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How does the analysis of identity and
transnationalism in We Need New Names aid
in the exploration of The global South?
NoViolet Bulawayo's critically acclaimed debut novel We Need New Names tells the story of a
Zimbabwean girl, Darling, who struggles with her identity as a transnational migrant living in America.
The initial setting of the globally South continent of Africa is explored through the lens of a child which
sets up the formation of identity after her subsequent emigration. This exploration will be the focus of
this essay, delving into both forced and voluntary migration, and the subsequent transnational identity
formation of Darling. Her transnational identity leads to anguish at lost friends and the uncomfortable
state of not belonging in her environment. The identity Darling is required to craft for herself is
confronted by the experiences of being photographed while still living in Zimbabwe. The photographs of
her dirty and embarrassed weigh on her mind as whilst in America she encounters the commodification
of her suffering (Arnett 2016, p.152), this influences her identity as she has experienced both sides of
the exploitation. The formation of Darling’s identity is shown to be difficult, grappling with her two
selves; one who has abandoned everything she has known and another who is not accepted where she
currently lives. One example Darling has of complete submission to the American culture comes from
her Aunt Fostalina, a woman who has done her best to integrate and assimilate into the culture through
consuming capitalist goods and American views of beauty. The examination and exploration of the
global south by Bulawayo reveals the struggle inherent in forming one’s identity whilst being a
transnational migrant.
Both migration and transnationalism within We Need New Names are presented through similar means,
forced and unforced migration are shown to result from economic and political struggles; leading to the
necessity of creating a transnational identity. The first experience Darling has of migration is forced and
terribly painful when “the lorries come carrying the police with those guns and baton sticks and we run
and hide inside the houses, but it’s no use hiding because the bulldozers start bulldozing and bulldozing
and we are screaming and screaming” (Bulawayo 2013, p.73). This exemplifies the plight of many
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unfortunate African citizens; to be collaterally punished for existing in the independent and ideologically
split continent of globally Southern Africa. The second experience of migration Darling undergoes is one
of necessity due to the harsh conditions’ ideological war has left Africa in. The migration to America is
“synonymous with emancipation from starvation, illiteracy, unemployment, forced removals, epidemics,
structural violence” (Concilio 2018, p.34). Even though escape from suffering occurs, Darling is not
satisfied with her predicament. Ndlovu writes that “once the subject leaves the place of origin and birth,
the reader witnesses the intensification of the subject’s feelings of dislocation” (2015, p.134); this is
evidenced after darling first arrives when she expresses “like [America is] telling you, with its snow, that
you should go back to where you came from” (Bulawayo 2013, p.155). The initial feeling of
unwelcomeness when arriving in America is continued throughout We Need New Names, and darling is
forced “to cope with the new environment and adjust to ‘the discomfort of inhabiting a migrant body; a
body which feels out of place, which feels uncomfortable in this place’” (Nyambi et al. 2019, p.80). The
two experiences of migration leave darling with a missing sense of belonging, stemming from the
economic corruption by The North; subsequent political and ideological war has left her home and
homeland ravaged. Due to her migration Darling is seen to grapple with her new reality of having a
transnationality, something that forces her internal sense of ‘home’ to be split in two. The two homes
she experiences are “‘home as place of origin and home as the sensory world of everyday experience’.
To be away from home is to be disconnected from the everydayness of the ‘home’ of origin” (Nyambi et
al. 2019, p.80). Darlings internal disconnect from home and homeland is exemplified in the slowing and
eventual severing of contact with her friends and family, “With time I stopped writing altogether. I just
started putting it off, telling myself I’d write tomorrow, next week, in a couple of weeks, … before I knew
it I’d lost touch. But it didn’t mean I’d forgotten about them; I missed them, missed them very much”
(Bulawayo 2013, p.196). The slow ceasing of contact epitomizes her acceptance that she is no longer
‘African’, but her memories and heart always will be; her place is now in America, somewhere she feels
no sense of belonging or connection. This is the plight of a transnational migrant, to come to terms with
one’s disconnect from the homeland and culture whilst trying to fit in to another less accepting country.
