If They Come for Us

I think I will read this over and over. There are so many themes to unpack from gender identity to family to figuring out how you function in your family, religious group, community, city, culture. The personal effect the partition in the 1940's still has on her life and her family. Sense of belonging. Chosen family.

I loved the creativity in the formatting. The crossword puzzles, the Mad Libs. Asghar challenged me to think of the structure of poetry outside of the box of traditional boxes that would never include upside down text, overlapping type, a puzzle. I found it so engaging, so brilliant. A poem can be anything!

The very last poem, the titular “If They Come for Us”, gave me total chills. “my people my people”, repeated. Asghar paints us these moments, little vignettes of recognition and connecting with a stranger. She describes “the muslim man who sips / good whiskey at the start of maghrib”, “a muslim teenager / snapback & high-tops gracing / the subway platform”, and “the lone khala at the park / pairing her kurta with crocs”, among others. She refers to these people she stumbles upon as uncles, aunts, with familiar and familial tenderness, although it is implied that she doesn’t know them. These people are of various different religions, genders, and ages, but she sees herself in them. It is an especially beautiful prideful acknowledgement after we, the reader, have been taken through some of what it can mean to live in a country where you are othered and targeted and perceived as dangerous, a land that “mispronounces [Asghar's] grief”. The whole collection of poems feels steeped in intergenerational trauma. But there are so many directions I could spring right now and I want to try to stay focused on this one poem for a second. I loved this last poem. To me it gave a beautiful conclusion to a collection that started from the dedication: “for my family: blood & not”.

The last few lines:

my people my people

the long years we’ve survived the long

years yet to come I see you map

my sky the light your lantern long

ahead & I follow I follow

The repetition, the rhythm, is so comforting. It feels like such a beautiful celebration

of survival and collective healing. What a beautiful and incredibly hopeful note to end on.

This poem resonated with me on a personal level because I have moments similar all the time in my own life relating to my religious identity. Whenever I see Jewish people I sort of smile to myself. It’s funny because I tried to explain this to my mom, who is also Jewish, assuming she would know the feelings, and she had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to explain to her that like, when I see someone with a kippah on in the park, or an orthodox woman with her long skirt and hair covered on the subway, I sort of send them a mental hello. I’m like oh, yes! We’re the same. We’re so different, but we’re the same. I feel like maybe it’s part of being in a diaspora or having an identity that is somewhat marginalized that makes this recognition special. But my mom has not experienced this! Maybe it’s a generational thing. Regardless, reading this poem I sort of had an “Oh my gosh! I know this feeling” moment. Although, of course, I don’t mean to say my experience is the same exact thing as Asghar’s. I don’t know if I’m explaining it right.

I also grew up right outside of New York City, and while I was too young to quite remember 9/11, it still feels somehow etched into my memory, probably just from years and years of talk and mourning and anxiety. All this to say, I so appreciated how Asghar gave us little windows into her formative years that are so distinctly of a place and a moment. It is so clear that this event also greatly impacted her, and caused people to see her as even more of an other. She writes “The towers fell two weeks ago & I can’t say blow out loud or everyone will hate me” (54). In another poem she writes, “you’re american until the towers fall” (9). I think this book should be taught in every middle school. I am so happy that it exists, just imagining how many people see themselves in these poems and how many people read Asghar’s words and take pause.