'My mum comes from Africa, but I'm British': Andrew Togobo on the identity crisis facing the Africans born in Britain. "In Ghana we are taught that your parents hometown is your hometown. I found it odd coming here and people were telling me they were from England, and their parents were from somewhere else.".

Andrew Togobo on the identity crisis facing the Africans born in Britain. "In Ghana we are taught that your parents hometown is your hometown. I found it odd coming here and people were telling me they were from England, and their parents were from somewhere else."

The dawn of the 1960s ushered a new hope for Africans. One by one newly independent African nations were shedding the domination of colonialism and believed God was granting them their day in the sun. Scholarships were arranged for many Africans to go abroad. Others simply had a determination to get out and forge "prosperous lives" in the "mother countries".

However, the dream of independence bringing equality with citizens of the "mother countries" was quickly dashed. African qualifications were seen as meaningless paper. Men with doctorate degrees were forced to work in car factories, forced to hustle, and yearn for the homes they had left.

The generation that was supposed to change the reality of Africa was stuck abroad, and instead of the mass movement of returnees, there was a mass exodus. They ended up meeting old friends and formed organisations pondering the question, what happened?

Move forward 40 years. That young enthusiastic group is now elder men and women with children (and some with grandchildren). Those that went away to gain the tools to develop their home countries in the main never returned. In fact they were joined by more Africans from all parts fleeing wars, poverty, famine, ethnic violence, and chasing the dream of a better existence in the British Isles and elsewhere.

Many were lucky enough to find love with someone of the same tribe, giving birth to children on British shores who, to all intents and purposes, are British. They speak a high level of English, were raised in urban areas, went to English schools, recite an English history and have dabbled with the predominant Caribbean culture to produce a generation of so-called "Black British".

Some have ultimately fulfilled their parents' vision of a more comfortable life and opportunity (albeit within different borders). Some of their parents have given up on Africa becoming anything anymore. Happy to stay in England with friends discussing the past and present, debating what could have been, setting up organisations doing whatever they can for home, trying to keep their culture alive amongst themselves.

For a long time, this was the culture they kept away from the native society of their adopted countries, away from negative stereotypes, and for many away from their own children. However, African children born in Britain are not a picture of ultimate comfort. They have their own complex problems, ranging from racism to identity.

Many parents did not want their children to go through life with the burden of being different, for the native British society did not portray being African as a positive trait. Thus African names like Nana were changed to Natasha.

The prevalent negative stereotypes of Africa, along with the parents' unwillingness to transfer their culture to their offspring, have led to many African children in Britain not wanting to go back, claiming a British or Caribbean identity over their African.

School for most African children is not a place that fosters pride about their homelands, with Africans receiving a hard time from both whites and Caribbean blacks.

And this trend does not always stop at university either. Tokumbo Ajasa-Oluwa from Nigeria who graduated from the London Institute in 2000 remembers how his journalism lecturer erupted the auditorium into laughter with the deliberate mispronunciation of his name.

He fully understands the psychology of associating yourself with Caribbean culture as a way to make life easier. "With the popularity of Bob Marley and reggae, them was something cool about being Jamaican. And to identify with that was a lot easier than holding up your own," says Ajasa-Oluwa.

Those that came over from Africa found the Africans in UK schools strange. Dominic Oppong who came from Ghana in 1991 remembers how "in Ghana we are taught that your parents hometown is your hometown, so I found it odd coming here and people were telling me they were from England, and their parents were from somewhere else".

Years later, Oppong would meet these same people who are now proud of their African heritage, to which he holds some form of resentment for they virtually disowned Africa when he arrived.

Many Africans at home are not fully aware of how their image has been broadcast to the rest of the world. Although many Diasporan Africans joined organisations that fought against the negative stereotypes of Africa, such as Marcus Garvey's UNIA to Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, there were many more mentally affected with the Western image of "the African savage" running through the jungle naked with a bone in his nose boiling a white man in a giant pot. Europeans taught Caribbeans and African-Americans alike: "We saved you from that." With them in turn saying, "Thank God we got saved from that hell."

Africans born on the continent unknowingly had to deal with such prejudice, and the burden continued when their children were born in the UK, for they were growing up in a British society not conducive of respectful of African life and culture.

Those who do become proud in the main go through a journey of transition to understand who they are, although many never reach that point. Though for those that do, it is the beginning of a road that reaches its climax when they return home.

For many, the rise of the "Black British culture" has thrown identity into confusion. Do you hold on to the home of your parents? Are you now fully British? Or is Black British a halfway concession?

Lynette Quaye from Ghana combats this and is clear in her stand. Although she was born in Britain, she says: "I don't accept the term Black British, because the British do not accept my culture. They don't look at me as British but as black, and there is nothing in British culture that is greater than mine. If anything it's the reverse."

Samantha Taylor of Sierra Leone adds that "Britain isn't a country that allows you to be yourself".

Recent statements by the British home secretary, David Blunkett, about Asians needing to marry British and not speak their language at home, give credence that Britain much prefers us cutting ties with our mother countries, something these Africans won't ever do, for regardless of where they were born their heart and home are with the African nations their patents left.

What is stopping them going back? For most it is economics. They see the chance to earn money in the UK that can allow them to have a better standard of living once back home and share some of what they have got with their family.

However, with Bendu Walker from Liberia, it is one of politics. "It is not a question of wanting to be here, but having to be here. Liberia is inside me, there is nothing like waking up anywhere and knowing you are not from anywhere but where you are."

There is a strong spiritual connection to their homelands, and going back for the first time is quite a daunting experience--reuniting with family members and places they have only seen in pictures or heard about; a sense of home and belonging that has not been realised throughout their lives in the UK.

Lynette Quaye states: "When I went back home [to Ghana], I couldn't speak for two days. It was just so emotionally overwhelming."

Natasha Mensah is yet to go, and although she is excited she is aware she may not feel accepted, or may nor initially feel comfortable. She says: "Sometimes we set higher standards back home than we do here, for it's not like I am fully accepted here either. And even if I am not accepted in Ghana, at least it is at a place I want to be."

She feels the years spent in Britain have robbed her of a chance to meet relatives who have died, and her younger family members who have grown.

However, Duncan O'quaye completely understood the reasons his father left Ghana when he was shown the hard conditions his father grew up in. "I was born in Ghana and came as a baby. When my Father took me to where I was born, it hit home how impoverished it was and I looked at my father as a hero. It also gave me a sense to achieve and get more out of England. Because he has given us a chance to better ourselves and we should grab it with both hands."

Ultimately, the dream for every one of these Africans is for their nations to achieve the peace and economic vitality needed. But it is not something that should be left to the people in Africa alone.

Natasha Mensah says: "If you want to contribute to the change in Ghana or anywhere else, something has to be done to change it and somebody has to be that person who makes that sacrifice. The conditions should not be perfect before we go back."

And with the rise of the African Union, it should be noted that this generation of Africans is the best link to Diasporian Africans, and are ready and willing to participate in Africa's development.

The future of Africa still has hope, and maybe one day soon, the children of the generation who anticipated the freedom and prosperity may yet go hack and participate in the fulfillment of that dream.