Literary Safari

It has now been six months since the birth of my daughter and I’m a bit behind on my posts. It actually took me a while to be able to get through an entire book for quite a few months. My attention span was diverted to my adorable little girl, her million and one facial expressions, her many pitches of cries, and her daily discoveries of the world.

Then, during one of my daughter’s first long afternoon naps at 14 weeks, the planets conspired to make reading possible again. I surprised myself by curling up on the couch with a cup of ginger-peach tea and Sheba Karim’s first young adult novel Skunk Girl, which I’ve been wanting to read ever since I first heard about it as a work in progress.

A few months ago, I reviewed Rakesh Satyal’s Blue Boy, a sensitive coming of age novel about a 12 year-old Indian-American boy struggling with his sexuality. One of the qualities I most appreciated about the book was its impeccable portrait of the suburban Indian-American family and the ways in which adolescent growing pains tie into it and its complex social webs.

Sheba Karim’s Skunk Girl is another novel that does a fine job of painting such a portrait and of capturing the intricacies of growing up South Asian in this country, this time from the point of view of girl. [Read an excerpt.]

Nina Khan is a  Pakistani-American junior in high school with an impossibly intelligent older sister Sonia and strict immigrant parents. About to turn 16, she is painfully aware of the “no dating, no pork, no co-ed parties” rules in her life which make her feel like “a wounded bird who longs to fly with the others but can’t.” Matters take a turn for the worse when Nina falls hard for Asher, a new boy in school. The two share math class together and, could it be?, Asher actually seems interested in her? Will she or won’t she break the rules and date him?

As Nina gets to know Asher better, she becomes even more aware of how different she is from her classmates. As if matters weren’t bad enough and she’s not allowed to date, Nina also becomes even more self-conscious about her body hair, which has always been an issue of embarrassment (as it is for many young South Asian women). On a class trip to Albany, she finds herself sitting next to Asher on the bus. When she leans over to look out the window, he gets a view down her back.

When I sit up, he turns to me one eyebrow raised in curious amusement. “You have a stripe of hair going down your back,” he says. …

As soon as I make it home I run upstairs to my room and tear my clothes off. I stand naked in front of my full-length mirror and twist my head to get a good view of my back. And that’s when I see it. A wide line of soft, dark hair running from the nape of my neck down to the base of my spine–the stripe Asher was talking about. A stripe right down the center of my back, like a skunk. This brings me to a whole other level. I’m not just a hair Pakistani Muslim girl anymore.

I am a skunk girl.

Lest you think that Nina sinks into the depths of despair after this revelation, let me assure you that she does not. Of course, she indulges in an afternoon of crying, of cursing, and of making wishes for all sorts of ways to never to set foot in school again. But then she steps right back up to the plate and returns to school and realizes that “nothing happens. No one pauses their conversations. No one even notices me.”

Though Nina the character is often frustrated by her circumstances, Nina, the narrator, has a wry sense of humor and a graceful ability to poke fun at herself. As this entertaining novel progresses, we watch as her streak of rebellion surfaces and watch as she struggles with her conscience as she experiments with aspects of “American culture” (yes, alcohol, and yes, dating) that are off-limits to her and that define her very Pakistani Muslim-ness. What you’ll see her conclude will be surprising and yet, so very Nina-esque; a teenage girl who is simultaneously self-confident and unsure of herself.

While exploring the challenges of high school life, author Sheba Karim also sheds light on the extended social life of Nina Khan’s family – the Pakistani family dinners,  the community weddings, the visits from family friends who measure her adherence to cultural norms, etc. Karim’s eye for these little details and her ability to convey universal aspects of South Asian immigrant immigrant life give this novel an added measure of value.

In an interview at Cayenne Lit, Karim says:

I was raised in a small town with very few other desis, a setting similar to the one in Skunk Girl. Being Pakistani made me separate, different, and often annoyed, because of the restrictions placed on me as a teenager. I think your culture is often something you grow into. I also think as wonderful as being a “hyphen” is, it can also be very difficult, particularly for women from Muslim backgrounds. … Skunk Girl was inspired by a monologue I wrote for Yoni ki Baat, a South Asian version of The Vagina Monologues. I realized there were very few books out there about what it’s like to grow up Pakistani in this country, and that I really wanted to write one.

