![]() I was born in New York, grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but made Chicago my home after college. I rarely answer this question honestly – the real answer is that I belong to many froms. “Where are you from?” usually means “How did you get here?” or the clearer: “You don’t belong here.” A few weeks after September 11th, I showed up for middle school soccer practice half an hour early, and three older boys followed me around the park, yelling, “Where are you from?” old beer bottles they found around the park clutched menacingly in their hands. The question “Where are you from?” has punctured most days of my life, and has been both innocuous and frightening. I’ve just moved to Los Angeles and am new to this city, my loneliness creeping up like an old shadow around every corner. ![]() ![]() Fatimah Asghar's piece is prompted by the too-familiar question: Where are you from?Ī few days ago I order an Uber pool on my way to my friend’s surprise birthday party. In the wide-ranging collection The Good Immigrant USA, editors Chimene Suleyman and Nikesh Shukla make it their aim to "finally let immigrants be in charge of their own narrative" as writers and artists from Teju Cole to Jenny Zhang and Chiogizie Obioma to Dani Fernandez confront "the most vital question we now face: What do we want America to be?" Acutely observed and sensitively ambivalent, the essays in the collection track the joy as well as loneliness of living between cultures. ![]()
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