Struggling in the Search for an Identity: The Interconnectedness between DzRacedz and Gender in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of Americanah, portrays the hardships African immigrants have to undergo in adaptation and acculturation processes. She suggests that many people do not perceive themselves as blacks until they move into a cultural environment in which their “race” conditions their lives. In this paper I aim to disclose the different factors contributing to the development of the protagonist’s self- image in her struggle for an identity as a woman and as a black person. These affecting factors are “race” and gender, two categories that, I claim, cannot be looked at separately