James Baldwin was born Aug. 2, 1924, in Harlem, to parents who were children of former slaves. For migrants fleeing an economically depressed and racist South, Harlem was not much better, and his parents struggled to provide anything close to the American dream for their children. “By the time you are 7,” he recalled near the end of his life, “you know why you are in a ghetto.”
In August 1987, when I was 7 years old, my family came to the United States as refugees, joining a drove of asylum seekers from across the world. My father fled Iran, aided by smugglers who helped him cross the Iran-Pakistan border. After several weeks, my mother, sister and I flew from Tehran to Paris to meet him. And by December 1987, the year Baldwin died, we had settled in Queens, a subway ride away from his Harlem.
By 7, I had absorbed the grammar of American life. I realized even before I became fluent in English that I did not want to assimilate; I wanted to disappear into whiteness. This terrified my father. The problem, as my father anticipated, even if he didn’t express it this way, was that his children had been socialized to accept the
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