Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home
October 21, 2019
Catapult magazine editor and memoirist Chung (All You Can Ever Know) and Catapult founder Demary (coauthor, Let Love Have the Last Word) show how “literature can provide a pathway to greater empathy and understanding” in this collection of essays gleaned from the magazine’s archives and focused on the theme of immigration to the U.S. (and, in one piece, Canada). It features writers from the world over, including both documented and undocumented immigrants, as well as first-, second-, and third-generation Americans. Some contributors, such as Sharine Taylor writing about her Jamaican immigrant grandmother’s sly use of patois, focus on older relatives (“Patois was our secret, allowing us to be in the English world and then escape to Jamaica through language”); others confront past and future choices with ambivalence (“Should I—an immigrant to, a writer in, and a critic of the United States—apply for citizenship?” Bix Gabriel asks at the end of an essay detailing her odyssey from India and concern over the Trump presidency). Other essayists relate encounters with racism, clueless natives, and fellow migrants. This collection is a vital corrective to discussions of global migration that fail to acknowledge the humanity of migrants themselves.
November 15, 2019
Two Catapult magazine editors gather essays about immigration and "the meaning of home" from 20 emerging and established women writers. Chung (All You Can Ever Know, 2018) and Demary (co-author, with Common: Let Love Have the Last Word, 2019) select personal reflections from writers such as Victoria Blanco, Shing Yin Khor, Cinelle Barnes, and Porochista Khakpour, all of whom are "immigrants, the children of immigrants and refugees, [and/or] people directly affected by immigration policy and how this country treats those who come here." The book opens with Blanco's "Why We Cross the Border in El Paso," which establishes the overarching theme of crossing cultural boundaries. The author revisits childhood memories of watching Mexican families "rush across the Rio Grande" on the way into El Paso. Blanco then muses how, two decades later, a dam that regulates water flow and a tall steel fence now act in concert with border guards to "turn families away." Khor's graphic essay, "Say It With Noodles," explores the emotionally liminal space the author inhabited as the English-speaking daughter of a Chinese family and how food was the medium for how they communicated feelings among their family and to others. In "Carefree White Girls, Careful Brown Girls," Filipina American author Barnes writes about the meaning of being undocumented. A brief friendship with a former drug delivery girl made her understand how being "cute [and] blonde" allowed her white friend to "get away with danger" while she had to live "forever clean" in order to stay safe from the inevitable judgments others passed on Barnes' immigration status. In "How to Write Iranian America; Or, The Last Essay," Khakpour discusses the exhausting burden of being an Iranian-born refugee living in America. With origins that have been "obsessed over" by the news, she must continually explain herself and the "Iranian America" of which she is part. Fierce and diverse, these essays tell personal stories that humanize immigration in unique, necessary ways. A provocatively intelligent collection.
COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from January 1, 2020
Editors Chung and Demary compile essays on the immigrant experience. Standout pieces include Cinelle Barnes's "Carefree White Girls, Careful Brown Girls," Krystal A. Sital's "Undocumented Lovers in America," and Shing Yin Khor's illustrated essay "Say it with Noodles." The literary world has seen an explosion of crossing narratives lately; it is easy to forget about the increasingly nuanced, complicated, and human ways that immigrant lives unfold after arrival. This collection contributes to the burgeoning canon of works set beyond the crossing. The essays move like ink in water, dispersing in infinite directions to illuminate psychologies, family dynamics, steamy affairs, vibrant foods, politicized accents, and particular kinds of losses. Most powerful of all is its subtle work of demonstrating that violent immigration policies implicate everyone in a country, immigrant and citizen alike. Victoria Blanco conjures this in "Why We Cross the Border in El Paso," writing of the deaths that take place in the Rio Grande. VERDICT A standout collection that adds new dimension and depth to the lived experiences of immigrants long after they settle in a new community.--Sierra Dickey, Ctr. for New Americans, Northampton, MA
Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
December 15, 2019
How do we define who we are? Where do we look for our origins? What pieces of place?border lines, citizenship status, recipes handed down generations?do we connect with our core identities? Catapult editors Chung (All You Can Ever Know, 2018) and Demary (co-author of Common's memoir Let Love Have the Last Word, 2019) have gathered from the magazine's archives this anthology of personal essays centering on home and identity. Contributions grapple with migration to new countries and cultures, finding a sense of home, and growing up with legacies of other homes. Cinelle Barnes writes to the white surfing instructor who worked as a drug runner while Barnes herself tried to live quietly without documentation. In a beautifully-drawn graphic essay, Shing Yin Khor depicts their grandmother's noodles to show how food can convey love. Sharine Taylor describes her grandmother hiding her Jamaican Patois to blend in while living in Toronto. Each narrative draws readers close, offering sight lines into private lives and conflicts. The talented writers gathered here offer wide-ranging perspectives essential for our current environment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)