Are you a true Nigerian?

Black American!
My narrowed eyes scanned the crowded room, eventually spotting the voice and its owner.  Why was this man grinning at me like that?  I thought to myself, slightly irked.  The closer I approached, the more his grin broadened.  The apples of his oily cheeks caught the harsh glare of the fluorescent lit room.  He was flanked by two women; one who mirrored his bright demeanor and another who seemed to eye me, warily.
"Black.  American." 
 The man emphatically declared, once I reached his booth.  He looked impressed with his assertion.  "Igbo."  I stated, smiling and handing over my passport and plane ticket.  Simply put, I identify as Nigerian American, but it can get complicated depending on who's asking.  In trendier times, I'd would have said that I was a classic Afropolitan; ethnically Igbo, born in Alabama and raised between tucked away enclaves outside of Atlanta and Owerri.  My parents had named me Ijeoma, aptly marking the transitional periods our family moved through during the time.   

He flipped open the hard booklet and leaned over to share its contents with both of his colleagues, "Eh heeeh!  Ijeoooomaaaa!"
 He sort of sang my name, drawing it out so dramatically that I couldn't help but to laugh.  I knew where the man was headed with his outbursts.  The path had been previously charted by older conversations.  l'm proud to be Igbo.  Female.  Black.  I've identified with those themes throughout my adult life.  His colleague on the left, who'd formerly eyed my presence with suspicion, now offered me an unguarded smile.  Her disposition transformed with the articulation of my origin.  At that busy airport, as I was being jostled this way and that, I recounted similar moments when I'd experienced the same conversation.  It had come up once, during my first visit to Nigeria as an adult, and had reared its head with a vengeance, two Decembers ago.

"So, you're Nigerian?  Like, fully Nigerian?"
 These times, the question had been posed by a

Great Kinky Hair Christmas Affair attendee, a guy who I'd idly chatted with in the lobby of my hotel, and by a woman I'd sat beside on my plane ride home.

In the moments that I've given these curious occurrences thought, I've wondered if they were uniquely Nigerian expressions of the 'are you mixed?' trope, commonly trotted out throughout the Black diaspora.  How many times had I heard about these interactions?  What about the conversations I'd  personally witnessed where the question had been posed?  Never, had I thought that the question would ever be applied to me.  Was this the Nigerian equivalent?  Was there even any real significance that I was oddly especially confronted with the question, whenever my natural hair was worn in a swollen braid out?

Weeks before my trip home, thanks to an article I'd come across on Clutch Magazine, I'd submitted a saliva sample to 23andme.  The ancestry genetic testing company had sent out an appeal to African descendants, requesting DNA samples, in order to boost their understanding of genetic diversity in Africa.
After waiting with bated breath for two torturous weeks, I finally received my results and was a bit miffed with the findings.  

Lol.

I'm as African as one can get.  Of course.  But, I had been curious about my genetic background.  Where there any other ethnic groups, besides Igbo, that might have been hidden in my DNA?  
I wanted to know.  
After all, Africans traded, fought wars, fell in love, and moved about for millennia.
Perhaps, future improvements to the testing will list specific groups, or migration patterns within Africa (and not just out of the continent).  

Socially, attitudes change, albeit more slower than we'd like.  A few years ago phrases like 'good hair' and 'mixed hair' were absorbed with little question.  If they were challenged, it seemed as if the popular opinions were also the most ignorant and unaware ones.  They carried more weight. 
  Today, though those opinions certainly still exist, they exist in a world where the visibility of the diversity of natural hair, steadily continues to increase.  Today, those opinions are met with natural hair advocates who ARE aware and are unapologetic.

I think some Nigerians struggle to reconcile the notion that this 'Igbo babe from Owerri, Imo State, has hair like this'.

But again, times are changing.

I'm happy to be a part of it.

  Yes, oo I am Nigerian.  No, I'm not mixed.