Book 1 Post 2

    In my first post, I took the time to explain what America Ferrera’s “American Like Me” was, and why I chose it. Without getting into these themes again, I want to comment upon some passages that stuck and struck me. In post 1, I wrote about Bambadjan Bamba’s story, and where it led me. Continuing where I left off, on page 37, Bamba, an Abidjan-born American-Ivorian immigrant, actor and filmmaker, explains that “becoming the best version of you is hard as hell – and it takes time.” I always strive to be the best version of myself. I’m not a fearful person, but the prospect of not realising my full potential, of wasting my gifts, talents, ambitions, of wasting myself, is horrifying. I once heard David Goggins, whose discipline I admire slightly more than his aggression, illustrate this fear. Imagine you lived a full life, as whatever it is that you were, then died. At your arrival at the gates of heaven, you would be confronted by God. God would present you with a person, someone beautiful in mind, body, and soul, someone who practised what the Greeks would call Eunoia, someone, God would explain, who spread good in the world and inspired others to do just as much, and more. Someone who loved. Someone who lived. It follows that you’d ask who this person is, to which God would respond that this person isn’t you, but is who you could have been. This example is quite funny, absurd even, but it does shine a light on the notion that with intention, and the will to support it, we can become who we want to be, or at least strive towards it. As Bamba put it, “as long as I'm doing that, I'm cool.”

    Later in the book, we meet Randall Park, an American actor, comedian, and writer of Korean descent. Though filled with pride and respect for his parents, Park laments that they “rarely ever shared their personal stories” with him, making them near strangers to him, their son. Park is motivated to change this, and so “strategizes” to take his artistic mother, and reserved father, out to breakfast to interview them for this book. On page 56, Park leaves us with a resonant call to action. To us, readers, he says “collect your own stories from your parents, your grand-parents, your guardians, and your mentors. Then pass those stories down to your kids, your grandkids, and anyone who can really benefit from them.” To me, it matters that Park speaks up about the importance of family, history, and the act of passing things down, from generation to generation. My father’s parents have led fascinating lives. Both were born in “middle of nowhere” France, to poor rural families. In their early youth, they had to leave school and their home due to the outbreak of the second world war, and throughout their lives, worked their way up and overcame countless obstacles, from death and sickness to being drafted into the Algerian War, in order to find a financial stability and comfort I have been lucky to be born into. Unfortunately, these few lines are some of the only things I know about my grandparents’ life before me. They have always been very private, reserved people; I am extremely close to them, but for reasons they have been very secretive about (I suspect it taps into deep rooted trauma, for example developed by my grandfather during his time at war), they avoid any mention of their past(s). Perhaps selfishly, this has always frustrated me, and I have been determined to change this.

    As I grew up and spent more and more time with my grandparents, I noticed that my grandmother not only adored writing, but was gifted at it. For my birthdays, she would compose the most touching little poems, and leave me messages lyrical and subtle, filled to the brim with rhymes, puns, wittiness, connotations, and more linguistic trickeries. When I returned to London this winter, I envisioned something: merging my grandmother’s propensity to write, and do so well, and my ignorance of their lives, I decided to plant a seed and “make an event out of it.” I took my grandmother out for shopping, and on our quaint walk, explained that it had been frustrating to know so little about her life, which I found so interestingly unique. I then presented my idea; she could use her entrancing words to transcribe her life, in an informal memoir of sorts. All she had to do was write in her own way about the moments in her life that she remembers, or wants to remember. Beautifully, most of these moments would include my grandfather, as they’ve been married for more than 60 years! To me, I explained, having a trace, a memory, of what they had been through, across almost a century, was of utmost importance for myself, and for my children, and their children, and their children... On top of it all, this trace would have been drawn up by the hand of my grandmother herself. This wouldn't be a picture of her, or a tale about her. It would be a memory written up, composed, and lyricised, by her, by herself, for herself. As Park indicated, I had to “show her that these stories are important to me”, and so, to my surprise, she reacted positively, just like his parents did. Confronting my grandmother, coming clean and telling her I didn’t really know her or her husband, but wanted to, wasn’t easy. Park explains that “it may feel weird at first”, and it certainly was, but I “saw it through”, and both Park and I know that in the end, “it’ll be worth it.”