Am I more welcome if I take up less space?” I have tried to shrink it as though I could I have spent years in a battle with my body, trying to make itĬompliant to the needs of others.

Similarly, Minhas writes, “Fitting in, it turns out, is a very physical Into the white, blonde hair, blue-eyed ideal standard of beauty in the US.įernandez discusses developing Anorexia and Bulimia in high school after being Minhas both painfully retell attempting to physically alter their bodies to fit The United States’ 45th president is an unapologetic xenophobe Giving up one’s voice, whether by foregoing one’s own language or telling University, “Know yuh place, keep quiet, an’ work hard”. Similarly, Nicoleĭennis-Benn recounts her Jamaican father’s advice to her upon starting Iranian-American in her writing by declaring that the way to begin writingĪbout Iranian-America is “by writing about anything else”. Powerfully recalls how she attempted to discard her identity as an In the opening lines of Porochista Khakpour’s contribution How to Write Iranian-America or The Last Essay, she It was the one thing we needed to survive, Though their older family members spoke Spanish. Insistence, she and her brothers were only taught to speak English at home even For example, Dani Fernandez writes about how, at her father’s The pressure to assimilate to the dominant white AmericanĬultural norms was a survival technique, one that takes on many differentįorms. Identity &Įssays in the collection, touch on, if not center on, the issue of identity andĪssimilation. Two overarching themesĪre identity & assimilation and sense of belonging. Immigrant USA touch on a number of important topics. Powerful collection of essays in The Good Needed during a time when an overtly, proud xenophobic and racist presidencyĭominates such a large part of the mainstream narrative around immigration. Personal stories of the immigrant experience in the US – a perspective urgently

A collection, which examines and provides

Sulyeman then shifted the focus to the United States. Immigrant experience in the United Kingdom, Shukla and contributor Chimene

Shukla (2016), which explores the Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America | Editors Nikesh Shukla & Chimene Suleyman | Anthology | Review by Jenn AugustineĪfter the success of The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh This is how the Good Immigrant comes to give himself completely to the Immigrant’s Lament – an endless fight on two fronts: here and Home, where here is home and Home is hope, until it consumes him. Every morning, before he gets dressed, the Good Immigrant shaves, sits before the daily paper, and splits his body lengthwise, searching … His halves spend their waking hours frantic, worried – on top of everything else – what the other may have found.

The good immigrant