Her writing certainly took me into the inner world of a teenage misfit with grace and reminded me of the parallels of my own once-upon-a-time adolescent angst. Thank goodness it’s past me!

For those interested in using this in the classroom or a book circle, a helpful discussion guide is available here.

I didn’t know what to expect of the on stage musical adaptation of Uma Krishnaswami’s picture book “Chachaji’s Cup” this past weekend.  The program billed it as “Bollywood style,” a label that automatically leaves me slightly wary. Turns out I was more than pleasantly surprised. The one-hour production, aimed at audiences ages 8 and up, was  lively and entertaining, while it also touched me with its delicate exploration of themes of identity, filial responsibility, and the importance of roots and ties to the past.

Tea with Chachaji is based on the picture book story about Neel, a 10 year old, who learns about his family’s place in the partition of India through a story about his great uncle’s favorite teacup. In the stage production, Neel’s mother, Anya (Soneela Nankani) is a hardworking nurse who paints in her free time. His father died when he was a young boy and his primary male role model is his great uncle Chachaji (Tony Mirrcandani) who is a wizard with words. Neel (Raja Burrows) can’t get enough of his stories – family stories, stories about Hindu mythology, and super hero characters like Hanuman, the monkey god. On the cusp of adolescence, Neel finds himself torn between his new friend Daniel (Jose Sepulveda) and the basketball court and his family, dance lessons, and attachment to Chachaji’s stories. When an accident causes the loss of Chachaji’s favorite tea cup, Neel learns the importance of his family history and grows to appreciate it in his new environment. At the same time, Chachaji comes to view his roots and ties to the past from a fresh perspective.

Before the performance, the opening question to the audience was “Raise your hand if you, your parents, or your grandparents were not born in America.” The majority of the audience raised their hands, as might be expected. But there were a few people around me who sat still with their hands in their laps and their heads bowed down, seemingly embarrassed. At that moment, I wished I had a copy of Davy Brown Discovers His Roots, an independently published illustrated children’s book by Keely Alexander and Velani Mynhardt Witthoft, to share. It would have made a fine bookend to any discussion or workshop following the play.

The main character in this book is an all-American boy Davy Brown who goes into a panic attack when his teacher assigns his class to investigate their family’s immigration roots. His classmates all have fascinating backgrounds, Davy believes. They come from Mexico, China, India, and Sudan, and all of them have unique immigration stories. In contrast, his parents don’t know much about his past. It takes a series of events for him to finally dig deep to find his family’s roots.

Davy Brown is a likable character, who pulls some clever antics and tells some tall tales to his classmates in his attempt to get out of the immigration research assignment. (Pirate ancestors, anyone?!) But with the help of his family and the mighty Internet, he finally gets some of the answers he is looking for.

“Tea with Chachaji” and “Davy Brown Discovers His Roots”  have this in common – it is one’s family that helps both Neel and Davy connect meaningfully to their pasts. In an educational setting, stories like these can serve as valuable tools to get kids interested in researching their family histories. Once they are ready to do that, the resources to do so are endless — and in that respect, the appendix of Davy Brown provides a comprehensive list of websites and methods to go deeper, as well as helpful information about immigration laws. (At the book’s website, there is also a sample lesson plan.)

This interview was originally published at Sepia Mutiny.

As someone whose own family is dispersed over several continents (my husband often jokes that we can’t visit any new country without discovering that some distant relative lives there), I’ve often asked myself many of the questions that Minal Hajratwala did: How were choices made? What were the journeys like? How do they reflect the diasporic experience? That’s what I loved about “Leaving India”. I thought it would be interesting to speak with the author about how she tackled the mammoth task of “deftly exploring … the unprecedented late 20th-century dispersal of Indians to every corner of the globe and their rapid rise in the places they landed” (see Washington Post review).

