Abstract
cactus / in defense of the cactus explores the identity of a black, queer, Nigerian-American girl, as it has been politicized, celebrated, tokenized, salvaged, stolen, and resurrected from the world and from itself. It navigates the ways we embody, reject, and question the names people call us and the names we give to ourselves. Through poetry, typography, and experimentation, this thesis investigates the notion of a contradiction; it asserts and reaffirms that what exists as multitudes exists whole—not broken, incomplete, or irregular. Everything we hold within our bodies, even that which does not belong to us, is too, a part of our story.