Nigerian-born freelance journalist who lives in Houston. He covers Africa for BNG.