Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American

by Wajahat Ali

Overview

“Go back to where you came from, you terrorist!”

This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half-century ago?

Growing up living the suburban American dream, young Wajahat devoured comic books (devoid of brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned advice from uncles and aunties. (“Become a doctor!”) He had turmeric stains under his fingernails, was accident-prone, suffered from OCD, and wore Husky pants, but he was as American as his neighbors, with roots all over the world. Then, while Ali was studying at University of California, Berkeley, 9/11 happened. Muslims replaced communists as America’s enemy #1, and he became an accidental spokesman and ambassador of all ordinary, unthreatening things Muslim-y.

Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has become one of the foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Back to Where You Came From, he tackles the dangers of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering personal stories with astute insights into national security, immigration, and pop culture. In this refreshingly bold, hopeful, and uproarious memoir, Ali offers indispensable lessons for cultivating a more compassionate, inclusive, and delicious America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393867978
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/25/2022
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Wajahat Ali is a New York Times-contributing writer, recovering attorney, and tired dad. His work has appeared in the Atlantic, New York Review of Books, and other outlets. He lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Create Your Own Superhero Origin Story 15

Chapter 2 Say Hello to America's Oldest Friend 52

Chapter 3 Do Something Useful 60

Chapter 4 Be Moderate So America Will (Maybe) Love You (Conditionally) One Day (Inshallah) 81

Chapter 5 Die Hard in Amreeka 115

Chapter 6 Avoid Jail 129

Chapter 7 Become a Domestic Crusader 162

Chapter 8 Die Hard 2: Die Harder in Amreeka 181

Chapter 9 Elect a Muslim President, but Beware of Economic Anxiety 200

Chapter 10 Invest in Hope, but Tie Your Camel First 218

Acknowledgments 233

Notes for the Fellow Nerds 241

Editorial Reviews

"A hilarious and heartwarming treatise on what it truly means to be American in the twenty-first century. You’ll be laughing so hard you won’t even notice the inevitable Islamic takeover of America! Oops, I’ve said too much."

Reza Aslan

2021-10-02
A Pakistani American journalist, playwright, and activist uses his personal history as a tool to analyze how America’s relationship with Muslims, immigrants, and people of color has developed since the 1980s.

Born to Pakistani parents, Ali grew up in a loving, multigenerational Muslim home in the Bay Area. The author’s idyllic life abruptly shifted when he was in college because of two earth-shattering events. The first was 9/11, which instantly transformed him into “an accidental activist, a global representative of 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide and a walking Wikipedia of 1,400 years of all things Islam.” During this time, Ali and his fellow Muslim Student Association board members organized a series of events designed to combat Islamophobia on campus—events that, unwittingly, kick-started Ali’s career in media. Soon after, Ali’s family suffered a more personal tragedy when his parents were incarcerated for their alleged role in a wire and mail fraud scheme—though they “had nothing to do with the piracy ring itself.” Ali credits the following two decades of struggle for his family’s politicization and his eventual career as a successful playwright and essayist focused on writing a new story for his unfairly maligned community. The author’s views on racism and Islamophobia are deeply researched, nuanced, and clear, and he is adept at weaving these ideas into his life story organically and without pretense. His conversational voice renders even the most complex concepts a pleasure to read. The only exception is the set of chapters on his family’s incarceration. Tonally, these read quite differently than the rest of the book, perhaps due to the highly emotional nature of the material. While Ali structures the chapters as a series of tips about how to be American, what truly unifies his story is his vulnerability in sharing some of the most intimate and painful moments of his life.

A Pakistani American memoir that shines with passion, intelligence, and humor.

Kirkus Reviews

"Wajahat Ali’s deeply personal and keenly perceptive memoir is a clear-eyed account of his American immigrant experience.… We are all fortunate to be on the receiving end of not only his intellect, but his humanity and heart."— Katie Couric, Emmy Award-winning journalist

"This is the book I’ve been hoping Wajahat Ali would write for ten years—hilarious, stylistically fearless, deeply humane."— Dave Eggers, author of The Every

"Wajahat Ali has already proven that he is the fastest mind on TV. Now his fans can sample his brilliance on the page."— Ishmael Reed, author of The Terrible Fours

"This book is a tour de force—equal parts tragedy and laugh-out-loud comedy. With brazen wit, rigorous analysis, and searing insight, Wajahat Ali speaks to the first-generation American’s dilemma of being both ‘us’ and ‘them.’"— Suleika Jaouad, author of Between Two Kingdoms

"A hilarious and heartwarming treatise on what it truly means to be American in the twenty-first century. You’ll be laughing so hard you won’t even notice the inevitable Islamic takeover of America! Oops, I’ve said too much."— Reza Aslan, author of God: A Human History

"Wajahat Ali brilliantly and lovingly unpacks the complicated history and urgent lived experience of being otherized in America.… [A] rich feast for all the senses—a must-read."— S. E. Cupp, author of Losing Our Religion

"This powerful and moving book is, at its heart, a love story. The beloved, flawed and tragic—so flawed, so tragic—is America. The lover's hope is always undermined. And yet his hope somehow endures."— Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West

"Find a place on your bookshelf between Mark Twain and James Baldwin. Read this book before putting it there."— Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny

"With wit and charm, Ali has delivered a masterful meditation on growing up brown in America...An intoxicating rejection of cynicism in the face of existential threats to multiracial democracy, and a clear-eyed call to arms against the forces seeking to stop the expansion of American democracy. An affirmation of the country America could be."— Mara Gay, editorial board New York Times

"In prose at times hilarious and at other times deeply moving, Wajahat Ali chronicles a uniquely American experience. All will benefit from reading his story."— Representative Ilhan Omar

"Full of wisdom and compassion, not to mention Ali’s signature humor. As educational as it is entertaining. I wish my nine-year-old immigrant self had this book when the playground kids were telling me to go back where I came from."— Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends

"A tender knife-sharp analysis of racism…personal, painful, familial, and global."— Juan Felipe Herrera, United States Poet Laureate Emeritus

From the Publisher