By Osa Fasehun

I was a sophomore at Bowdoin when Donald Trump was gaining momentum in the presidential election in spite of his xenophobic rhetoric. Anxiously dreading a near-fascist regime in the event of a Trump presidency, I talked with my mother about getting reacquainted with Nigeria, my mother’s native country.

The talk did not go well and after debating the idea for an hour, my mother finally admitted, “We have no place to go! The Nigeria I knew in childhood doesn’t exist anymore. I would be a foreigner in my own country.”

What I initially took for exasperation in her tone was actually broken-heartedness. She had fond childhood memories of Nigeria as a beautiful and safe black country, so it pained her to know that I did not feel at home in America—my country—and that she could not provide me with an alternative.