The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

★★★★★

I saw a trailer for the upcoming movie, and though I'm not a huge fan of romance movies, I love Yara Shahidi, and I LOVE that the story is about a mixed race couple with an Asian male lead! As soon as I realized the movie was based on a book, I wanted to make sure I read the book before seeing the movie.

The Sun is Also a Star is a love story in one day à la Before Sunrise, but set in New York City against a backdrop of immigration. Natasha is Jamaican, an undocumented immigrant on the verge of being deported, and Daniel is Korean-American, with first-generation immigrant parents. Their lives and experiences as an immigrant and a child of immigrants very much shape who they are and how they think.

I am the first to roll my eyes at cliché love-at-first-sight romance, but the author meets the challenge head-on: Natasha herself is an intelligent, practical, science-oriented person who doesn't much believe in love, let alone "instalove". Daniel, on the other hand, is a romantic, a perfect foil for Natasha's skepticism. As they get to know each other, they banter back and forth about science and philosophy in a way that is thoughtful, not shallow or pretentious, which is how such conversations frequently come across. I like, too, how each person is confident in their own beliefs, yet willing to listen to the other person's ideas.

It's a quick read, with very short chapters that mostly alternate between Daniel and Natasha narrating the story from first-person perspectives. I particularly enjoyed the storytelling angle that involved additional chapters written with a third-person omniscient point of view. As the events between Daniel and Natasha unfolded, sometimes a brief chapter of explanation would pop up; for example, if the story touched upon Natasha's afro, we might get a quick history of black hair, to give more context to the situation. I know it sounds weird, or didactic, but really I found these interludes light and informative and relevant to the story.

Also, sometimes there were chapters thrown in to give a glimpse of the life of a person Natasha or Daniel interacted with, even if tangentially. These chapters I found kind of intriguing. First, they are used in a way to push the idea of fate. Are coincidences really just coincidences, or is the universe contriving to make something happen? Does fate ensure that if you have a missed opportunity at one point, then another opportunity will present itself later? Second, they seem to illustrate a commonly held idea that "everyone has a secret struggle that you don't know about." Personally, while I think that's true for a lot of people - maybe even most people - surely there must be some people out there who are content and not internally conflicted on any given day? But almost all the chapters about other people described complex personal situations that were overall sad and depressing, like, yes, every person does have something difficult to deal with. Taken together, it was like the book was saying that even though I wished for a happy ending for Natasha and Daniel, there really is no "happily ever after" because you don't know how things might change later.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and was surprised by its balance between being a romantic jaunt in young people's lives and its ability to put forth thoughtful ideas. I am a little suspicious that the movie will drop most of the secondary characters to focus on Natasha and Daniel, and I understand why they would do that, but I think a lot will be lost, and I expect I will end up thinking the book is better than the movie (as usual).

We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World by Malala Yousafzai

★★★★

Malala Yousafzai is not a refugee, but she knows what it's like to be forced to leave everything behind in your home country, and to start a new life in a foreign country. She writes, "Truth be told, I don't want to keep telling my story...but...if by telling my story I can take the light people shine on me and reflect it onto others, well, that is what I will do." (p. 47)

The first part of this book is a memoir in which Malala describes being an internally displaced person (IDP) in Pakistan, and how her family relocated to the UK after she was shot by the Taliban at age 15. If you've read her autobiography (original or young readers edition), you'll already be familiar with these events, which she relates in broad strokes.

In the second part of this book, we meet nine girls/women who are refugees. (There is also a chapter written by an American woman whose family served as a volunteer host family for refugees.) Each story is prefaced with a brief introduction in which Malala tells us how she came to meet this person. Each refugee then narrates her own story, taking us from her life in her home country, through the events that led to having to flee, and in most cases, ending in how she came to re-settle in her new home.

The only reason I gave this book fewer than 5 stars is because I frequently found myself wanting to read more about each narrator. I can imagine how difficult it must have been for each contributor to tell the world their personal stories, and I appreciate their openness, bravery, and generosity in sharing their experiences. Yet, many of the stories left me with even more questions, and ended just as the person reached a point of relative stability; I wanted to know more about what happened next, and how they felt adjusting to new surroundings. Understandably, their lives are still unfolding, and we do get a glimpse of how each person is doing in a section at the back of the book titled "About the Contributors".

If you follow the news at all, you've probably heard about refugees from one place or another. This book provides a solid breadth of stories from major refugee crises in recent times. Sadly, there are many. These stories are important reminders that when we hear about "refugees" on the news, they aren't criminals, they aren't animals, they are human beings, individuals who are seeking safety first, and opportunity second.

