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A review by lesbrary
Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan
4.0
Zara Hossain is Here surprised me. This is a short book, and it's written in a way that feels pared down to the essentials. When the story begins, Zara is experiencing Islamophobic harassment from the star football player at school, but she has a strong network and friends and family that supports her. This harassment escalates, though, and it takes the story in a darker and more complicated direction than I was expecting.
I appreciated the complexity that this story brought to the subject of immigration. It discusses the wait time and challenges to completing the application process, but also the luck involved. This chance encounter could erase all her family's years of being ideal citizens, including her father's work as a beloved pediatrician. An author's note explains the author's own family's immigration process was derailed by a clerical error, making all of their work null and void. Added to that is the layer of Zara's family wondering: is this worth it? Do I want to be in a country where so many people don't want me here? Even if most of the people they encounter are supportive, it just takes one armed racist or one well-connected bigot to dismantle their lives.
This is a book that doesn't provide any easy answers. It acknowledges that these are thorny, deeply flawed choices to have to make. Zara wants to stay and fight to make things better, but her mother is tired of fighting--and both of those are fair. This is a great addition to books that start conversations about immigration in the U.S., with the added layer of being an out queer immigrant from a country that is not accepting of queer people. I highly recommend it.
Full review at the Lesbrary.
I appreciated the complexity that this story brought to the subject of immigration. It discusses the wait time and challenges to completing the application process, but also the luck involved. This chance encounter could erase all her family's years of being ideal citizens, including her father's work as a beloved pediatrician. An author's note explains the author's own family's immigration process was derailed by a clerical error, making all of their work null and void. Added to that is the layer of Zara's family wondering: is this worth it? Do I want to be in a country where so many people don't want me here? Even if most of the people they encounter are supportive, it just takes one armed racist or one well-connected bigot to dismantle their lives.
This is a book that doesn't provide any easy answers. It acknowledges that these are thorny, deeply flawed choices to have to make. Zara wants to stay and fight to make things better, but her mother is tired of fighting--and both of those are fair. This is a great addition to books that start conversations about immigration in the U.S., with the added layer of being an out queer immigrant from a country that is not accepting of queer people. I highly recommend it.
Full review at the Lesbrary.