“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark”
Five writers on immigrant experiences
By Sarah Goldenthal and Giulia Galvani
Introduction
This blog post will provide examples of immigration and the themes of immigration explored among different works by mainly Black female immigrants and the children of immigrants. Choosing this topic was important to our group because of the experiences of one member as an international student, as well as the interest of both students on this topic.
Immigration is an important issue today as a result of its constant presence in debates and in news sources. These ideas will be explored throughout this blog through the observation of various poems and works, including two readings from class: “Conversations About Home’’ by Warsan Shire and the James Baldwin interview, and a few written and spoken works by other authors: Landan Osman, Safia Elhillo, and Lenelle Moïse.
Through an analysis of the inclusion of immigration themes in these works, we aim to create a better understanding of these experiences and how they are portrayed in literature. People do not think or reflect enough on these issues until they become aware of these horrible things. Sometimes they are arrogant or ignorant because they don’t know anything about what immigrants had to go through. For this reason, these testimonies are crucial to increase people’s awareness. We believe these poets were brave to be the voices of such an important and delicate topic, and we believe in the importance of continuing to share their words.
Warsan Shire’s Conversations About Home
In Conversations About Home, Warsan Shire addresses the theme of leaving home with the fears and concerns that this action provokes. Warsan Shire was born in 1988 in Kenya to Somali parents. She grew up in London, where she still lives. Shire, in writing this poem, was inspired by a visit she made to the abandoned Somali Embassy in Rome, which some young refugees had turned into their home. She writes “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark,” and “I hear them say, go home, I hear them say, fucking immigrants, fucking refugees. Are they really this arrogant?” Unfortunately, there are many instances of people saying those unforgivable words. These “arrogant” people do not understand what it means to leave home, and do not understand that you only leave home for good if it is really the “mouth of a shark.” Only if it is unlivable. One of Shire’s objectives in writing this poem was to make people aware of this problem and to make them think before they speak. This also makes us reflect deeply on the true meaning of the word “home” and how many times we take it for granted.
James Baldwin Interview and Letter
In an interview, James Baldwin explained that he had moved to Paris with only forty dollars but at least knowing that nothing worse could happen to him there than had already happened at home.
In his letter, James Baldwin writes to his young nephew about the Black experience in America. He warns him of what to expect growing up Black in America, and how he will be seen by others in this country.
“Well, you were born; here you came, something like fifteen years ago, and though your father and mother and grandmother, looking about the streets through which they were carrying you, staring at the walls into which they brought you, had every reason to be heavy-hearted, yet they were not, for here you were, big James, named for me.”
…
“You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason.”
This letter emphasizes Baldwin’s own experiences, and he uses these to provide advice in an attempt to create a better life for his nephew. This can be related to the experience of some immigrants in America. While they left their country for a new life, the world they found may not have been what they expected or hoped for.
Landan Osman’ s Silhouette
In the poem Silhouette, the Somali-born poet and essayist Landan Osman writes about her experience in attending a reading by Claudia Rankine in 2011 in Chicago. Osman’s writing is a response to problems of race, gender, and immigration.
I don’t belong, the luxury of thinking,
the wealth of talking about thought,
privilege of ease among important people.
I am afraid of them, their smell,
their cotton, their expensive running shoes
In one interview, Osman admitted that during the reading she felt out of place, as a black woman, as someone not affiliated with any institution. In this part of the poem, it is clear what she felt at that moment. After the reading, she had a conversation with Rankine about shame. Rankine told her there is no place for shame. These few words helped Osman to expel the sense of degradation that she usually has in these kinds of situations.
What will it matter to them if I make a book?
I am one poet. Isn’t there space for me?
Again, this feeling of not being enough and being uncomfortable is something many immigrants may have when they first arrive in a new country. In the poem, she examines how imagination around female ability is limited, and how in many spaces women are so often denied automatically. In the interview, she discusses the role of writing and how it is a way of problem-solving for her since it gives her a kind of control that she does not typically have.
Safia Elhillo
Safia Elhillo is a Sudanese American author, and many of her poems are related to immigration and her homeland.
Alien Suite
This video contains a meditation on home and identity by spoken word poet Safia Elhillo. In the poem, Elhillo discusses the way that being an immigrant changed the way she was viewed both in Sudan and in America.
Elhillo ends this poem by stating:
“A soldier stopped the car
asked for ID
held the stiff navy blue [passport] marked Maryland USA
asked where I was from
laughed when I said here”
This ending shows how difficult it can be for immigrants to feel as though they belong and to be accepted by the culture they were born into and the one they immigrated to. Additionally, the poem shows the struggles that Elhillo faced in figuring out who she was and who others wanted her to be.
Application for Asylum
The protagonists of Application for Asylum are refugees, who are among the world’s most vulnerable group of people.
how did you learn fear?
i crossed a body of water
how did you learn fear?
i grew a new american body it was the summer [ ] died
…
where do you live?
[ ] died teenaged & his brother died too they were moonfaced & dark
where do you live?
we came here to be safe we crossed a body of water
where did you hide?
[ ] was killed in the summer in the country we asked to keep us
Many refugees flee their countries because they became a place where it is not possible to live anymore. Many refugees risk their lives every day to travel to a country where they don’t know whether they will be accepted. “You get to be homesick,” Elhillo said during a conference. “Refugees do not.” Many refuges recall their old lives as overcome with unimaginable horrors. Many have to face terrible journeys on uncomfortable boats where they don’t eat or drink for days. Some of them witness the death of their friends or family members during the journey, before arriving in a country where they are not wanted.
Lenelle Moïse
the children of immigrants
In “the children of immigrants,” Lenelle Moïse, a poet born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, discusses her own and her family’s experiences as an immigrant and emphasizes the way she felt growing up in America as the child of immigrants. She uses this platform to help others understand the struggles she went through, and how those around her at the time were the cause of some of her struggles.
“At home, I am a bridge, a cultural interpreter, a spokesperson, a trusted ally, an American who is Haitian too, but also definitely American.”
…
“In Haiti, they were middle class. Hopeful teachers. Home owners. They were black like their live-in servants. They donated clothes to the poor. They gave up everything they knew to inherit American dreams. And here, they join factory lines, wipe shit from mean old white men’s behinds, scrub five-star hotel toilets for dimes above minimum wage.”
mud mothers
“Mud mothers,” another poem by Lenelle Moïse, puts into words the experiences that led to her emigration from Haiti, as well as emphasizing the question of what “freedom” really is.
…
and we sigh
to remember
that food
and freedom
are not free
is haiti really free
if our babies die starving?
if we cannot write our names
read our rights keep
our leaders in their seats?
can we be free? Really?
if our mothers are mud? if dead
columbus keeps cursing us
and nothing changes
when we curse back
…
