The Midtown Scholar Bookstore and the Harrisburg Asian Pacific Islander Community (HAAPI) are honored to welcome author Wajahat Ali to Harrisburg for an in-person presentation and signing on his new book, Go Back To Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American. This event is in celebration of Harrisburg’s Third Annual Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Celebration.
This event is free and open to the public, no registration required.
This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half-century ago?
Growing up living the suburban American dream, young Wajahat devoured comic books (devoid of brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned advice from uncles and aunties. (“Become a doctor!”) He had turmeric stains under his fingernails, was accident-prone, suffered from OCD, and wore Husky pants, but he was as American as his neighbors, with roots all over the world. Then, while Ali was studying at University of California, Berkeley, 9/11 happened. Muslims replaced communists as America’s enemy #1, and he became an accidental spokesman and ambassador of all ordinary, unthreatening things Muslim-y.
Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has become one of the foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Back to Where You Came From, he tackles the dangers of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering personal stories with astute insights into national security, immigration, and pop culture. In this refreshingly bold, hopeful, and uproarious memoir, Ali offers indispensable lessons for cultivating a more compassionate, inclusive, and delicious America.
About the Author:
Wajahat Ali is a New York Times-contributing writer, recovering attorney, and tired dad. His work has appeared in the Atlantic, New York Review of Books, and other outlets. He lives in Washington, DC.
