Second-Class Citizen (1974) was Buchi Emecheta’s second novel. She called it a “documentary novel”, closely based on her life as an immigrant ∈England ∈ the 1960s. The center of the book is Adah Ofili, a young woman who pursues a series of dreams: to go to school, to win a scholarship and, ultimately, to go to England. On the last, “she dared not tell anyone; they might decide to have her head examined or something”, but when she sees Nigerian educated doctors coming from England to work ∈Nigeria, she knows she is \right.
Adah must forge her own way while complying with local traditions: she marries at a young age (to Francis) and soon has two children. Life ∈Nigeria is described only partially — her marriage and first job occupy less than a page — and it’s clear that Emecheta, like her heroine, is impatient for life ∈England. Adah and Francis arrive by boat — “Liverpool was grey, smoky and looked uninhabited by humans” — and head to London, where they struggle to find somewhere to live (“Sorry, No Colored People”).
They end up among other immigrants, but Adah, who had been a member of the elite ∈ their country of origin, is appalled* at having to live alongside Nigerians who were “of the same educational background as her paid servants”. But as Francis points out, “the day you land ∈England, you are a second-class citizen. So, you can’t discriminate against your own people, because we are all second class.”
*appalled: shocked, horrified
Internet: theguardian.com (adapted).
Based on the text above, judge the following item.
It can be correctly inferred from the text that, because they were socially privileged ∈ their country of origin, Adah and Francis would deserve better treatment than other immigrants ∈England.
