Nigerian-Americans Celebrate Dual Heritage with Family Photos

(By Tolu Oye as told to Claudia Owusu and Kanyinsola Oye) - The Nigerian-American Siblings Using Traditional Family Portraiture to Celebrate Their Heritage

Photographs have always been a way for my family to hold on to our past—no matter how far we moved, or how complicated the idea of “home” became for us. Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, I keenly remember my mother dragging me and my siblings every year to the JCPenney Portraits studio for our family picture. What made the ritual so uncomfortable was that we were not dressed like other Midwestern families at the mall. My mother had us all in matching golden-brown-and-beige traditional ankara, an African wax-print fabric with vibrant patterns.

Adichie, Feminism, and "Flawless"

If anyone has the skills to make a speech about feminism go viral, it’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Lagos-based writer whose ideas are as complex as her language is straightforward. Previously best known for her fiction, Adichie delivered a TEDx Talk in 2013 so nuanced and rousing, Beyoncé sampled it in her empowerment anthem “Flawless.” Titled “We Should All Be Feminists,” Adichie’s oration weaved together human stories from her youth in Nigeria with a complicated discourse about gender roles in the modern world and a literal textbook definition of “feminism,” which she read aloud about halfway through. Today, the speech comes out in eBook form, which you can purchase here. Reached by phone in Lagos, Adichie spoke to Vogue.com about the overwhelming success of her speech and what it means to talk politics with the whole world.

What was it like to have your ideas about feminism go so viral?

It felt strange and surprising. I had done one TED Talk and I felt that I had already said what I could, in fact, say, and I didn’t think I had anything else worth talking about. But then I also realized the one thing I cared about is gender, feminism. So I said, "Okay, I’ll do it." But I thought, This is not going to be popular, because it’s obvious that feminism for many people is a bad word, even if you believe in it, the word is off-putting. I thought seven people would care. I was surprised, but pleasantly so.

Is it always the goal of a writer to reach as many people as possible?

I don’t think in those terms. For this speech, it was an audience of mostly Africans, an audience I wanted to reach. I remember when I started off, just having a sense of push back, I knew that it was a subject that wasn’t popular, so when people stood up and clapped, that was success. My expectations had been low, so I was just surprised.