Plot Summary
- Akunna wins the U.S. visa lottery and leaves Nigeria, encouraged by dreams of opportunity.
- She stays with relatives in America; her uncle, once respected, makes sexual advances toward her, betraying her trust.
- Feeling unsafe, she runs away and rents a small room and works as a waitress in a diner.
- She struggles with loneliness, cultural isolation, and minimal income; she rarely communicates with her family back home.
- Customers often treat her as a stereotype; she notices racism and cultural ignorance.
- She meets a white American man who is interested in African stories and traditions; they begin dating.
- Although he is kind, his fascination feels exoticizing — he wants Africa in stories, not in reality; at first, she remains emotionally guarded.
- Eventually she cooks a traditional meal for him which causes him to throw up.
- He invites her to live with him; she hesitates, uncertain of commitment and belonging.
- News arrives that her father has died; she is emotionally devastated and unable to attend the funeral as it had already taken place.
- This grief deepens her sense of disconnection from home, identity, and community.
- The metaphorical “thing around her neck” — a choking feeling — represents anxiety, alienation, pressure, trauma, and cultural displacement.
- By the end, Akunna’s future is uncertain. She travels back to see her family and it remains unclear whether she will return to the U.S.