Q. You write in your introduction that you wrote this book to “find whatever fragments remain here, to trace the shape of our past and learn how it shadows or illuminates our present.” Was there an experience, an event, or some defining moment when you knew that an interest of yours had to become 7 years of your working life?

A. Not at all, it was a slowly growing awareness that somewhere in the midst of my dozens of cousins spread over nine countries was an untold story. The vague ideas swirling in my brain about migration, family, and the new visibility of Indianness in popular culture crystallized when I took a book proposal class with Sam Freedman at Columbia University, who gave me amazing guidance and editing, and asked a lot of smart questions. As I shaped it into a narrative spanning a hundred years, I became more and more curious about how all this happened, and then the questions themselves shaped my journey.

I was also naive; I thought I could research the book in a year and write it in another year. If I had thought it would be a seven-year process, I might have gotten cold feet at the beginning.

The rest of the Q&A follows below the fold. (more…)

This is part of an ongoing series that I recently started here, “Flex Your Writing Muscles,” (installment 1) where I take a writing prompt and work it, knead it, pound it … and see what emerges out of it.

In this case, my prompt was to begin with the words “When I was [insert age]” and to write about a memory of that age. I actually started this prompt a year ago, around Diwali, at my desk at work in between tasks. I’ve been playing with it for a while and finally made a small breakthrough today.

The Times of Diwali

Diwali in Bombay

When I was seven
We drove along Marine Drive
My face pressed
Against the grimy glass
Of the bumpy taxi
In my lap a gift-wrapped box
Of store bought jalebis
Sticky orange
Sugary sweet
Circles of delight
Topped with edible aluminum foil

(more…)

This post originally published at Sepia Mutiny.

I’m playing a new online video game today. It’s called “Homeland Guantanamos” and it has transformed me into an undercover journalist whose task is to unearth clues about the mysterious 2007 death of Boubacar Bah, a Guinean tailor who was held at a detention center in Elizabeth, NJ for overstaying his visa.

“Homeland Guantanamos” is the latest multi-media offering from Breakthrough, the human rights organization which uses media and popular culture to raise awareness here and in India. [Abhi covered their video game “I Can End Deportation” or I.C.E.D. earlier this year. ]

We’ve all heard stories about immigrants (illegal and residents) being detained without explanation or for prolonged periods of time. At the website, I got to see what life might be like on the other side of the fence. I took a tour of a simulated immigration detention center and collected clues to help solve the mystery of Bah’s death (he died of a skull fracture and brain hemorrhages). Along the way, I saw other detainees (eg: a pregnant woman kept in shackles during labor) and witnessed conditions of the facilities, including the solitary confinement room, the bathrooms, and the dining hall. Though this is a simulated experience, the content is based on factual sources such as news articles, court documents, and interviews.

Why call the site “Homeland Guantanamos”? According to Malikka Dutt, executive director of Breakthrough, “the Department of Homeland Security is violating the human rights of legal and undocumented immigrants” and some of the inhumane conditions of detention centers where these immigrants are being held are not all that different from the facility at Guantanamo Bay.

A few facts:

Last year, more than 300,000 people were held in detention centers on mainland USA.
The cost to tax payers last year alone was $1.2 billion to tax payers.
Since 2003, 87 detainees have died in detention centers.
There are over 100 detention centers throughout the country. [ A map of detention centers is available here, searchable by zipcode. The most detention centers seem to be clustered in the Northeast. ]
Between January 2004 to November 2007, nearly a million people passed through immigration custody.

As with I.C.E.D., response to this project has not been all warm and fuzzy. In a Times article published this weekend, Kelly A. Nantel, a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the video game was “a work of fiction that dehumanizes the individuals depicted and grossly distorts conditions in detention facilities.”

Dutt maintains that the Dept. of Homeland Security’s enforcement measures are “increasingly draconian” and hopes that this game will serve as a platform for increased support of the Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act, proposed by Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Edward Kennedy (D-Ma.). More in the NYT article.