Pictures are a strong symbol presented throughout We Need New Names, exploring avenues of
southern identity, suffering, and Northern capitalist society. The symbol of the photograph is in part
commenting on Northern requirement for expected southern suffering. The photography sessions
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Darling is required to undergo are “performative. On the one hand, they are performative insofar as the
characters present complex postures of vulnerability and subversiveness” (Ndaka 2021, p.82). Their
vulnerable nature towards The North is evident in the novel’s first appearance of photography, when a
rich Northern migrant says “I mean you, with the missing teeth, look at me, like this, she says, her hands
reaching out of the bars, almost touching us. Good, good, now say cheese, say cheese, cheese,
cheeeeeeee” (Bulawayo 2013, p.16). The inclusion of missing teeth can be understood as a literary
representation of embarrassment and missing dignity. Whilst living in Africa, Darling is unable to escape
the constant photographs expected of her, creating in her mind a feeling of submissiveness towards The
North. This will inevitably influence the formation of her identity, the feeling of submissiveness is
exemplified when the NGOs are taking photos of her people; “They don’t care that we are embarrassed
by our dirt and torn clothing, that we would prefer they didn’t do it; they just take the pictures anyway,
take and take (Bulawayo, 2016, p59). The experience of having photos taken whilst in an embarrassing
state follows Darling through her life to when she is living in America. Darling is confronted by her prior
life in a bathroom stall, a woman starts a conversation about the suffering occurring in Africa whilst
mentioning photographs, this is when Darling thinks to herself “I’m seeing myself in this woman’s face,
back there when we were in Paradise when the NGO people were taking our pictures” (Bulawayo 2013,
p.183). The experience of viewing her previous life through the eyes of American society is jarring,
represented as the woman “starts toward the door, opens it, and disappears like she was never there”
(Bulawayo 2013, p.184). This encounter will leave Darling with the understanding of how Americans
view her and her people, this experience will make fitting in to American society even more difficult as
she already feels like an outsider. This complex situation invariably impacts the formation of Darling’s
identity as she must come to terms with her transnationalism, one part of her remembers being that
suffering child in the photographs, the other remembers the experience of how The North only cares
about viewing African suffering. The suffering occurring in Darling’s prior situation is routinely shown to
be observed by “the Western world [who] perpetually and unconsciously performs this superiority in its
affective consumption of the postcolony” (Arnett 2016, p.151). Through Darling understanding the
American consumption of her homeland and their suffering, identity will invariably form around this.
Leading her to expect to have to perform as subordinate within The Northern world. Subordination is
expected from Southern transnational migrants living in The North, citizens of America grow up seeing
their suffering displayed and expect to see it continue.
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The formation of identity within We Need New Names is portrayed as a struggle; the migratory identity
is complex as one must grapple with dislocation of home, loss of cultural contact, and feelings of
alienation in the new location. The first experiences of a new location will strongly inform expectations;
when Darling first arrived to her new school, she “just wanted to die. The other kids teased me about
my name, my accent, my hair, the way I talked or said things” (Bulawayo 2013, p.172). Her first
experience of American schooling was of isolation and alienation, creating a sense of dislocation and
leading to a sense of inferiority. She then tried to “fix it so the teasing can stop but then those crazy kids
teased me about everything … in the end I just felt wrong in my skin, in my body, in my clothes, in my
language, in my head, everything” (Bulawayo 2013, p.172). The sense of self Darling has prior is
shattered, leaving her with uncomfortable feelings about her identity and who she is. This invariably
translates to seeking a way of fitting in, she then “decided the best way to deal with it all is to sound
American, and the TV has taught me just how to do it” (Bulawayo 2013, p.201); showing that she will
change her identity to one more socially accepted. This leads to “translational and conflicted acts of
linguistic and cultural appropriation and identification” (Frassinelli 2015, p.719); leaving Darling to
grapple with her identity, situated at the in-between space all transnational migrants are bound to face.
Nyambi et al. writes that “people cannot be the same once they leave behind spaces that have made
them who and what they are” (2019, p.89); Darling’s confrontation with the dislocation of home occurs
when she receives the guavas of her childhood. After learning she is now illegally in America and cannot
return home she consumes the guavas, Darling experiences “this sadness thinking about the length of
time, maybe years, before I will taste guava again” (Bulawayo 2013, p.200). In this instance, the guavas
are used as a symbol for Darling’s loss of cultural connection and “act as a vehicle of bringing Darling’s
Zimbabwean childhood being into the migrant space” (Moji 2015, p.189); consequently, leaving her with
a sense of loss at the realisation she is now separate from her origin of birth. Her identity must now
reform to fit her situation of being between two ideas of home but not accepted in either. This
sensation “recreates the problematic space of dislocated, transnational migrants who are attached to a
postcolonial and a metropolitan “home,” and denied fundamental rights in both.” (Cobo-Piñero 2018,
p.11). The formation of Darling’s new transnational identity is shown as a complex journey, coming to
terms with her dislocation from her home culture and sense of alienation whilst trying to embrace her
new culture.
