With all the controversy about immigration going on, I thought reading Roya Hakakian’s A Beginner’s Guide to America: For the immigrant and the Curious (2021) might help me understand the contemporary immigrant experience.
Roya Hakakian is an immigrant from Iran. She came to America in 1984 and is now a naturalized citizen. In Part I of her book, Hakakian stresses the importance of learning the language. She stresses the importance of speaking English with native speakers to learn the current slang and word usage.
I shouldn’t have been surprised–but I was–that Hakakian writes about falling in love in America. How sexual experiences will be different from what was “normal” in an immigrant’s former country. She gives some sound advice on being cautious and careful while learning a new set of American behaviors.
Hakakian had me laughing when she wrote about baseball. She claims it’s common for immigrants to be baffled by the sport. On the more serious side, Hakakian says anti-immigrant sentiment (and violence) is growing and precautions must be taken to protect an immigrant’s safety.
It’s clear that Roya Hakakian loves America despite its flaws. She delivers sound advice to newcomers and hopes they will come to love America as much as she does. A Beginner’s Guide to America is an inspiring, heart-felt, and hopeful book. GRADE: A
Table of Contents:
Prologue xiii
Part I
1 Upon Arrival in America the Beautiful 3
First Inspections 4
Stepping Onto the American Street 8
The Road to Your Destination 10
An Exhausted Finale 13
2 Genesis Redux 15
Your First Unplanned Encounter 16
A Mosey in the New Neighborhood 21
Welcome to the Free World’s Wide Web 23
Grocery Shopping 2.0 25
The ABCs of American Peculiarities 28
The Immigrant’s TV Guide 31
3 On Résumé Writing, ESL School, and Other Post-Arrival Drudgeries 34
Your Life on a Page 36
Back to School Again 43
Your American Baptism 44
Two Ways to Conjugate 46
You, Second Edition 51
4 On Public Transportation, Getting Lost, and Other Post-Arrival Tribulations 54
First Transportation Woes 56
Arrival: A Tragedy In Five Acts 61
Viva La Life! Down With Death! 67
Of Heaven and Hell in the American Park 72
Part II
5 Welcome to Selfistan 79
The Birds, The Fish, The Trees, and The Founding Fathers 80
The American: A Tribe of One 84
Where “I” is King 87
The Exception of the American Farewell Now is the American Future 91
The Vices and the Virtues of an American Lover 96
Love’s New Language 101
Your First Romance: A Few Warnings 107
6 The Diaspora: Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Live Without Them 111
The Abridged Catalogue of Belonging 112
The Good in Diaspora 116
To Be or Not To Be: In The Ethnic Enclave 129
The Bad in Diaspora 132
The Immigrant’s Affliction 137
The Ugly in Diaspora 143
The End of Cake 145
And Yet, It Can Be Worse 147
7 The loveable, the Inexplicable, and the Infuriating About America 156
A Strange Brand of Generous 158
On Squirrels and Americans 163
The Thanks You Owe 169
What Not to Learn from Americans 171
The Undoing of America 174
E as in Émigré, as in Excellence 183
8 On Refusing to Move to the Back of the American Bus 186
Anti-Immigrant Vitriol as the Other Apple Pie 189
All Men are Created Equal Except Some Men 192
Give Me Your Poor Vs. Your Fat Cats 195
America’s Dark Future 198
The Most Reliable Gods 201
The Nine Circles of the Vetting Process 204
Your Story, Your Prayer 207
A Covenant in Red, White, and Blue 209
Acknowledgments 215
Sources 217
“For the Immigrant and the Misinformed” – I like that. And judging from the chapter headings (“It Can Get Worse” is one of my constant mantras) it sounds worth reading.
Jeff, I found Roya Hakakian’s guide to be a fascinating look at America through an immigrant’s eyes.
It would be great if everyone had an immigrant’s viewpoint of America. Nowadays it seems too many citizens who claim to love America have no idea what they are talking about, as proved by their actions and rhetoric. **sigh**
Perhaps your review of this book would have been more fitting posted tomorrow — Flag Day.
Jerry, I figured A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO AMERICA would be a good warm-up for FLAG DAY.
Sounds like this would be valuable and enlightening reading for the non-immigrant as well.
Dan, it’s always a good idea to get other perspectives on our country. That’s what’s Biden is doing now at the G-7 summit.
I was born in the USA and for the last five years I’ve felt like an immigrant in a strange new country.
Michael, to quote Bob Dylan: “The Times They Are a-Changin'”. We could blame it on social media that spreads conspiracy theories like wildfire. Or we could blame the unaddressed mental heath crisis in our country. Either way, America feels like a strange new country to most of us.
I’ve only ever been a tourist – have been to the USA over 20 times …
But I had to laugh at the chapter headings – so true!
PS and OT:
Now that we’re both over 75 years old flying and traveling long distance is too hard for us but I still like to read about this – and sometimes younger people ask me for tips what to do and what not to do.
Wolf, I think you would enjoy A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO AMERICA. There’s a lot of truth about America in this book.
Always impressed to see how diverse your reading is. The closest I came to understanding the immigrant experience was the years we spent in the UK and Amsterdam. But we had no language barrier. All the Dutch under sixty spoke English. They gave us a book on Dutch culture and there were a lot of differences but we were in an academic setting which made it easier, I think. Most of Phil’s students at the University of Amsterdam were not Dutch, in fact.
Patti, I was impressed with the UK and Belgium when I went to Europe. However, went I went to France I had a confrontation with a cashier who shouted at me: “I hate Bush!” I just shrugged and replied, “I didn’t vote for him.”
Be been here since I was 11 and a citizen since I was in my early 20s (a long time ago). Because I’m white and have an “American” accent, people often say things about immigrants within my hearing that make my blood boil. Immigrants are grateful for the economic opportunities America provides and, I’m sure for many from more authoritarian regimes, the social freedoms, but there’s an ugly vein of ignorant xenophobia beneath the surface that is easily exploited by politicians for their own advantage.
Deb, many of my best students were immigrants. They were hardworking and grateful for an education that was mostly denied them in their former countries. Scurrilous politicians exploit the Immigration issue to fire up their base. And they feed the xenophobia that never seems to go away. Our Congress needs to “solve” the Immigration crisis that has lingered for decades.
Not sure I need a guide to the country I was born in and in which I have lived for three-quarters of a century.
Rick, it’s always wise to discover what new Americans think of their new homeland.
What Rick said! You are an eclectic reader, though!
Bob, variety is the spice of Life!