The Homeland Guantanamos site features compelling video testimonials from detainees. Breakthrough went “live from jail” and interviewed several long time permanent US residents who face possible deportation because of unfair immigration laws. It also has an action guide and a memorial wall. Most certainly worth checking out.

Next week, the holy month of Ramadan will come to its conclusion and millions of Muslims around the world will be celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr. “Eid” is an Arabic word meaning festival and “Fitr” means to break the fast. So, yes, Eid-ul-Fitr is literally the festive breaking of a month long fast.

Earlier this week, I was surprised and pleased to see the window of my favorite children’s bookstore in NYC, the Bank Street Bookstore, filled with books and novelty items about Eid. Included in their window display are the following three picture books which, I think, beautifully bring the Eid celebration to life for young children here in the U.S. Here you go: three picture book picks, one for each day of Eid.

The Best Eid Ever, by Asma Mobin-Uddin
Boyds Mill Press, 2007

On Eid morning, despite all the gifts she receives, Aneesa is sad because her parents are away on Hajj. Her outlook changes, however, when she meets two sisters—refugees from a war torn country—at the mosque. While her grandmother Nonni prepares a delicious Eid feast, Aneesa cooks up a plan to share the festival’s delights with her new friends and give them the best Eid ever. Laura Jacobsen’s pastel pencil illustrations sensitively bring to life Asma Mobin-Uddin’s poignant holiday story about sadaqua, the Islamic tenet of voluntary giving within one’s means.

The White Nights of Ramadan, by Maha Addasi
Boyds Mill Press 2008

Noor lives in a country in the Persian Gulf and is preparing for Girgian, a special three-day celebration that takes place in the middle of Ramadan when the moon is almost full. Girgian means “candy” and is an occasion where children wear their best traditional clothes and go from house to house collecting treats from their neighbors (not so different from our Halloween tradition of trick or treating). Ned Gannon’s warm paintings carry the reflection of glimmering moonlight and bring a different culture to life for readers. Underlying the narrative of the festivities is a reminder of the significance of Ramadan. “Ramadan can be fun, but remember that the true meaning of Ramadan is spending time with family and sharing with those less fortunate,” Noor’s grandmother tells her.

The Night of the Moon: A Muslim Holiday Story, by Hena Khan
Chronicle Books, 2008

A wonderful primer about the A-Z’s of Ramadan as its celebrated in a Pakistani household in America, complete with presents, backyard barbeques, and trampolines. As seven-year old Yasmeen follows and watches the phases of the moon, we are led through the unfolding festivities in her household and community. In her multicultural classroom, she and her classmates engage in a discussion about Ramadan where she explains the significance of the holy month. The story beautifully portrays a holiday celebrated by many different cultures, a holiday not so different from other holidays marked on the American calendar. This is wonderful contribution to the literature of tolerance and a window into contemporary Muslim culture. I am a huge fan of illustrator Julie Paschkis’s work. Her gorgeous, detailed style is complemented by her ability to take traditional art forms (in this case Islamic tiles) and render them in a contemporary context.

More books about Ramadan at Just One More Book.

If you’ve ever traveled to Boston, Baltimore, or Washington DC aboard the cheap Chinatown bus, you’ll want to check out yesterday’s NYT. “Dreams and Desperation on Forsyth Street” examines a small corner of Chinatown–Forsysth St. and East Broadway–the throbbing heart of the long-distance bus economy. The Chinatown bus depot is a “bubbling cauldron of ambition, creativity and competition — the New York immigrant experience boiled down to its essentials, ” writes Saki Knafo. And, now, it’s in danger of being shut down.

In the piece, Knafo sensitively portrayed the challenges and dreams of immigrants, shedding light on larger issues by simply focusing on one small city block. Her interview with a 43 year old ticket vendor Lin Ah-jioa especially stood out to me.

