Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

Migration is an age-long activity. Different people migrate for different reasons ranging from voluntary emigration to forced exile. With it’s multifaceted nature, some dreams are realized while others remain elusive. However, the effects of migration on people’s identity and culture have developed into intriguing questions which occupy a top shelf in the minds and works of contemporary researchers and literary writers. Adichie in her Amaricanah, Unigwe in her On Black Sister’s Street, Mabanckou in his Blue White Red have ostensibly exposed the identity crises, the rejection/deportation and the cultural bereavement which migrants face as they struggle to find their feet in their supposedly new ‘homes’. Using Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the dreamers, this paper examines the extent to which the Jonga family strives to realize their dreams and at the same time maintain her African identity in their dream country - the American society. An expository cum hermeneutic approaches are employed to decry the protagonist’s unspoken agonies without undermining the optimism that spiced this epic tale. It concludes that while a break from poverty could be a primary reason for emigration, preservation of her identity would make an average African migrant return to her roots.

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