Laguardia Reflection

 Joshua Singh

Dr. Ellis

EN 376

27 November

One of the first things I noticed in Nnedi Okorafor’s work is that she highlights the constructed, divisive belief that those who look different are different and must be treated as such. For example, when Citizen, Future, and his child are all in a room where Citizen sees aliens playing with his kid, Citizen exemplifies the othering caused by such perpetuated beliefs. He says “Hasn’t our son been exposed enough?” (my copy doesn’t have page numbers). This implies that it is not natural for aliens and humans to cohabitate, nor is it acceptable for an infant to be in such constant contact with them as evidenced by Citizen’s initial response to the aliens playing with his kid. Although this belief is strongly rejected by the aliens and those who seek to unite Nigeria without the needless othering, Citizen still believes that children should not be closely associated with them. The aliens then tell him, “Ridiculous. You haven't been here a week and you’re already sounding like a typical American” (Okorafor). Okorafor could be playing with the contemporary belief that Americans today are not the most welcoming of those who come from other cultures. 

This scene could be Okorafor’s take on generational racism and othering that goes on today. Parents do not want their children associating with those that society has wrongly deemed as other. Thus, they make every effort to remove their children, or they at least desire a limited amount of contact due to their inability to see past these man-made borders and boundaries.

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