Immigrant Strong: April 2023 Issue
On Somali food, beauty and trans identity, and repressed feelings
I read a lot of memoir and Lamya H’s Hijab Butch Blues is among my favorites of the year. The author is a queer hijabi Muslim who skillfully explores topics such as gender, queerness, religion, and activism. They alternate between stories from the Quran and their own life to confront otherness that follows them from the playground to the classroom, and from one country to another.
Many things in this book rang true—the anger over how marginalized people are treated; the otherness that comes with being an immigrant; the challenges that come with living in the United States from one visa to another. It was also helpful to learn how the author channels their anger and energy about the injustices they fight against.
I found this immensely relatable given that I’m among the most progressive people in some circles in my life, and the only one who works in human rights/advocacy. When I point out certain fallacies and injustices and ways to address them, I’m told I’m being “political.” When I say I have no interest in spending time with individuals who vote for politicians who demonize immigrants, attempt to erase trans people, attack women’s bodily autonomy, and value guns more than children’s lives, I’m advised to “just avoid those topics”-- as if they are conversation prompts instead of a foundation for critical principles and values that form a person. This book confirmed for me the importance of speaking up on your own terms, as well as prioritizing self-care so we can keep showing up for our communities.
In addition to being a great memoir, Lamya’s book has been called “a study guide on Islam, a handbook for abolitionists, and a queer manifesto.” It exemplifies the power of memoir, and is the kind of book that will stay with me for a long time.
Essays and Interviews
Jasmin Attia, whose debut novel The Oud Player of Cairo will be published this summer, penned a beautiful piece about cooking with her mother and the liminal space that exists when you live between two cultures. Here is Remembering the Egyptian Childhood I Never Had Through Its Culinary Traditions for Lithub.
“I vaguely understood the duality of our lives then, the two places that were both called home, Egypt and America. At the time, my parents spoke to me mostly in Arabic, and it was in this mother tongue that they told me stories of those left behind, aunts and uncles, grandparents, neighbors.”
I nodded my head in agreement during this entire interview that Gina Chung, author of Sea Change, did with Jennifer Gerson for The 19th.
“There’s this thing that I think happens to immigrant kids, where [you want] to write about the world you come from, but feel that maybe you don’t quite have the authority to write about that world or the ability to really access it. That was something that really held me back a lot in my early years of writing.”
I also enjoyed Chung’s interviews about her critically acclaimed debut novel in Electric Literature and BOMB magazine.
I’ve had a chance to meet Denny through an online writing community, so it was a thrill to see her publish I’ve Been Conditioned to Slay if I Want to Live in Electric Literature.
“We left Indonesia, immigrated to the U.S., then moved out of Queens and settled upstate in New York. Being the flamboyant new kid, my peers didn’t adore me the way my cousins did. But in eighth grade, when I sang Eric Clapton’s “Tears In Heaven” for our talent show—and won—I felt a newfound respect from my classmates. I learned then, how people’s treatment of me shifted when I proved myself to have social value, be it my talent or accolades.”
I appreciated Ifrah F. Ahhmed’s piece about forced migration and its impact on food and cooking, and how living in the diaspora can influence culinary traditions. It raises important points about what food we consider “authentic” as opposed to “fusion” or “classic.” Here is On Fusion, Forced Migration, and Somali Food for Eater magazine.
“The thing about a forced migration instead of a voluntary one is that your bags are always mentally packed. Even if you’ve lived somewhere for nearly 30 years, you feel like you could go home, to your real home, any day. You remain in a decades-long emotional limbo with one foot in the door and one foot out.”
Food is such a powerful force in our immigrant lives, and here is another beautiful piece exploring its connection to culture and home. In Finding Memories of a Distant Home Through Milo Toast, Rachel Heng discusses her mother’s take on a Singaporean comfort food. Heng’s latest novel, The Great Reclamation, is now out.
“Nevertheless, each time I came across someone who knew and loved Milo, it was always a delightful surprise, as warming a comfort as the drink itself, a shot of familiarity in an unfamiliar place. Never mind that the reason we had grown up with it in such different places was the ubiquity of empire. Such was the bittersweet joy to be found in the legacy of food in a world shaped by colonial forces.”
In this Guernica interview with Ben Purkert, Javier Zamora discusses his memoir Solito, why he had to write the book for himself, and whether he thinks it will change people’s minds about immigration issues.
