Is it my job to present my child with opportunities to learn about his or her identity? What is identity? Is it different from one’s “self”? Could my child really have an identity that is different from mine? How could I support my child in achieving true self-knowledge? These are interesting questions to ponder, and I took away the author’s perspectives, from the beautifully written “Shine, Coconut Moon”. I enjoyed it thoroughly and would recommend it to parents of immigrant children in America regardless of where they are from originally, and also to older (9th grade and older) first generation American teenagers. Some of the very enjoyable culture-specific explorations into immigrant culture are very South Asian, such as worship in a Sikh Gurdwara, and a teenager’s first experience of her family’s Sikh roots. And the title of the book itself is a very South Asian metaphor. Neesha Meminger’s perspective was valuable learning for me, because these are experiences I cannot ever have myself. When I moved to America, I was an adult, unlike Meminger’s teenaged “Samar”, who is born and raised here. Samar’s perspectives help me see things through my child’s eyes.
Samar, a seventeen-year-old girl born and raised in America by her single mother, stumbles into her journey towards discovering her identity. Questions that lay dormant in her until the surprise visit of her estranged uncle Sandeep, cannot be ignored anymore.
One usually hears about these challenges faced by children of “desi” immigrants in America, as imagined by adult minds; minds that have come up with the pejorative term “ABCD” or “America Born Confused Desi”, for such children. This book certainly helps highlight the fact, that sometimes, the parent of the so-called ABCD child is far more confused than the ABCD child herself. These parents’ ideas, of what their children really need support with, to face their unique journey through life in America, are not necessarily accurate. The adults’ minds might be limited in their capacity for understanding the child’s needs in this area, due to their own emotional issues and their own troubled search for a new identity.
These so-called “ABCD” children, much like Samar, have a right not only to find their identity on their own terms, but also a real opportunity to connect with their roots – and it can feel very special to them when that connection comes through frequent contact with extended family and community. Samar’s story reinforced that for me. While Samar’s mother grapples with her own emotional issues with her parents, she lets these issues spill over into her daughter’s life, holding her back from getting to know her own grandparents. It seemed to me, that Samar asserts herself when she decides to ignore her mother’s problems with her grandparents, and tries to get to know them anyway. This is healthy separation Samar needs to make, from her mother’s way of seeing things.
The first thing that struck me about the book, was the photograph on the front cover, of a belly-button bearing girl, in a short T-shirt and jacket and beaded jewelry. Her face isn't shown. On the back cover, is also a young girl, also belly-button bearing, also with beaded jewelry, also with the face cut off. However, the back cover is an illustration of something that could be found in stories of ancient Hindu mythology, as they are imagined now, in books like the "Amar Chitra Katha". I wondered what she was trying to say with these two pictures. At the end of the book, it seemed like she was saying that in our external representation, the identity of the Indian woman has not fundamentally changed much across generations. Our emotional needs have stayed the same. The changes are only superficial.
The book ‘s cover says, “It isn’t always easy to find your true self.” I tried to tease out the difference between “identity” and “self”, in my head. My “identity”, I believe, has to do with my perception of how others see me, while my “self” has to do with how I see my own innermost being (the part of my being that is devoid of ego). This warm and lovely book, to me, was a book about a teenager searching for her identity and in the end, finding her true self. It is a complex, Sikh-Agnostic Indian-American teenager-on-the-verge-of-adulthood identity, that immigrants in America of any faith could probably relate to.
While Samar has many complex “teenager” issues to navigate, the events of 9/11 throw a new set of issues towards her. These have to do with people looking at her (and her turbaned brown-skinned uncle) as though they might be terrorists, while she knows her dear and kind uncle to be just the opposite. Different people prepare her to handle the ensuing chaos in her mind in different ways. What resonates most with her, is the objectivity of her uncle Sandeep, who shows her how to handle racist attacks in healthy ways, by example. Not only is he the extended family she craves, he is also a caring friend to her – who doesn’t smother her, and yet is there when she needs him. He is a role model to her, in navigating the world of racism and bullies, and how not to stay a victim.
In the post 9/11 world, some brown-skinned non-Muslim South Asians in America have tried to emphasize their non-Muslim identity, in an effort to dispel what they believe is misdirected racism. “We’re not Muslim, so don’t look at us negatively”, they seem to want to say. Through Samar’s high-school Muslim friend, we learn that we need to fight all racism, all discrimination, if we wish to truly end any of it. After all, we cannot hope to live with racism in our own hearts, and then expect others to look at us without prejudice. This was, in my view, the most important message of the book. Discrimination should not be redirected, it ought to be ended.
Samar also learns, that in order to form a healthy identity, she, like her Muslim friend, would need to learn deeply about her roots. This is another important message for immigrant parents to take from the book,. Samar is fascinated by the history of her ancestors and their struggles, and it is part of her forming of her “self”.
This was a wonderful book, and I have only one complaint about it. The book alludes to teenagers discussing plans for sexual trysts with boyfriends, and that was a loose end left in the story, somewhat un-addressed. A healthy attitude for a teenager is to think about herself and her goals, and not about pleasing her boyfriend in ways she finds bothersome . If I had a teenaged daughter reading this book, I’d want the story to have a more assertive role model for her to emulate. Samar does not succumb to her boyfriend’s expectations, but that matter could have been explored further, in my view.
I’d recommend that both parents and their teenaged children read this book, and discuss it over the dinner table. It might be a way for them to get the dialog started, on issues they’ve probably not discussed, through the characters in the book. Did Samar make the right choices? What might have been going on in her mind? This book is a wonderful opportunity to get those discussions going. There’s a lot to learn here about healthy ways of growing up in a post-9/11 world, about being assertive, about expressing one’s emotional needs, about sexuality, about looking for an identity, and eventually finding one’s true self. It certainly isn’t always easy to find your true self.