A review by keight
When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir of a Political Childhood by Said Sayrafiezadeh

4.0

"A memoir of a political childhood," Saïd Sayrafiezadeh writes of growing up as a child of an Iranian father and a Jewish mother who are members of the Socialist Worker’s Party. His parents separated when he was very young, so for most of his early years, his father was absent fighting for the revolution, while he stayed with his mother attending party meetings and selling The Militant on street corners. It's an intriguing look at how political ideology can be confusing to a child, as when Sayrafiezadeh doesn't understand why he can't eat grapes during the 1965 boycott in support of striking workers. Eventually his mother relents, to a degree, by encouraging her son to eat them in the produce aisle, since stealing from a capitalist system seemed enough of a form of revolt to her. Read more on my booklog