The fundamental mismatch of the Newcomer

Mad men of Aba - Different brands of errors - what should be decapitated?

Hey - Nnamdi here!

Thanks for all the positive feedback on my first post last week. Words can’t express how that made me feel. Please share your thoughts with me when you can.

Let’s get into the fundamental mismatch.

Mad men of Aba

In my childhood, I would play all day with my gang in Aba, causing one mischief after another. Aba is a mercantile city in South East Nigeria. In a society with no social safety net, we would frequently run into “ndia ara”. Literally, it means mad people. There's no doubt that it is a politically incorrect name for the less fortunate who roam the streets homeless, unkept, and mentally ill. The streets would be spectators to their show. One had dreadlocks and blurted out incoherent sentences with high grammar like he was arguing at court. It was the late 1980s.

During holiday travels in 2022, my son and I saw a more recent version of him at Chicago Midway Airport, where the entire airport stood still watching him shout big grammar and walk around like he lived there. In response to his surprise since he didn't experience my adventurous childhood, my son Jr said "Dad, he sounds African". I responded, "He's Nigerian". I doubt he was in this condition when he received his visa.

Different brands of errors

Without oversimplifying, human societies are synonymous with worlds composed of major forces. We are merely products of our societies. There are virtues and errors in society, let's call it a brand.

It is presumed that migration is an event that kickstarts progress. The problem is that we approach it with too much blind optimism and not enough blind pessimism. That is, we overvalue virtues and ignore errors. A new society can bring progress, but it can also be a procrustean bed for newcomers. As the story illustrates, to an extreme degree.

A newcomer, a product of world 1 and shaped in a particular way, has a disposition shaped by the forces of that world. The newcomer will enter world 2 in search of opportunities. Then what happens when new forces are encountered? Is it positive or negative?

In your efforts to be successful, will world 2 cut off your vitals? stretch or bend you too far?

I hope the reader can see the problem with the fitting. I call this the fundamental mismatch.

What should be decapitated?

A newcomer is more than someone who needs a job, a college degree, or a trade in a foreign country. A newcomer also has a different body, mind, world view, religion, lifestyle, language, culture, values, education, desires, and definitions of success.

A newcomer needs freedom, a fresh start, safety, options, a break, less stress, belonging, knowledge, and a plan to avoid costly errors. A newcomer is an individual, a family, a community faced with the mammoth task of reconciling all of that against the constraints of their new environment.