"Think of America as a bus" the author concludes.
This book is written by an Immigrant from Iran, so the insights are real. The struggle to learn the new language, to adapt to the form of commerce, this is real. Adjustment is a journey .That may be what the author was getting at when she likened America to a bus. It can take you anyplace you want to go. But only if you wish to travel. There is no free lunch. "No one will inject you into the American story. You must do it yourself"
This is a book people, not just the immigrants, should read. Since America is a melting pot in that we are not mono-ethnic, it will help the nonimmigrant to understand why the immigrant is having trouble with sentence structure and social habits.,
It is not that they don't want to be normal, but that they are filtering events through a filter of their past.
I personally found the chapter, The Diaspora., to be instructive. Hakakian, having settled in the United States in 1989 walks us through the texture of life in a new place with its' complexity, She doesn't just talk about the impact of the immigrant but the Asian, the Black, the alien,
She states that "beautiful landscape does not always make for happy nations. The people who envision just societies and those who work to build them do."
The book is easy to read. It is 216 + pages. It may not be a classic. Not all books have to be. But you can sense she loves her adopted country and would not change it. Well, she wouldn't stay silent either. She seems to believe the answer to our problems we see is a simple devotion to America's founding father's principles. And for her that would include speaking up and letting your voice be heard. Something she couldn't do back in Iran.
This book can be found in a local bookstore and is priced at $27.00. Or maybe your local library will have a copy you can borrow.
