With an academic background in geology and environmentalstudies, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe readily acknowledges that he isn?t a likelycandidate to pen a book on divorce. Nevertheless, having himself endured aseparation three years ago, and being convinced that the experience of being animmigrant to the US contributed greatly to the failure of his marriage,Ndukwe?s convinced he?s qualified to write on the subject.
?Thousands of books have been written about divorce,? saysthe part-time lecturer at various American academic institutions, ?but duringmy research I realized that very few have been written about the uniquestresses and strains that the marriages of immigrants ? and especially Africans? suffer when they settle in the United States. I have tried to fill part ofthis gap.?
Ndukwe?s also a senior environmental quality analyst atthe State of Michigan?s Department of Environmental Quality. He arrived in theUS in 1977 and married in 1999. The union ended six years later but producedthree daughters. Ndukwe says they, and another daughter from a previousrelationship, provided further motivation for his book.
?Rightnow, (my kids) are still very young, ranging from five to ten years old. I hadto write this book because I wanted my children to know what happened.Eventually when they grow up and they?re able to read and understand, I wantedthem to know what happened between me and their mother,? Ndukwe says, and thenexplains further, ?When a four-year-old kid is saying ?Dad, why don?t you loveme it really hurts. That?s one of the main reasons I wrote the book ? not toattack their mother, but to try to explain that when people get divorced, it?snot because they don?t love their children. It?s because they themselves can nolonger get along.?
Ndukwe,who grew up in the district of Onitsha in south-eastern Nigeria?s AnambraState, emphasizes repeatedly that he didn?t write the book in order to ?takerevenge? on his former spouse.
?Ireally have no bitterness?. I wrote the book not from a selfish point of view?.I wrote it in an attempt to make people understand the reasons why two peoplewho are from other countries come to the US and then begin to grow apart, forvarious reasons. Immigrating to a new country, and adapting to a totally newculture, is very traumatic and sometimes marriages do not survive that trauma,?he reasons.
Asregards divorce rates among immigrants in the US, and especially Africans,Ndukwe says the news is ?not really very encouraging?. Their divorce rate isreally increasing.?
Ndukwesays very few Africans are comfortable with discussing divorce, which is?highly stigmatized? across his home continent.
?Giventhe cultural background that I come from, divorce is not something that anyonereally talks about. It?s very, very rare (in Africa),? he maintains. ?Overthere in Nigeria (and in many other parts of Africa), people will do just aboutanything possible to make sure that divorce doesn?t happen.?
Mostly,says Ndukwe, this ?saving of collapsing relationships? is undertaken not byregistered marriage counselors, as in the US, but by family members who ?lendsupport and do their best to mediate between the spouses.?
Butimmigrants in America don?t have access to their extended families, and so hesays ?everything breaks down and divorce is often inevitable.?
Ndukweknows what he?s speaking about. He has eight brothers and sisters and what hecalls a ?massive? extended family.
?Comingfrom such a large family is something that as an African I cherish. This issomething that I value immensely, and it?s helped me through dark periods in mylife, having the support of my brothers and sisters. But when my wife and Imoved to the US, we could no longer count on this. This, I believe, was a majorfactor in the breakdown of our marriage.?
Ndukwesays divorce is ?very easy? in the US, compared to Africa, and this alsocontributes towards rising incidences of official separation among immigrantsin the US.
?InAfrica, it takes a long time for someone to organize and go through a divorce.Over here, someone quickly runs to a lawyer, hands over money, and gets a pieceof paper and next thing you know, you are in court and your family is breakingdown.?
Heexplains further that the scenario in America, with both spouses often havingto work in order to ?just make basic ends meet,? also contributes to divorceamong African immigrants in the US.
?Youhave the husband and the wife working, and they have to work so they can make aliving to support their family. Many times the (immigrant) families don?t havethe luxury for just one person to work. That creates a lot of pressure, a lotof stress, on the families,? he says.