(Reviewed by JD Jung)
“The move from Casablanca to Queens was the biggest bet of my parents’ life. It came with wounds: betrayal by loved ones and poverty in the greatest country on earth. There was chaos in the upending of norms—what it means to be a husband or wife, how many countries can fit into one building. Being undocumented was the greatest threat from without, and opposing reactions to a strange new culture the greatest threat from within.”
The Shahani family would no longer carry the undocumented status due to Ronald Reagan’s 1984 amnesty program. However, the chaos would continue, and their problems would be far from over.
NPR journalist Aarti Namdev Shahani shares her family’s harrowing story on how one immigrant can live the American dream while another—specifically her father— lived the American nightmare in Here We Are. Facing betrayal by the American legal system as well as by fellow Indians who they trusted, her father still faced possible deportation. As if that was not enough, duplicitous in-laws would physically tear their family apart.
Shahani reminds us how each immigrant’s story is personal and unique. Her parents really didn’t have a homeland, as they were uprooted from their birthplace in current-day Pakistan during the 1947 Partition of India. Her father lived in Lebanon, Algeria and Morocco—where Aarti was born– before coming to the United States. Still it was her mother who embraced the cultural and religious diversity in America. Also, for the first time in all her travels, she was able to re-create herself and become more than a wife.
The author also shares her personal feelings about the effects of the 9/11 attacks, activism and her personal life. It is done with heartfelt emotion that readers will appreciate even if they never experienced what she and her family did. A unique memoir that I highly recommend.
