Wajahat Ali on How to Become an American when America Doesn’t Seem to Want You
“I believe America is simultaneously a riotous comedy and a heartbreaking tragedy,” writes Wajahat Ali in his new memoir “Go Back to Where You Came From.” With humor, Ali recounts a Bay Area childhood growing up as the shy, pop culture-loving, Husky jeans-wearing only son of Pakistani immigrants. Although the community around him made clear the only acceptable careers for him were doctor, engineer, or successful businessman (the only other option was being “a failure”), Ali found a career as a writer, and it was art that saved Ali when his family’s lives were blown apart by scandal. In this…
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