Establishing Igbo Community Tradition in the United States: Lessons from Folkloristics

Since 2000, the goal of my teaching of Igbo cultural heritage in the United States has been to resuscitate suppressed Igbo community traditions and neglected traditional knowledge among educated parents so that they can pass their Igbo culture on to their American-born children. It is for this reason that I have chosen to be called, and have come to be known in Igbo American communities as TICHA, which stands for the Teaching of Igbo Cultural Heritage in America. This article shows how I have been using lessons from my over thirty years’ study of Igbo folklore to reacquaint Igbo people in America with Igbo cultural heritage, thereby shaping their preparedness to resuscitate and establish their ethnic community tradition in the United States.