Ms. Lin works 13 out of 14 days and shares an apartment with her husband and daughter and four other people, including her uncle. In a narrow passageway with “grease-spattered walls” Knafo notices hundreds of tiny Chinese characters. These letters, it turns out, are poems that Ms. Lin’s uncle writes. Here’s one of those poems:

In the morning I go to the restaurant to work.
I come back to my bed in the evening.
My sweet dream has come true: I have turned into a ghost.

This image of a wall lined with calligraphy reminded me of Angel Island, the San Francisco island immigration station where hundreds of poems were carved into the walls by detained immigrant laborers from China from 1910 to 1940. These poems were discovered in 1970 and the site where they were recorded is a national historical landmark. [related article]

One example:

“I wish I could travel on a cloud far away, reunite with my wife and son. When the moonlight shines on me alone, the night seems even longer.”

Click on the image below to find out more about Angel Island poetry.

Update: Home of the Brave was awarded the 2007 Golden Kite Award for fiction by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

There’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks about Shaun Tan’s wordless graphic novel Arrival. It “may be the most brilliant new book of the year,” according to Rick Margolis of School Library Journal [read his interview with Shaun Tan here.]. And, Elizabeth Bird of Fuse # 8 calls it “the most amazing thing I’ve had the pleasure to read in years” [read her full review here].

I’d have to say I agree. Having been an arrival to this country at age 12, I’ve always been interested in books that explore questions such as “What is home?” “What does it mean to be a stranger in a new land?” and “How does one begin to belong?” Last year, the book that moved me most in this regard was Marina Budhos’s Ask Me No Questions (which comes out in paperback on Sept. 11).

This year, I hadn’t been as excited about a book as I was about The Arrival … until last week when I read Katherine Applegate’s Home of the Brave. I’m always looking for books that I can read in pairs. Here are two books that just seem to want to hold each other’s hands. (Look: Don’t the two covers also go so well together?!)

A novel written in free verse, Home of the Brave is a poignant story about an African war refugee from Sudan named Kek who arrives in the US in the thick of winter in—of all places—Minnesota. His father and brother have been killed, his mother is missing, and he has lost everything about his life that he has ever known. Welcome to America.

Questions

We drive past buildings
everywhere buildings.
Everywhere cars.
Everywhere dead trees.
Who killed all the trees? I ask.

From a dry, hot land where he was part of a nomadic herding tribe, Kek has arrived in a freezing cold country where he must not only learn a new language, but also make friends and cultivate hope for his future. Usually the optimist, even Kek feels distraught upon his arrival at his new home.

I will be OK, I say,
using my best English words.
Soon I will make snowballs.

I make a big grin
so that my new friend Dave
will not worry.
I wonder if he can tell
it is a pretending smile. …

My aunt glances at Ganwar.
You’ll see, Dave.
Kek finds sun
when the sky is dark.
Ah, says Dave,
an optimist.
I look away.
I cannot find any sun today, I think.

In the course of this tender tale, Kek makes friends—with a neighbor living in foster care, with an old woman who owns a rundown farm, and with an aging cow named Gol (which means “family” in his native language). His relationship with Gol (like The Arrival’s main character’s relationship with his dog-like animal companion) is critical to his sense of belonging—and interestingly, it’s one where language is not important.

Sometimes I talk to her softly.
I tell her of my father’s great herd
and how they would graze each day,
walking for miles,
the sun in our bones,
the grass whispering its shy music.
I sing her one of my father’s songs
and listen for an echo of his voice in mine.
She nuzzles me and flicks her ears
and chews her cud.

When I bury my face in Gol’s old hide
I smell hay and dung and life.
She shelters me like a warm wall,
and that is enough for this day.

Through a combination of touching and humorous vignettes (my favorite being the time when he puts his aunt’s dishes in the “washing machine,” i.e. the laundry!), Applegate allows us to accompany Kek on his journey to find “home.” And, isn’t that something we all want to find?

Once in a while a children’s story comes along that carries you away with lyrical language, an authentic voice, and a story that allows you to make connections much larger than its plot. For me, Home of the Brave did all of the above–and somehow, some more.
More:
Read my interview with Katherine Applegate.