AMERICA DECONSTRUCTED

A debut
essay collection about the immigrant experience in America.

Authors Sohan and Adin
showcase a wide variety of experiences in this book; some are about relatively
recent arrivals to the United States, while others are about people who have
spent decades stateside, and they hail from such places as Afghanistan, Kosovo,
India, Nigeria, England, and Mexico. However, the stories’ narrators aren’t
clearly identified, and it would have been helpful to know, at a minimum, their
full names. (The acknowledgements thank “Naseer, Parag, Myra, JC,
Roselin, Azim, Sam, Benedict, Liti, Francisco, Ifeyinwa & Chidiebere,
Lisian, Molly and Jose for sharing your life with us.”) However, the essays, while sometimes-unpolished, employ unique
and effective narrative voices, and each adds a valuable contribution to the
book as a whole. In “I Saw a Ripe Mango I’d Like to Pluck,” a Nigerian couple
share the story of their long-distance courtship, while “I Love You Even Though
You Are Old School, Mom!” is about the cultural gaps between generations. The
English-born author of “I am Moo-Hay and French Because of My English Accent!”
contends with more culture shock in the transition from Cornwall to Ohio than
many non-English-speaking immigrants do (“It felt like I was from a different
planet and was being introduced to the concept of washer and dryer”). Several
themes repeat throughout this truly wide-ranging collection: immigrants who
learned English in their home countries finding American speech to be a foreign
language (“I think there is a difference between knowing a language and having
an accent”); families finding ways to strengthen bonds, despite distance; and
people who immigrated decades ago thinking that it’s more difficult for today’s
immigrants to succeed. Many essays effectively express an ongoing sense of
difference (“I am reminded each time of being a refugee, except now I am an
American passport-holding refugee”), although other authors express a desire to
assimilate (“I’d rather be in India if I were to live in a place that felt like
India”).