Ugoshi, Chinwe and Friday Oriji gather in their Hamilton home. A 2009 graduate of Hamilton High West, Chinwe Oriji has used the stories of her parents and others like them as inspiration for her academic pursuits. (Staff photo by Meagan Douches.)
By Meagan Douches
As the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, 2009 Hamilton High West graduate Chinwe Oriji has always been fascinated by her African roots and culture.
When Oriji was 18 years old, she read a book on Nigeria and the 1967 Civil War, known as the Biafra War. The two-and-a-half-year war was marked by severe famine and fighting, causing the deaths of over two million.
While reading, Oriji made the connection that her parents were alive and living in an area that was highly affected during the war. Though Ugoshi and Friday Oriji had never discussed it with their daughter, they were war survivors.
When Oriji discovered the truth behind her parents past, she couldn’t believe it.
“I was just in shock!” she said. “I’m a child of war survivors?”
Oriji’s parents finally opened up and began recounting stories about what had happened to them.
“They started telling me stories about how my uncle was kidnapped and forced to be a soldier, but then somehow he escaped,” Oriji said. “My dad saw air raids, planes dropping bombs and dead bodies in the street. My mom talked about how her sister had kwashiorkor, you know, when your stomach gets enlarged because of malnutrition.”
According to Oriji, most people in the Nigerian community don’t discuss the war because they want to forget about the hardships and let go of their anger. Oftentimes, it’s the children of war survivors who want to remember and who have to dig to discover the truth.
“Our parents always say we brought you to this country in order for you to build yourself,” Oriji said, “but also we don’t want you to forget [your past].”
Now 24, Oriji believes that discovering the details of her families’ past has made her more connected to her heritage. After high school, Oriji went on to attend Rutgers University where she was able to correlate her personal history with coursework in her African Studies classes. This led her to pursue African and immigrant studies for her undergraduate thesis.
“I was specifically interested in how children like me of African immigrants understand themselves,” Oriji said, “being raised in the U.S., but understanding their specific culture and respective African country and how that shapes their identity.”
At Rutgers, Oriji’s academic advisor pushed her to apply to graduate school at Cambridge University in the U.K. Despite her achievements thus far, Oriji never imagined that she would get accepted to such a prestigious institution.
“I had the worst application,” she said. “I spilled apple juice on it.”
To Oriji’s surprise, she was accepted to Cambridge’s Master of Modern Society and Global Transformation program. She then proceeded to crowdfund over 16 thousand dollars to help pay for her degree.
At Cambridge, Oriji was able to explore research on Nigerian British immigrants and their identities. Through learning about the lives of other immigrant children, Oriji was able to realize her goal of earning a doctorate in African and Diaspora studies.
“I was always in my room or the library reading and writing,” Oriji said, “I liked it! It gave me a good foundation on what I wanted to do.”
In May, Oriji completed the first year of her Doctorate program at University of Texas at Austin. Her current endeavors include tackling a summer reading list of over 120 academic books and articles which she will be tested on in the fall.
“Our program prepares us to be professors, to teach programs and do research, so that’s the route that I hope to enter,” Oriji said. “Then again, I’m very open. Anything can happen.”
Oriji most recently received a $15,000 scholar award from the Philanthropic Education Organization to fund her doctorate studies. She was nominated by PEO’s Pennington chapter.
Oriji’s parents, Ugochi and Friday are impressed by her strong will and her achievements.
“She makes us proud,” Friday Oriji, Chinwe’s father, said. “I have to thank almighty God.”
Oriji’s parents moved to Trenton in the early 1980s when Friday was accepted into the business program at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University). After growing up during the Nigerian Civil War, Ugochi and Friday wanted to be able to provide their children with a better future. They came to Mercer County in search of the “American Dream.”
Being a first generation immigrant, Chinwe Oriji wanted to preserve the connection to her Nigerian heritage and culture. Her parents made it a point to take her and her four siblings back to visit their home country as well as their many family members who stayed.
Oriji first visited her parents’ birthplace Isiala Ngwa South in Nigeria when she was seven years old. Though she doesn’t remember much about her initial visit, Oriji returned to Nigeria when she was 13.
“I loved it,” she said. “I got to see my family and I have hundreds of cousins. It’s completely different there, going to the market and seeing people selling on the street. It’s good to see this is my heritage, this is my ancestry, this is where I come from.
However, when her father had a stroke in 2004 and became disabled at just 47, the family was unable to continue their annual visits.
“A lot of children immigrants, their experiences are based on memory and what their parents have taught them,” Oriji said. “Going back to Nigeria, that helped me really connect.”
In addition to traveling to Nigeria, Oriji participated in a two week leadership trip to Johannesburg, South Africa during her sophomore year at Rutgers. She enjoyed her time in South Africa so much that she decided to spend a semester in Cape Town during her junior year.
“I knew I wanted to do a program that was in a community,” Oriji said. “I didn’t want to do typical study abroad. For me, I always like to be involved in something if I’m going somewhere so I wanted to do a service learning program.”
“It totally changed my life,” Oriji said. “I started to be aware of what it means to be a person that’s incarcerated and what are the social and structural barriers that affect someone and lead them to incarceration.”
To connect her experiences in the South African prison back to the U.S., Oriji started a pen pal program which allows Americans who were previously incarcerated to send letters to those in similar situations in South Africa. It works to connect people who understand each others’ experiences.
After returning to Rutgers, Oriji worked to establish an additional project called I.AM.YOU. The project allows previously incarcerated Americans to gain an international experience in South Africa. I.AM.YOU. started in 2013 and encourages participants to engage in leadership workshops while abroad. The program is one of Oriji’s current endeavors and she’s working to gain funds to further the organization.
Meanwhile, Oriji has also created a website called Unispora where immigrants and children of immigrants can connect by sharing their stories and experiences on what it means to live a multicultural existence.
“A lot of the times, immigrants and children of immigrants are silenced and they don’t really get to share their stories,” Oriji said. “It’s always someone else in government talking about immigrants and they never get to share their own narratives. I really want the website to give them the opportunity to do that.”
Oriji and her family are very grateful for the opportunities they have had in America. Though they have experienced hardships over the years, the family insists that they owe everything to God who has given them the strength to persevere.
“I think that having that heart of gratitude is so important in our lives because where I am today I personally believe has nothing to do with me, but the people who have influenced my life,” Oriji said. “As a person with a Christian background, I see God put the people in my life in order to impact me and in order to use me to go to the next level. So I always want to be grateful for everything that I have.”
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