If They Come for Us- Thinking about Duality

First of all, WOWOWOWOW.

Reading this collection of poetry has been an emotional whirlwind.
Fatimah Asghar is SO GOOD at capturing small tender moments, at softly and gently revealing violent and uncomfortable truths. My heart broke a few times over, and the entire reading process felt like a real life journey. I think I've cried more in the past week than I have in the past year. I feel like I have aged.

One of the undercurrents of this book that resonated very deeply with me was the way she encompassed duality, and the complex ways we deal with it as Americans - and descendants of migrants.

Duality is something I ponder a lot. Being a person of color in America means you are constantly switching between worlds, you are a whole being composed of so many different people. As a biracial girl I find myself always trying to fit into different worlds, yet never completely filling the profile. Always code switching between countries, between family gatherings, being at home vs. at school. Never American enough, Caribbean enough, black enough, jewish enough, Burqueña enough, between breakfast and dinner I've been 4 different versions of myself.

I find myself continuously being surprised that this reality is not unique to me. As we are all products of migration, invasion, rape, we all have many facets. We all face dualism. Feelings of not belonging are universal, and this is what makes us all so similar.

Partition (1): "you're safe until you're alone. you're American until the towers fall. until there's a border on your back."

When the orders came: "I think I believe in freedom I just don't know where it is. I think I believe in home, I just don't know where to look.

Old Country: "here we learned how to be American & say:
we got the money
we're here to stay

Fatimah explores the duality of gender identity and expression in Boy and Other Body