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Assimilation as a means of fitting in is chiefly explored through a single character, Aunt Fostalina. The
interaction witnessed between a migrant and their new culture displays many avenues of attempting to
fit in. This is undertaken to distance themselves from alienation; “Zimbabwean migrants, including
Darling and her new family, constitute the unwelcome ‘other’ in American society” (Nyambi et al. 2019,
p.91). Aunt Fostalina shows a strong willingness to strip her African identity away in order to be better
accepted. Uncle Kojo exclaims to Aunt Fostalina “You know, me, I actually don’t understand why you are
doing all this. What are you doing to yourself, Fostalina, really-exactly-what? Kick. And punch. And kick.
And punch. Look at you, bones bones bones” (Bulawayo 2013, p.158); This shows the effort in which
Aunt Fostalina will go to change her body in hopes of conforming with the consumer-oriented America.
Aunt Fostalina can be read as an allegory of the effort southern transnational migrants must go through
to fit in with the globalised Northern culture that they have struggled to become a part of.
“The dangers of psychic disconnection are always there for the African migrants who populate
the novel. They manifest themselves in Aunt Fostalina’s obsession with her body, from which she
tries to erase the traces of her African self, shaping it into an American one by compulsive dieting
and exercising in front of TV aerobics shows” (Frassinelli 2015, p.718).
Aunt Fostalina’s disconnection from her Southern home and identity is evident in her stripping away of
the traditional African body for one more culturally accepted by The North. Aunt Fostalina is also heavily
engrossed in the capitalist goods produced for The North; another sense of identity is formed through
tangible items at the cost of possible disconnection from her African identity. After Aunt Fostalina’s
pronunciation is not understood by a telemarketer, Darling thinks to herself, “She also has this look … I
still don’t know whether to call it pain or anger or sadness... I am careful not to meet her eyes as she
puts her card back in her purse, and then gets up, walks downstairs to the basement, and slams the door
shut behind her” (Bulawayo 2013, p.205); A blatant reminder she is still considered ‘other’ to people
from The North. She is then witnessed to console herself with a further attempt to blend in through the
consumption of goods. There is recognition of this occurring, the anger at not being understood and her
response to further ingrain herself within the culture; slamming the door is the external presentation of
this. Cobo-Piñero explores the idea of “America, as a functional signifier of capitalism, teases her and all
those who will never achieve the Dream” (2018, p.21); related to Aunt Fostalina, the idea of being
teased is evident when she can not accurately communicate with the language skills she has honed over
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years. Aunt Fostalina represents the struggle of migrants, having to accept and embrace societal rules
while being isolated from said society.
We Need New Names explores key themes of transnational migration and the difficulty inherent in
forging an identity in The North as an African. The migration of Darling from home, to shantytown, to an
unfamiliar America is shown to result from global struggles and ideological wars due to Africa’s global
and economic position. This has left her to grapple with her transnationality, watching her African
culture slip away in favour of embracing American cultural standards. The symbol of the picture is key in
Darling’s identity formation, having witnessed both sides of the camera she has been required to come
to terms with her former life in the global South and her current life in the global North. The identity she
has crafted is portrayed as a struggle, the dislocation of home and subsequent alienation left her feeling
uncomfortable in her body. She adopted Americanised linguistic characteristics in order to better fit in.
Her example in cultural assimilation comes from Aunt Fostalina and the choices she makes in regards to
her own body and purchasing decisions. These choices allow for a sense of connection to her new
country at the cost of connection with her home of Africa. The story of Darling is one that brings forth
emotions of struggle and hope, her struggle with identity and transnationality and the hope of having a
better life in the globally North country.
Word Count: 2504
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Works Cited:
Arnett, J 2016, 'Taking Pictures: The Economy of Affect and Postcolonial Performativity in NoViolet
Bulawayo’s We Need New Names', A Review of International English Literature, vol. 47, no. 3. pp. 149173.
Bulawayo, N 2013. We Need New Names, Google play books, Random House.
Cobo-Piñero, MR 2019, 'NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2013): Mobilities and the
Afropolitan picaresque', Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 472-485.
Concilio, C 2018, 'We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo. Paradigms of Migration: The Flight and
the Fall', Le Simplegadi, vol. 16, no. 18. pp. 34-51
Frassinelli, PP 2015, 'Living in translation: Borders, language and community in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We
Need New Names ', Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 51, no. 6, pp. 711-722.
Moji, PB 2015, 'New names, translational subjectivities: (Dis)location and (Re)naming in NoViolet
Bulawayo's We Need New Names', Journal of African Cultural Studies, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 181-190.
Ndaka, F 2021, 'Narrating global asymmetries of power: Children’s play/games and photography in
NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names', Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 75-88.
Ndlovu, I 2016, 'Ambivalence of representation: African crises, migration and citizenship in NoViolet
Bulawayo’s We Need New Names', African Identities, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 132-146.
Nyambi, O, Makombe, R & Mothane 2019, 'Some Kinds of Home: Home, Transnationality and Belonging
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