 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about an immigrant or refugee.
The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America, edited by Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman. This book pulls together a wide variety of perspectives, including not just immigrants but their children as well, from Iran, Mexico, Haiti, China, India, Eritrea, Cuba, and more. It's always a pleasure to find multiple contributors from (for instance) Nigeria, because each culture has its own internal diversity as well. Nicole Dennis-Benn describes her struggles with being a lesbian from Jamaica. Teju Cole critiques the Black Panther franchise, wondering why Wakanda couldn't be a democracy. Fatimah Ashgar tries to parse how much of her loneliness is from being between two cultures, how much from being queer, how much from being an orphan, and how much is just the human condition. Basim Usmani chronicles his travels with a Pakistani-American punk band. Woven together, the individual stories show some common threads. The push-pull of trying to fit into two (or more) cultures that don't always understand each other. Encountering racism and religious discrimination, the latter particularly common for authors from the Middle East. The palpable increase in hostility after the 2016 election. And, through it all, many felt the pressure to be "the good immigrant," the one who will overcome other people's stereotypes and reflect well on their ethnic community, in an era when one "bad" immigrant will inevitably be held against all.
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