Decolonizing the Immigration Narrative

A Queer Ecology in Chinelo Okparanta’s “America”

Bibliographic Data

ID11272012
AuthorsDaniel Chaskes (LIM College, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume44
Issue2
Pages115-131
Publication date2019-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/melus/mlz011
OpenAlexW2941221909
LanguageEN
References cited18

This essay brings together critical discussions in the areas of decoloniality, race, sexuality, ecology, and diaspora to consider Chinelo Okparanta’s “America” (2013). For Nnenna Etoniru, the aspiring Nigerian immigrant who narrates the short story, the United States promises both juridical legitimacy and badly needed methods of environmental restoration. The text suggests, however, that the logics of subject formation underlying homonormativity and academic knowledge also underlie racializations that inform neocolonial assaults on the environment. In “America,” a decolonial sensibility emerges; interludes and narrative forms best described as instances of border thinking suggest a critique of gender categories that preclude felt experience. n ethics of indeterminacy, empathy, and even fertility takes shape, demonstrating the novel forms of self-knowledge and ecological consciousness that might be produced and embodied by queer people of color.

Aesthetics · Colonialism · Decoloniality · Diaspora · Environmental ethics · Human sexuality · Immigration · Legitimacy · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Postcolonialism (international relations) · Queer · Sensibility · Sociology · Subject (documents) · African history and culture studies · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Ecology · Gender Studies · Law · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Philosophy

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