Get Your Gele: Nigerian Dress, Diasporic Identity, and Translocalism

Abstract

Introduction It is two yards of folded, crisp aso-oke fabric formed into a towering headdress. The more complex and elaborate the headdress, the more impressive it is. This is the gele, a rather simple, traditional Nigerian head wrap that has undergone a dramatic transformation since Nigerian-American women have turned it into a local fashion statement. According to Mr. Hakeem Oluwasegun Olaleye, better known as Segun Gele (personal communication, March, 2011), when he first came to the U.S. in 2003, his female compatriots wore very dismal head wraps that were not tied well, if they wore one at all. He found his calling at a wedding he was attending where he tied a woman's head wrap in the parking lot for a few dollars. Mr. Gele (personal communication, March 15, 2011) says that he has witnessed a rise in popularity of the gele amongst Nigerian immigrants, especially in Texas to which he partially credits himself (Showalter, 2010). Is this phenomenon truly the doings of one man, or is there something more complex factoring into this behavior? Although his creativity and ingenious entrepreneurship cannot be denied, dress has always been an integral part of the Nigerian identity, and even with acculturation into American society, it remains an important facet of the immigrant identity. Currently, the U.S. has the third largest concentration of Nigerians outside of Nigeria and the U.K. In the U.S., Texas is home to the largest Nigerian-American community, specifically in Tarrant, Harris, Dallas, & Travis Counties (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Since the 1970s, Nigerians have been a part of the immigrant pool into the United States. Nigerian immigration has generally occurred for the following reasons: a quest for Western education, the sociopolitical situation in Nigeria, the aftermath of the Nigerian civil war, and the military dictatorships of the 1980s and 1990s (Ogbaa, 2003). Once in the U.S. they settle in the southern states where the climate is warmer and where education and living costs are generally lower, which explains the high concentration of Nigerians in Texas (Ogbaa, 2003). With the growth of globalization, we are no longer isolated from other cultures. We are compelled to become aware of, and acknowledge other cultures, especially in a pluralistic nation like the United States. Ultimately, the purpose of this study was to shed light on a rapidly growing ethnic group in Texas. It was an exploratory study that was conducted to obtain preliminary data on the relationships between ethnic identity, self-esteem, and the use of ethnic dress in Nigerian-Americans. Four primary research questions were examined for this study: Q1a: Do Nigerian-Americans use ethnic dress with higher frequency than other ethnic groups in Texas? Q1b: Do Nigerian-Americans have a stronger ethnic identity than other ethnic groups in Texas? Q1c: Is there a correlation between high ethnic identity & self-esteem in Nigerian-Americans? What is the role of dress in this process? Q2: Is there a correlation between ethnic identity and usage of ethnic dress of Nigerian-Americans? Q3a: Do Nigerian-Americans have higher self-esteem scores than other Texans ethnic groups? Q3b: Is there a correlation between use of ethnic dress and high self-esteem? Q4: What is the role of outsider (mainstream society member's) perception on Nigerian-American ethnic identity affirmation and exploration, their self-esteem, and their choice to use ethnic dress? Methodology In this triangulated exploratory study, the first component used online surveys to gather basic demographic information, and secondly, it measured ethnic identity, ethnic dress usage, and self-esteem levels via a 19 question survey consisting of Likert-like scales and open-ended questions. Next, to measure ethnic identity, a variation of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) was utilized (Phinney, 1992), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was also used to measure self-esteem levels (1965). …

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