“… we need to stop treating immigrants as a story [and start treating them] as human beings. Until people in power — and I’m not only talking about politicians but also people in publishing, in journalism, in media — stop looking at immigration as an opportunity for clicks and advertising, and look at it as a truly humanitarian crisis, then shit won’t change.”
Porochista Khakpour edited Evergreen Review’s special issue on Iran; everything from her intro note on is great.
“Years ago I confessed to a partner how I felt most at home in airports and in airplanes—because I wasn’t anywhere. I was just in some in-between purgatory that made me feel most me. There was no tether to a mother country that had long forgotten me or the anchor to the new land that struggled to claim me. I recalled how as a child I loved road trips and train travel for the same reason—the problems really only seemed to exist in the before and after.”
Lots of wonderful writing to explore in the issue, including Ava Homa’s essay, For Iranians, Freedom is Interdependent; Intersectionality a Necessity.
“My very existence—there to strictly serve the family—was something to be molded into obedience, otherwise a male’s honor would turn into disgrace. Indeed, manhood, mardanegi or gheirat, was measured based on a man’s level of control over female bodies, bodies whose job was to offer pleasure, never to receive or demand it. I repeatedly got into trouble in school, for my loud voice, my loose headscarf, my love for lipsticks. What crimes!”
For Women Writers, Women’s Books, Eman Quotah writes about the role of identity, language, and culture in her book in Inspired by my illiterate grandmother: Writing toward a bilingual, bicultural literature and identity.
“For most of my life, the stories about Arab and Muslim women that have predominated in English-language publications and, especially, movies have loved to portray us as victims. Arab and Muslim men, more often than not, have been portrayed as villains. We need alternative narratives, rooted in our experience, our memories, our heart stories.”
In one of many good pieces reflecting on Netflix’s Beef series, Ivonne Liu discusses the pressures facing many immigrant families and the harms of repressed feelings. Here is The heavy mask of perfection in “Beef” speaks to many women’s fear of revealing their true self for Salon.
“Amy and I were both aware of how much our immigrant parents sacrificed for us. Amy's mother told her she never saw birds until she came to America because people had to eat them during the Vietnam War. My parents fled communist China with two suitcases to Taiwan. Later, my father arrived by boat in America with $50 in his pocket, toiling as a dishwasher on weekends while attending graduate school. Failure is not an option for many children of immigrants.”
The brilliant Dubravka Ugrešić died last month, and I wanted to wrap up this newsletter by sharing a couple of remembrances of her. As someone who also hails from the former Yugoslavia, I’ve been in awe of not only her literary accomplishments, but her fierce and outspoken stance against nationalism and fascism. Chad W. Post, who was her editor, publisher, and friend, shares great memories in this piece for Words Without Borders. And in Dubravka Ugrešić’s Translators Remember Her in LitHub, Vlad Beronja reflects on Ugrešić’s powerful impact on immigrants, immigrant literature, and the wider literary world.
“For many of us who had left the disintegrating Yugoslavia in the 1990s, “like rats deserting a sinking ship,” with barely a tote bag or suitcase in hand—Dubravka was the poet of our newfound and embittered worldliness and the literary alchemist of our fragile memories. Since then, many of us have acquired new lives, new languages, new passports.
Some of us have even stopped thinking of ourselves as refugees altogether, buckling under the pressure of assimilation to secure our daily bread under a different sky. But with each new book, Dubravka reminded us again of that formative experience of migration, that dioptric of enduring alienation that no new passport can fully correct. And it is this defamiliarizing way of seeing the world from the margins that runs like a bright red, revolutionary thread throughout her virtuosic literary oeuvre.”
Thanks for reading,
Vesna
About this newsletter: Writing about immigrant and refugee life—the struggles, triumphs, and quirks—by immigrants and refugees, and children of immigrants and refugees. For more info, here is a Q&A I did with Longreads about the newsletter. Photo in the logo: Miguel Bruna/Unsplash.
About me: I grew up in the former Yugoslavia, then immigrated to Canada, and now live in the United States, where I work as a writer and communications consultant for nonprofits focusing on human rights and social justice. I have written about my immigrant experience for The New York Times, Catapult, Pigeon Pages, the Washington Post and the New York Daily News. In 2021, I attended Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing conference as a parent-fellow, and participated in the Tin House Summer Workshop. Find me on twitter, @vesnajaksic; Instagram, @vesnajaksiclowe; or my website, www.vesnajaksic.com.