Web Series Explores First Generation Immigrant Identity

Brut America

She's starred alongside some of the biggest names in Hollywood in "Pariah", "The Big Short", and "Twelve Years a Slave." Nigerian-American actress and director Adepero Oduye gets frank about being a first generation immigrant storyteller and honoring her identity.

Transcript

00:00We just need to hear as many stories as possible, because there are many people, many permutations

00:06of how people live their lives in this world, and people should be able to see themselves

00:10reflected.

00:22My role in the field is ife.

00:26I just happen to be a woman who, you know, I live in New York, and I happen to be a Nigerian.

00:30My name is ife, you know, it's the same thing with me, like, at a peril, like, I'm an actor,

00:35first generation Nigerian, grew up in Brooklyn, I got to tell a story from my life, and I

00:39was just so, so honored.

00:58Whether we're in Nigeria or Brooklyn, just playing games, reading together, making fashion

01:07shows together.

01:08Why are you laughing?

01:09It's just so cool, because, you know, now, as, you know, maybe another first generation

01:17kid now, there's not going to be any kind of mystery about where do I belong, because

01:23there's so many examples.

01:24In one episode, when K calls, he spoke to my mom, and she says she's going to cook him

01:28jollof rice.

01:29Like, if you know Nigerians, I don't have to explain, like, oh, jollof rice, you know,

01:33it's like, if you know you know, if you don't, then you can Google it.

01:45My father was very much like, you're Nigerian, like, that is who you are, that's where you

01:50come from, you cannot forget who you are, but I also understood, like, what it was like

01:54to be a black person in America, which is different, very, very different, and so it's

01:59a very unique space.

02:06We can make things on our cell phones.

02:15We have literally everything that we need to, like, shoot something, to put it together,

02:19we literally have it in our house, and we have it available, seeing all these voices

02:23of first generation, I mean, it's kind of amazing, like, younger people who are women

02:28who look like me, who have similar features, to be able to see someone like me and say,

02:33ah, okay, she's there, so, okay, maybe I can inhabit this, maybe I can inhabit that space,

02:40I can dream to be an artist, an actor.

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