The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America

243 Pages·2019·1.91 MB·English

by  Nikesh Shukla

Copyright © 2019 by The Good Immigrant Limited
Editors’ note and selection copyright © 2019 by Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman
“How to Write Iranian-America, or The Last Essay” © 2019 by Porochista Khakpour;
“Swimmer” © 2019 by Nicole Dennis-Benn; “Sidra (in 12 Movements)” © 2019 by Rahawa
Haile; “On the Blackness of the Panther” © 2019 by Teju Cole; “How Not to Be” © 2019 by
Priya Minhas; “After Migration: The Once and Future Kings” © 2019 by Walé Oyéjidé; “On
Loneliness” © 2019 by Fatimah Asghar; “Chooey-Booey and Brown” © 2019 by Tejal Rao;
“Luck of the Irish” © 2019 by Maeve Higgins; “Her Name Was India” © 2019 by Krutika
Mallikarjuna; “Shithole Nation” © 2019 by Jim St. Germain; “Blond Girls in Cheongsams” ©
2019 by Jenny Zhang; “The Naked Man” © 2019 by Chigozie Obioma; “Your Father’s Country”
© 2019 by Alexander Chee; “The Long Answer” © 2019 by Yann Demange; “An American,
Told” © 2019 by Jean Hannah Edelstein; “On Being Kim Kardashian” © 2019 by Chimene
Suleyman; “Tour Diary” © 2019 by Basim Usmani; “Dispatches from the Language Wars” ©
2019 by Daniel José Older; “Juana Azurduy Versus Christopher Columbus” © 2019 by Adrián
and Sebastián Villar Rojas; “No Es Suficiente” © 2019 by Dani Fernandez; “Skittles” © 2019 by
Fatima Farheen Mirza; “Return to Macondo” © 2019 by Susanne Ramírez de Arellano; “244
Million” © 2019 by Mona Chalabi; “How to Center Your Own Story” © 2019 by Jade Chang
Cover design by Lauren Harms
Cover art by Petra Eriksson
Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Excerpt from “The Iraqi Nights” here is by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Kareem James Abu-
Zeid, from The Iraqi Nights, copyright © 2013 by Dunya Mikhail. Translation copyright © 2014
by Kareem James Abu-Zeid. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Acknowledgment is made to the following, in which the stories in this collection first appeared,
some differently titled or in slightly different form: Catapult: “How to Write Iranian-America, or
The Last Essay”; Medium: “On the Blackness of the Panther”; The Progressive: “Luck of the
Irish”; and Racked: “Blond Girls in Cheongsams.”
ISBN 978-0-31652429-2
E3-20190109-DA-PC-ORI
E3-20190108-DA-PC-ORI
E3-2018113-DA-NF-ORI
Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Editors’ Note
“How to Write Iranian-America, or The Last Essay” by Porochista Khakpour
“Swimmer” by Nicole Dennis-Benn
“Sidra” by Rahawa Haile
“On the Blackness of the Panther” by Teju Cole
“How Not to Be” by Priya Minhas
“After Migration: The Once and Future Kings” by Walé Oyéjidé
“On Loneliness” by Fatimah Asghar
“Chooey-Booey and Brown” by Tejal Rao
“Luck of the Irish” by Maeve Higgins
“Her Name Was India” by Krutika Mallikarjuna
“Shithole Nation” by Jim St. Germain
“Blond Girls in Cheongsams” by Jenny Zhang
“The Naked Man” by Chigozie Obioma
“Your Father’s Country” by Alexander Chee
“The Long Answer” by Yann Mounir Demange
“An American, Told” by Jean Hannah Edelstein
“On Being Kim Kardashian” by Chimene Suleyman
“Tour Diary” by Basim Usmani
“Dispatches from the Language Wars” by Daniel José Older
“Juana Azurduy Versus Christopher Columbus” by Adrián and Sebastián Villar
Rojas
“No Es Suficiente” by Dani Fernandez
“Skittles” by Fatima Farheen Mirza
“Return to Macondo” by Susanne Ramírez de Arellano
“244 Million” by Mona Chalabi
“How to Center Your Own Story” by Jade Chang
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Newsletters
For Jitu Shukla and Şehit Süleyman Recep.
For Coco and Sunnie and Mya.
Editors’ Note
I
n 2016 we put out The Good Immigrant, a collection of essays by twenty-one
British writers of color who spoke about race and immigration. Actor Riz
Ahmed talked about performing as a brown Muslim man, not only in auditions
but every time he goes through airport security. Journalist Bim Adewunmi broke
down what we mean when we talk about “tokenism.” Actor and playwright
Daniel York Loh spoke sadly of discovering that his only East Asian hero, a
masked wrestler called Kendo Nagasaki, was actually a white guy. Each piece
was bright and rich and necessary.
When we conceived of the project, it was about trying to diversify publishing.
When we talked about the need for better representation in UK publishing,