The following is a list of contributors and a brief description of their paths. Not all stories are told to the same extent; the most in-depth stories came from Zaynab and Marie Claire, both of whose stories were supplemented by another person's perspective.

1. Zaynab: From Yemen. Fled to Egypt to escape the violence of the Yemeni Revolution. Arrived in Minnesota at age 18 on a valid U.S. visa.


2. Sabreen: Zaynab's sister. Fled to Egypt with Zaynab, but inexplicably did not get approved for a U.S. visa. At age 16, she paid to go to Italy, not understanding how dangerous the trip was. She spent time in a refugee camp in Holland, and ended up in Belgium.


3. Muzoon: From Syria. At age 13, fled to Jordan with her family, living in refugee camps, to escape the violence of the Syrian Civil War.


4. Najla: A member of the religious minority Yazidi population in Iraq, targeted for genocide by ISIS. Forced to flee as an internally displaced person.


5. María: At age 4, violence from the Colombian conflict (now on-going for more than 50 years) forced her family to flee their original home and live as internally displaced people in Colombia.


6. Analisa: From Guatemala. At age 15, she was living with an oppressive half-brother and a step-mother who was unable to care for her. Another half-brother, living in the U.S., offered to take her in. She made the journey through Mexico alone, but with other migrants and refugees. In Texas, she was held by immigration officials until her half-brother was able to secure her release.


7. Marie Claire: From the Congo. Spent the first four years of life living on the run from the violence of civil war. Fled to Zambia, where her family was attacked for being refugees. After an application process that spanned years, her family was approved to re-locate as refugees in Pennsylvania.


8. Ajida: A member of the minority Muslim Rohingya population in Myanmar, persecuted by the Burmese military, who have been accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Fled to Bangladesh, where she lives in a refugee camp with her husband and children.


9. Farah: Born in Uganda, but ethnically Indian. At age 2, Ugandan citizenship was revoked from Asian Ugandans, and her family was forced to leave the country. She grew up in Canada, and as an adult, decided to explore her Ugandan roots.

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

★★★★

If your idea of talking about race involves statements like:

• "I don't see color, I see people." (p. 39)


• "I have lots of friends of color." (p. 43)


• "I judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin." (p. 43)

...then this book is for you. But also, if you are a white person who already sees how the above statements are problematic, then this book is still for you.

The author herself is white, and she explains early on that when she says "we", she means "white people". The book is very much geared towards white people, and she challenges her readers to truly do the really hard work of closely examining both the role of white people in society and institutions in general, and also how being white has shaped the reader's personal individual identity, even if sub-consciously.

DiAngelo pulls no punches. It's easy to see how a white reader might frequently feel uncomfortable, defensive, or even insulted. In her analysis of white fragility, she scrutinizes concepts such as white supremacy, white privilege, and white solidarity. She drops a lot of truths:

• "The simplistic idea that racism is limited to individual intentional acts committed by unkind people is at the root of virtually all white defensiveness on this topic. To move beyond defensiveness, we have to let go of this common belief." (p. 73)


• "If you believe that you are being told that you are a bad person, all your energy is likely to go toward denying this possibility and invalidating the messenger rather than trying to understand why what you've said or done is hurtful." (p. 76)


• "[White people] often organize our identity around a denial of our racially based privileges that reinforce racist disadvantages for others. What is particularly problematic about this contradiction is that white people's moral objection to racism increases their resistance to acknowledging their complicity with it." (p. 108)


• "White equilibrium is a cocoon of racial comfort, centrality, superiority, entitlement, racial apathy, and obviousness, all rooted in an identity of being good people free of racism." (p. 112)

The goal is for the reader to understand that "[w]hen we move beyond the good/bad binary [of racism], we can become eager to identify our racist patterns because interrupting those patterns becomes more important than managing how we think we look to others." (p. 129)

This book is full of eye-opening perspectives, but I rated it short of 5 stars because it might not be universally accessible. A reader must first and foremost be open to the ideas expressed in these pages. Beyond that, some of the content is more academic than conversational, and I personally found the information most approachable and relatable when DiAngelo illustrated ideas using actual examples from her personal life, experiences she witnessed in her workshops and classes, and current events.

If any of the above quotes make you feel uneasy - if you are already feeling a bit of white fragility! - then perhaps it's best to ease yourself into the study of whiteness by starting with an introduction to white fragility by reading an article about Robin DiAngelo coining the phrase:

https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/03/18/in-these-times-of-racial-strife-a-white-professor-explores-the-prevalence-of-white-fragility/

...and then watching a video of her speaking in an actual workshop:

https://youtu.be/Dv-pkNXcKsw

...and then picking up this book to get the full in-depth exploration.

