Abstract
This essay explores the layered experience of navigating race and belonging as an African woman and international graduate student within U.S. higher education. Written in reflection on The State of Women of Color in New York Higher Education symposium, the piece blends personal narrative with critical inquiry to examine how code-switching, silence, emotional labor, and cultural translation shape the academic journey. Engaging with concepts such as femtoring, rest as resistance, and radical care, the essay foregrounds how identity is continuously negotiated across transnational contexts. By drawing on lived experiences in Nigeria, Europe, and the United States, it calls for a deeper reimagining of institutional inclusion, one that centers authenticity, multiplicity, and presence. Ultimately, it affirms that belonging is an active process constructed through self-definition, resistance, and the refusal to allow the erasure of one’s self and contributions.
Recommended Citation
Chikwe, Chidinma F.
(2025)
"Arriving in a New Language of Race,"
Gatherings: Vol. 2:
Iss.
1, Article 13.
Available at:
https://fisherpub.sjf.edu/gatherings/vol2/iss1/13