Americanah: Chapter 34 Summary & Analysis

One day Ifemelu is giving a talk at a “Blogging While Brown” convention in Washington, D.C., when she sees Blaine in the crowd. After her talk he pretends not to recognize her, but then brings up something from their old conversation, and Ifemelu suddenly feels like her life has become a romantic film “in which people found each other again.” Eight years have passed since their first meeting, and Blaine now writes his own blog about academia and pop culture. Blaine says that he was in a relationship at the time, which was why he didn’t answer Ifemelu’s calls.

After that Ifemelu and Blaine talk and flirt via phone, email, and blog comment, he still living in New Haven and she in Baltimore. Finally he comes to visit her, and she cooks coconut rice for him. They sleep together that night, everything playing out as expected. After that it is as if the years never happened between their first train encounter and now. Blaine and Ifemelu feel immediately intimate with each other. Blaine still teaches at Yale, and cooks organic foods and grains like quinoa. Blaine seems to know about everything, which both attracts and slightly repels Ifemelu.

Ifemelu especially notices Blaine’s discipline and moral character, and she imagines him as a perfect father. Ifemelu starts being more “good” just from being around him: flossing every day, eating better, and exercising. Blaine’s best friend is a woman named Araminta, and Ifemelu gets along well with her. Araminta gently mocks the inscrutable academic jargon of Blaine and his friends, and mentions his sister Shan.

Ifemelu moves in with Blaine after a year. Soon she realizes she is writing her blog with his academic criticism in mind, and she feels annoyed that her posts seem less spontaneous and personal. Sometimes Ifemelu feels like “his apprentice,” as he tries to teach her to appreciate abstract art or John Coltrane, and finds offence or injustice in certain situations that Ifemelu can’t understand.

One time an older white woman asks to touch Ifemelu’s hair, and she lets her. She doesn’t see a problem with it, but it clearly upsets Blaine. Ifemelu sometimes feels out of place with his friends, who are all righteous about different causes and speak in references she doesn’t understand.

When she moves to New Haven Ifemelu tells her parents about Blaine. Her father is confused as to why she would choose an African-American over a Nigerian. Her mother immediately starts talking about marriage, but Ifemelu tells her they are taking it slow. The chapter ends with another blog post, this one discussing how white people will admit that racism still exists in America, but no one wants to actually be a “racist.” Ifemelu proposes a new term that would better show how otherwise good people can be racist: something like “Racial Disorder Syndrome.”