As a person of color, I found this book useful as a way to help me better understand the patterned behaviors of many white people, which will hopefully allow me to have more productive conversations about race. I appreciated DiAngelo's statement that it "is white people's responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don't need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible." (p. 152) Moreover, for those of us who choose to engage in discussions about race, it may be helpful to "let go of changing the other person. If someone gains insight from what I share, that is wonderful... In the end, my actions are driven by my own need for integrity, not a need to correct or change someone else." (p. 151)

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas

★★★★★

This book is for every American who is willing to more deeply explore the issue of immigration in America.

Jose Antonio Vargas, born in the Philippines, was 12 years old in 1993 when his mother put him on a plane with a stranger and sent him to America. He did not know he was an "undocumented immigrant" until he was in high school. His grandparents expected him to work under-the-table jobs until he could marry a U.S. citizen, not knowing the impossibility of this plan due to Vargas being gay (and gay marriage not yet being legal in the United States). He was already a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist when he "came out" as undocumented in an essay published in The New York Times Magazine. This book is mostly a memoir of experiences and relationships framed in the context of Vargas's immigration status. As the book progresses, it dives deeper into the history, policies, facts, and data related to immigration. But in the end, the book isn't so much about "the immigration issue" as it is about Vargas's own personal struggle to live as an undocumented immigrant. His entire life has been a conscious conflict of questioning himself, his identity, the country he calls home, the meaning of citizenship. Even as he built a successful career and paid taxes, he lived with a constant fear of being found out. Ultimately, this book reminds you that each undocumented immigrant in the news is a person. Jose Antonio Vargas is a person. This book is about the humanity of how the state of immigration policies in America affects real people.

Of course, any discussion of immigration inevitably involves race and nationalism. Vargas talks about how Asians and Latinos and Native Americans are left out of the black versus white binary that is most dominant in discussions of race in America, but also how he was influenced by black writers. He writes, "Black writers gave me permission to question America. Black writers challenged me to find my place here and created a space for me to claim." (p. 78) He examines the "master narrative" - a concept he learned from Toni Morrison - and how "[w]hen white people move [across countries]...it's seen as courageous and necessary, celebrated in history books. Yet when people of color move, legally or illegally, the migration itself is subjected to question of legality." (p. 140-141). Even his name is evidence of that narrative: "After the Americans forced the Spanish out of the Philippines, their typewriters couldn't type accented vowels. My name is Jose because of Spanish colonialism. But Jose isn't José because of American imperialism." (p. 224)

The entire book was a compelling read, but what I found particularly fascinating was his account of how his life changed after he was thrown into the spotlight because of his "coming out" article. Specifically, while it was not surprising that he received a lot of hate from those on the right of the political spectrum, I did not expect him to receive so much backlash from those on the left as well, who accused him of all kinds of ulterior motives and self-serving interests.

In closing, I'll give a shout-out to the podcast They Call Us Bruce and the episode in which they talk with Jose Antonio Vargas about this book. Though I had heard of Vargas and had put this book on my to-read list, hearing this podcast really piqued my interest and made me push the book to the top of my list. If you're on the fence about whether or not to read Dear America, give the podcast a listen at http://theycallusbruce.libsyn.com/episode-49-they-call-us-jose-antonio-vargas.

Time Roundup

Old-fashioned sci-fi with Christian undertones. Ultimately about love and belonging and the power of goodness.

• A Wrinkle in Time (#1) ★★★
• A Wind in the Door (#2) ★★★½

Patina (Track #2) by Jason Reynolds

★★★

Patina picks up right where Ghost left off. We find out how the first track meet went, only now events are told from Patty's point of view.

Patty and her family have experienced more hardships than any family should have to face, particularly in so short a span of time. Patty puts on a strong front, taking it upon herself to look out for her younger sister while also doing right by her mother and keeping her own life in order. It's a lot for a kid, and I'm not sure if it was in the writing or the character, but Patty showed a lot more maturity than I would expect from a middle schooler; I kept having to remind myself that she wasn't a high schooler.

The book takes place over the course of a week, but the first few chapters spend a lot of time laying down the backstory of how Patty and her sister came to live with their aunt and uncle. It's a lot of character development as Patty goes to school and interacts with classmates while learning about Frida Kahlo, and as she goes to track practice and interacts with teammates while learning to pass the relay baton. There isn't a lot if action at first, but things start to pick up towards the end of the week.

Patty is confident and self-aware as she takes on each new day, gradually peeling back the layers of the people around her and making sense of things. She's a great character for young readers to get to know, especially if you're on the lookout for a black female protagonist in realistic children's fiction.