Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American Hardcover – January 25, 2022 by Wajahat Ali

Description

Author: Ali Wajahat

Package Dimensions: 0x0x788

Number Of Pages: 272

Release Date: 25-01-2022

Details: Product Description

“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.

Review

“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

About the Author

Wajahat Ali is a
New York Times contributing op-ed writer, public speaker, recovering attorney, and tired dad of two cute kids. His work has appeared in
Atlantic,
Washington Post,
Guardian, and
?New York Review of Books. He lives in the Washington, DC, area.