The good immigrant is a
collection of essays crowdfunded into this book. The first impression was “I
didn’t know the Chinese felt alienated” aren’t they called the model minority?
Successful, assimilated, and a series of similar snapshots framing people yet book
stories are more than modelling and stereotypes. Its candid glances into personal
life, intimate and oozing with dreams and vulnerabilities. The book reflects
experiences of immigrants with diverse background thus give you a flavour of
all aspects of how minorities perceive themselves.
The book reflects the views of
second generation media, publishing and performance art professionals and does
not include the wider society. It concerns itself with politics and an
intellectual version of identity. The truth is the UK has a long history of
welcoming people from across the globe. Some of them arrived here fearing their
lives and were granted stay and the welfare state held their hand to help stand
on their feet. The whole picture is complex, paradoxical and
wholly indeterminist galvanised by actions and reactions involving cultures,
individuals, differences, institutions, businesses, weather, geography, housing
and a list that I am not going to fit here. The sentiment of settlers varied depending
on quality of life that relates to their education, interest in culture and
enthusiasm in confronting their prejudices. A German study looking at immigrant
over long term of 30 years shows that people who are enthusiastic about their
new country were happier at native country than those who found immigration
difficult. To reduce this to a monotone shrill is a disservice for those who
have been accommodated, who have found love and acceptance.
The
book would have greatly benefited from three further stories. The first two of
immigrants who is first generation and dealing with a whole new range of
challenges trying to find their way in bureaucracy and highly organised society
with its set of invisible obstacles. Another one a tale of none media
professional, an immigrant concerned with issues that are pigment blind that
affect each of us and are not born of identity and taste.
Third would be an account of a White author on
their experience of dealing with key real-life relationships with non-Whites
when they were forced to dismantle and confront their stereotypes or when
creating a non-White character or milieu, their need to exoticise and the
private conflicts they face doing so. The second hand experiences they hold on
minorities, their strength and roots.
In
this era of cultural hype and the rejuvenated politics of identity I tend to
incline toward a post racial outlook where issues that are real become a topic
of identity. Mainstream media is prone to hijacking by intellectual political
discourse hence removed from reality. The most prominent example is the mainstream
media that is concerned with experts and intellectuals of certain type and had peeled
from reality the backlash of which is the right wing or populism response. This
is a mainstream book by non-whites who are the product of mainstream white
culture.
