At the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade, many Africans were moved to the Americas while some of their counterparts remained in Africa. Throughout this process, many people struggled to discern their identity and discover the place where they truly belonged. It was a problem for people to know where they belonged in society. Problems have arisen in African and American society and this is a major problem depicted in Yaa Gyasi's novel "Homegoing". Throughout the novel, Gyasi uses different generations and the theme of identity to describe different eras and help readers understand the work. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay The bond that exists between people of the same nation is often hampered by conflicting identities and different homes. In the novel, Quey, son of Effia and James, was one of the few mixed-race children living at Cape Coast Castle, which he believed prevented him from claiming his identity, either that of his Ghanaian mother or that of his English father. Gyasi wrote: “Quey wanted to cry but the desire bothered him. He knew he was one of the mixed-race children of the Castle, and like the other mixed-race children, he could not fully claim either halves of himself, neither his father's whiteness nor his mother's blackness. Neither England nor the Gold Coast. (Gyasi, p.25). Although he lived comfortably there with the British, the castle's basements housed thousands of imprisoned African slaves. Similarly, his son “James” questioned his Ghanaian identity when an Asante girl refused to shake his hand because he was part of the Fantes, who traded slaves with the British. It got to the point where James had to fake his own death to marry the woman he loves and make his own decisions.” While both Quey and James were associated with Africa, Ghana, and the Fantes, neither felt they could truly identify with these groups. It is a struggle that many Africans have experienced over the centuries, and still do today, and which Gyasi demonstrates in his novel through the problems that plague the extended family. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes these difficulties in her speech “The Danger of One Story,” which details her experience with the conflicting identities of being Nigerian and living in the United States. Like Quey and James, and every other character in the novel, Adichie is made up of many stories - these stories contribute to a person's identity and ultimately define where a person feels most at home. However, people tend to accept a single story about a person because it suits them better, which is one of the reasons people make incorrect assumptions and judgments about African Americans. Although Gyasi's characters all come from the same place, they face oppression from each other and from people who think they are superior because they subscribe to one story about Africa. They are all humans, and yet eight generations of humans have been treated as inferior, whether they lived in Ghana or the United States, because of their conflicting identities. This continued even for Marjorie and Marcus when they revisited Ghana together and felt like tourists in a place where their family once lived. For members of American society, a big problem they faced was double consciousness: whether they were African or American. THEAfrican Americans faced with these feelings, they couldn't figure out if they were real Americans or if they were Africans, even though they hadn't seen Africa. This was a big problem depicted in “Homegoing.” For example, even though Gyasi's character, H, is free, he is still arrested because he stares at a white woman for too long (Gyasi, p.158). While African Americans are arrested for such small things, African Americans inevitably wonder if they are American or not. In other words, double consciousness “is also part of a more complex feeling of duality” (Pittman). This means that African Americans in history did not feel like the elements of their identity were working together, but rather that they had two identities to work with, the African identity and the American identity. In the story, the characters also dealt with racism, which is a relevant issue occurring in America today. In Gyasi's novel, Esi's descendant Sonny explains that there were riots in Harlem after the New York Police Department shot and killed a fifteen-year-old boy for no reason. These riots were described as black violence against the police, much like the media misrepresentations that exist today, as the media has the power to influence the public's opinion and understanding of a situation. Sonny aptly proclaimed that "in America, the worst thing you could be was a black man...you were a dead man walking" (Gyasi, p. 260), which ties in with what Adichie explained about identity politics in America. Regardless of the interconnectedness between people sharing similar backgrounds, this abuse of power has made it difficult for African Americans to feel a sense of belonging when it comes to their identity because, as Adichie stated, the history of racism is not simple and it continues to ignore the many stories of an oppressive history. Today we can see similar problems when it comes to violence against others. This began to give rise to “Black Lives Matter,” a movement that gained popularity, particularly after several incidents of police brutality involving African Americans began to permeate national news. The adversity that comes with an African heritage is more complex than simple racism, and these challenges persist in society, not just because of ignorance, but because of a system deeply rooted in identity-based oppression . Marjorie is the last descendant of Effia to tell her story, and she still faced hostility toward her identity even though she lived centuries after her ancestors' abuse, imprisonment, and enslavement. The girls at her school made her feel like an outsider in her own home, not only because of her skin color and accent, but also because of the years and years of white men in power perpetrating this same systematic racism. Marjorie’s teacher explained to her that “it doesn’t matter where you come from to the white people who run things. You are here now, and here black is black is black” and this feeling of strangeness followed her even during her visit to Ghana, which further highlights the complexity of racial identity and 'membership. Marjorie’s poem at the end of the novel makes this struggle for identity clear: she writes: “The waters seem different but are the same. Our same. Sister's skin. Who knew? Not me. Not you.” This captures the feelings rooted in her family's history at the castle and for her slavery and the lost sister from whom her ancestor, Effia, was separated. The theme of identity is addressed in many novels and