A Beginner's Guide to America
For the Immigrant and the Curious
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A stirring, witty, and poignant glimpse into the bewildering American immigrant experience from someone who has lived it. Hakakian's "love letter to the nation that took her in [is also] a timely reminder of what millions of human beings endure when they uproot their lives to become Americans by choice" (The Boston Globe).
Into the maelstrom of unprecedented contemporary debates about immigrants in the United States, this perfectly timed book gives us a portrait of what the new immigrant experience in America is really like.
Written as a "guide" for the newly arrived, and providing "practical information and advice," Roya Hakakian, an immigrant herself, reveals what those who settle here love about the country, what they miss about their homes, the cruelty of some Americans, and the unceasing generosity of others. She captures the texture of life in a new place in all its complexity, laying bare both its beauty and its darkness as she discusses race, sex, love, death, consumerism, and what it is like to be from a country that is in America's crosshairs.
Her tenderly perceptive and surprisingly humorous account invites us to see ourselves as we appear to others, making it possible for us to rediscover our many American gifts through the perspective of the outsider. In shattering myths and embracing painful contradictions that are unique to this place, A Beginner's Guide to America is Hakakian's candid love letter to America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist and poet Hakakian (Assassins of the Turquoise Palace) offers a poignant and richly observed account of the immigrant's experience of America. Drawing on recollections of her own journey from Iran to the U.S. in 1984, Hakakian describes customs officials indifferently sorting through luggage ("this is how America welcomes everyone: by preparing them for anonymity"); notes the strange sight of "full-bellied pet dogs, not banned by any edicts, cockily walking at the side of their owners"; and advises new arrivals that soap operas are better for learning English than news programs. Once the immigrant has established herself, Hakakian writes, she will enter the "tribe of Nowhereians," disowned by her countrymen and viewed as "from elsewhere" by Americans. But even today, she contends, when shifting demographics have sparked an anti-immigrant backlash, naturalized citizens have a greater chance of success than some who are native-born and "do not have a tale to tell themselves other than one of failure, betrayal, and hopelessness." Hakakian's portrait largely excludes those forced to enter the country illegally, or unable to find adequate means of support, but she captures the immigrant's twinned sense of hope and loss with lyrical precision. Readers will salute this astute and sincere look at what it means to "be remade" on American soil.
