“For years, I downplayed my Ghanaian identity to fit in. Now, it’s the reason thousands laugh, and feel seen online.” – Joanita.
For many diaspora children, navigating identity means becoming fluent in code-switching. The accents, the mannerisms, the cultural references constantly adapting, sometimes shrinking, to fit into rooms never made for us. For Joanita, a Belgian-Ghanaian creative now based in the UK, that kind of code-switching was once survival.
Now, it’s content. It’s a comedy. It’s a connection. And above all, it’s reclamation.
With thousands of followers across platforms and a digital archive of hilarious, high-energy skits often impersonating her sharp-tongued Ghanaian grandmother, Joanita has found a way to turn what once made her feel different into what makes her stand out. But behind the punchlines and parodies is a deeper story: one of return, not to a place, but to self.
“At first, I made a conscious choice to conform to Belgian norms,” she tells me. “But now I realise there’s real magic in accepting and expressing my Ghanaian heritage.”
Born in Ghana, Joanita spent her early years surrounded by cousins, aunties, and elders in a bustling multigenerational household. At age 10, she was sent to Belgium to live with her mother for the first time.
“That was hard,” she says. “There was no blueprint. I didn’t have a relationship with my mum because we’d never lived together. I had to get to know her and Belgium at the same time, and I had to learn new rules, a new language, and a new world.”
In an effort to fit in, Joanita did what so many of us do: she shrank. She joined the scouts. She learned to speak fluent Dutch and French. She kept her Ghanaian self hidden under layers of assimilation.
Things began to change when she moved to the UK in 2020, just after the first lockdowns and at the height of Black Lives Matter’s cultural reckoning.
“It can be so lonely here,” she says. “Especially in London, if you don’t have community.”
But that loneliness birthed something else: a need to create. A need to reach out. She posted videos, mostly lighthearted skits, on her private Instagram and eventually on TikTok. They resonated. Massively.
“In Belgium, I didn’t really feel like I could be something. But in the UK, I went to uni, and the Dean, my lecturer, was a Ghanaian woman. That moment made me think: wow, I really can be anything.”
And that “anything” turned out to include becoming a beloved chronicler of diaspora humour.
Her breakout character, Nana, is based on her real-life grandmother.
Joanita lived with her for just one month, but it was enough to bring her childhood memories rushing back.
“African parents are characters,” she laughs. “You can’t take them too seriously. That one month gave me enough material for a lifetime.”
But as Joanita’s platform grew, so did the pressure. One video of her hiking in Switzerland led to comments accusing her of “acting white.”
“It’s wild,” she says. “People want you to stay in a box. They get uncomfortable when you’re a Black woman who doesn’t do what they expect.”
It’s a familiar tension for Black women online: be confident, but not loud; cultural, but not too traditional; universal, but not “too much.” Joanita is done with all that.
“Black women are the most versatile human beings on this planet. There are so many layers to us. I’m an onion. Every time you peel one, you find something new.”
What grounds her through it all is faith. In 2024, she consciously decided to take her walk with God seriously. It changed not just her career, but her mental health.
“Anxiety, depression, so much of it is rooted in identity. If you don’t know who you are, anything can shake you,” she says. “But nothing can move you when you know who you are in Christ.”
Her faith gives her the courage to show up online as her full, messy, glorious self, not despite the internet’s expectations, but in defiance of them.
When asked what she’d say to other young Black girls navigating cross-cultural identities, Joanita doesn’t hesitate:
“Take time to get to know yourself. Not through someone else’s lens. Not through social media. Just you, with you.”
And her most important piece of advice?
“Don’t let religious people turn you away from God. Get to know Him for yourself. That relationship will change everything.”
Now, Joanita is returning to her first love: acting. This September, she’ll begin a master’s degree in performance, a decision that feels less like ambition and more like alignment.
“Younger me would’ve said I want to be on Broadway or Hollywood. And maybe I will. But now, I want my story to help people feel seen.”
Whether she’s writing, acting, or just being herself online, Joanita’s message is the same: you don’t have to shrink to fit. There is space and power in your full self.
“I don’t know exactly where I’m going,” she says. “But I know who I am. And I know who’s walking with me.”
