In Her Likeness. - by Stargirl.

I hail from the southwestern part of Nigeria, and oftentimes, when I walk through the noisy streets of my town or scroll through the even noisier streets of the internet, I am asked if I am Yoruba. The answer is always in the affirmative. I nod my head and mask the awkwardness in my heart with a simple, “Yes, I am.” I do not quite know what gives me away. Sometimes, I think it is my “little eyes,” as someone once described them. Maybe it is my nose. On other occasions, I have decided that perhaps it is the collective arrangement of all my features, assembled by some invisible committee and submitted for approval under the category of Yoruba-looking. Or perhaps it is simply that someone once looked at me, considered the evidence, and concluded, without mincing words: “You look Yoruba.” I wonder if people truly know a person's tribe from their face. Because in this same clime, I have also been mistaken for an Igbo girl. “Oh, you look Igbo.” “Are you Igbo?” This happens far less frequently than the Yoruba verdict, so statistically speaking, I suppose I look more Yoruba. Lol. There may be discrepancies in the public's assessment of where exactly I come from, but there is one thing about me that nobody has ever seemed to question. I am my mother's daughter. The announcement usually comes with a gasp, a dramatic widening of the eyes, and the folding of arms across the chest, as though someone has just uncovered a major family secret. “You are your mother's daughter!” “You have stolen all her features.” “She has reincarnated!” The words come tumbling out like water from a burst pipe. I smile, of course. What else does one do when people have just informed you, with great excitement, that your face is essentially your mother's face wearing a different birth certificate? But the smile never quite manages to cover the awkwardness sitting heavily in the pit of my stomach. Then comes the inevitable hug. The bearer of this revelation moves towards me with swift hands and wraps me in a long, affectionate embrace, almost as though they are trying to cover me with their body so that I do not vomit the awkwardness in my belly through my mouth. The ordeal usually lasts about a minute. If you're from where I'm from, you have probably experienced some version of this. Perhaps you inherited your mother's eyes. Her nose. Her mouth. Her feet. Her body shape. Perhaps you are the unfortunate heir to her exact forehead. People love resemblance. They treat it like a family inheritance, except nobody asks whether you wanted it before handing it over. I have noticed, however, that people seem perfectly comfortable with the idea that I inherited my mother's face. They can accept her eyes sitting beneath my brows, her nose occupying the centre of my face, her mouth speaking from my lips. They can marvel at the resemblance as though I am a living family portrait. But apparently, I must have stopped the inheritance at her tongue.This is where the mathematics of resemblance becomes strange.People act as though I am allowed to have my mother's face but not her voice. As though genetics had a very specific dress code: take the eyes, take the nose, take the cheekbones, but leave the mother tongue at the door.Why do you act as though I am made of porcelain and cannot code-switch?Why does my mother's tongue, in my mouth, suddenly become a foreign object?Why is the British accent fascinating, sophisticated, almost aspirational, but the Ijesha accent sends something crawling beneath your skin?Why does a person speaking the language and accent of the place they were raised become an embarrassment while someone carefully pronouncing English in an accent borrowed from across the Atlantic is praised for being “well spoken”? I wonder what exactly we think we are protecting when we are so eager to sand the edges off our own voices. Am I supposed to be made in my mother's likeness but edited for public consumption? Must I inherit her eyes but disown the sound that came from the same mouth that taught me how to speak? And why does a person's mother tongue annoy the hair on your head even when it is not being used in conversation with you? Yes, “go” can become “gho.” Yes, “fifty” can become “pipty.” Language has never been as fragile as we pretend it is. There is something almost absurd about the way we police accents. We hear a Nigerian speaking English with a distinctly Nigerian cadence and immediately begin correcting the person, as though the Queen herself is waiting somewhere with a red pen. Yet the same people will happily bend their tongues into unfamiliar shapes to imitate accents that were never theirs to begin with. The problem is not that the accent is difficult to understand. We have simply been taught which voices sound intelligent, which ones sound polished, and which ones are expected to disappear into the background. I find it interesting that we celebrate resemblance when it sits quietly on the face, but become uncomfortable when it speaks. We are happy to point at my eyes and say, “Your mother’s eyes.” We marvel at my nose. We recognise her face in mine. But let that same inheritance leave my mouth and suddenly there is something to correct, something to soften, something to laugh about. Why? If I am allowed to carry my mother’s face, why must I leave her voice behind? Yes, “go” can become “gho.” Yes, “fifty” can become “pipty.” So I am my mother’s daughter after all. Not only in the way her features have found their way onto my face, but in the way her world has found its way into my voice. I took her eyes.I took her nose.I took her mouth.I took her shape.And, apparently, I took her tongue too.

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