people would ask, “But where are the writers?” Nikesh’s answer to that
(patronizing, incurious) question was The Good Immigrant. Here are some of
them, all together in one book, doing what they do best.
The title was a response to the narrative that immigrants are “bad” by default
until they prove themselves otherwise. They are job stealers, benefit scroungers,
girlfriend thieves, and criminals. Only when they win an Olympic medal, treat
you at your local hospital, or rescue a child from the side of a building do they
become good. We wanted to humanize immigrants, let them tell their own
stories and finally be in charge of their own narrative.
What we didn’t know at the time was that Brexit was just around the corner,
that the immigration debate was about to become truly toxic, and that the far
right would use this as their moment to retake center stage in our domestic
political conversations. The book inadvertently became a political tool. And a
bestseller. And an award winner. And a comfort for people of color in the UK
wanting to see themselves reflected somewhere, anywhere, in the culture.
Meanwhile, we looked across the Atlantic and watched a similar resurgence
of far-right and white-supremacist rhetoric overtake the United States. By then,
Chimene, who was a contributor to the original book, was living in the States
and having frequent conversations with writers and artists about the
precariousness of being a person from an immigrant background here, in this
country of immigrants.
So we decided to talk to some of our favorite writers, actors, comedians,
directors, and artists based in America, all with experiences of being first-or
second-generation immigrants. We thought it was vital that each of them have an
opportunity to express their experiences, as varied and as nuanced and as messy
and as precarious as the immigrant experience is all over the world.
Their voices came together to create this book, the US edition of The Good
Immigrant, in which twenty-six writers reflect on America as they have known
it. In doing so, they engage with the most vital question we now face: What do
we want America to be? They cannot speak for all immigrants, but their stories
illuminate a whole world of experience that is too often hidden from view. The
time has come to reclaim the narrative.
Chimene Suleyman and Nikesh Shukla
Summer 2018
How to Write Iranian-America, or The Last Essay
Porochista Khakpour
1.
B
egin by writing about anything else. Go to the public library in your Los
Angeles suburb and ask for all the great books people in New York City read,
please. Wonder if the reference librarian knows a living writer, and ask her what
would a living writer read—and an American one, please. When she realizes
you are still in the single digits and asks, Where are your parents, young lady?
don’t answer, and demand Shakespeare and take that big book home and cry
because you can’t understand it. Tomorrow, go back to reading the dictionary a
letter at a time and cry because you can’t learn the words. (Ask your father if
you will cry daily for the rest of your life, and remember his answer decades
later: When you are older you will care less about things.) Pray to a god you still
believe in that you will once more avoid ESL with all its teachers who look to
you with the shine of love but the stench of pity: refugee, resident alien, political
asylum, immigrant, foreigner—the only words you know that you don’t want to
know.
Write because it’s something to do, something your parents will let you do
because it looks like homework. Write because one place to live is in your head
and it’s not broken yet; write because it’s something to drown out the sound of
their fighting deep into every night. When the second-grade teacher—the teacher
your father calls an alcoholic—tells you that you will be an author one day and
suggests The Market Guide for Young Writers, step right up and call yourself a
Young Writer. Decide to really write, and write about anything but Iranian-
America. Ghosts. Victorian girls, maybe ones with tough names. Easter bunnies
that are homicidal (you might have ripped off Bunnicula). Candy. White girls.
More white girls. (Even then you understood sales.) Worry about the fact that
your family won’t be able to afford a computer and worry about how your
fingers get stuck in between the keys of a yellow typewriter your father brought