Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares (A Memoir)

by Aarti Namdev Shahani

Overview

Here We Are is a heart-wrenching memoir about an immigrant family's American Dream, the justice system that took it away, and the daughter who fought to get it back, from NPR correspondent Aarti Namdev Shahani.

The Shahanis came to Queens—from India, by way of Casablanca—in the 1980s. They were undocumented for a few unsteady years and then, with the arrival of their green cards, they thought they'd made it. This is the story of how they did, and didn't; the unforeseen obstacles that propelled them into years of disillusionment and heartbreak; and the strength of a family determined to stay together.

Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares follows the lives of Aarti, the precocious scholarship kid at one of Manhattan's most elite prep schools, and her dad, the shopkeeper who mistakenly sells watches and calculators to the notorious Cali drug cartel. Together, the two represent the extremes that coexist in our country, even within a single family, and a truth about immigrants that gets lost in the headlines. It isn’t a matter of good or evil; it's complicated.

Ultimately, Here We Are is a coming-of-age story, a love letter from an outspoken modern daughter to her soft-spoken Old World father. She never expected they'd become best friends.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250204752
Publisher:	Celadon Books
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	687,561
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Aarti Namdev Shahani is the author of memoir Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares. She is a correspondent for NPR based in Silicon Valley, covering the largest companies on earth. Her reporting has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, and an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award. Before journalism, Shahani was a community organizer in New York City, helping prisoners and families facing deportation. Her activism was honored by the Union Square Awards and Legal Aid Society. She received a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, with generous support from the university and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. She completed her bachelor's degree in anthropology at the University of Chicago. She was among the youngest recipients of the Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University and is an alumna of A Better Chance, Inc. Shahani grew up in Flushing, Queens—in one of the most diverse zip codes in the country—and believes every American should visit her hometown to understand what makes America great.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Act 1 Backstay 9

Act 2 We Made It 51

Act 3 Breaking at the Seams 79

Intermission: Reporting the Case 115

Act 4 Stranger Things 131

Act 5 Stretch Goal 177

Act 6 Leaving and Finding Home 209

Epilogue: Dear Dad 239

Acknowledgments 243

Reading Group Guide

Why did Aarti's parents decide to come to America even though they didn't have papers? Do you think they made the right decision?

How do you think A Better Chance Inc. and Brearley changed Aarti’s perspectives and the course of her life?

What were the effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks on Aarti’s advocacy efforts in New York and Washington, DC?

Aarti describes the gentrification of the area on Broadway where her father and uncle had their store. Have you seen anything similar happening in areas near you?

How do you feel about Judge Blumenfeld’s criticism to Aarti: “You’re not living a life about what you were really born to do”?

How did Aarti’s relationship with her father evolve over the course of their story? In what ways did the tragedy he experienced actually increase their understanding of one another?

Why do you think Aarti became a journalist? How does her work as a journalist inform the way she shared her family’s story?

Aarti comes to question if the U.S. is her home, and her father's home. What would you say makes your country your home?

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2019

In this tragedy-tinged debut memoir, NPR technology correspondent Shahani discusses her father’s 1996 arrest for selling electronics to the Cali cartel of Colombia and the ways in which these events shaped Shahani’s life. Shahani’s family immigrated from India to New York City in 1981, where her father opened a wholesale electronics store and began selling such items as calculators and watches to customers who he later learned were cartel members. His arrest set in motion a legal nightmare that sent the author on a mission to prevent her father, who wasn’t a U.S. citizen, from being deported and to help other families in similar predicaments. Shahani discovers years after her father accepted a plea bargain and served eight months at Rikers Island that he may not have had to serve time at all had his lawyer worked harder to show that the case was thin. In a conversational tone, the book exposes the ugliness of the criminal justice system, which pressures defendants to take plea bargains. The author discusses becoming a journalist and building the kind of successful career her father never had and ends with a letter to her father, who eventually became a U.S. citizen and “whose ups and down taught me how the world really works.” This timely, bittersweet immigration story will resonate powerfully with readers. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Aarti Shahani’s book is destined to take its place among the finest memoirs written in recent decades—a heartbreaking, hilarious and tender love letter to the millions of people who have made their way across lands and oceans to try and find a new life in America. This book will take you on a vivid, almost cinematic journey that is both beautiful and unforgettable."
—Guy Raz, co-creator of How I Built This, Wow in the World and TED Radio Hour

Included in Library Journal's list of Best Books 2019.

"This timely, bittersweet immigration story will resonate powerfully with readers."
—Publishers Weekly

"As it chronicles immigrant tragedy and triumph, this provocative book also reveals the dark underside of the American judicial system and the many pitfalls for people of color within a landscape of white privilege. A candid and moving memoir."
—Kirkus

"A worthy addition to immigration discourse, this book is a raw and engaging glimpse into the challenges immigrant families face that are either too traumatic or mundane to land on the news."
—BookPage

From the Publisher

2019-08-07
A distinguished NPR journalist's account of how the concept of the American dream gave her the chance to succeed while simultaneously destroying her immigrant family.

Shahani's parents met as Indian Partition refugees in Morocco. In 1981, they came to America and settled in a multiethnic Queens neighborhood, "one of the most diverse tracts of land on the planet." There, her family's "most aggressive war" was not with members of other cultural "tribes" but with vermin in their apartment. Optimistic that they would soon succeed, they experienced their first disappointment when the author's father, a "big brain" man, had to settle for manual labor. He left the family to work with brothers in Dubai, returning only when Shahani's mother became disabled after a freak accident. Their fortunes changed soon after her father collected money from relatives and opened an electronics store. His hard work allowed them to move into a house in New Jersey and live a comfortable middle-class life. In the meantime, Shahani became "Nerd Girl," winning a scholarship to the prestigious Brearley School in Manhattan. Her connections eventually landed her a well-paying summer job that, unlike those her father had taken when he first arrived in America, "came with a desk, a computer…a view," and a good wage. Everything changed when the author was in 12th grade. Her father had been arrested and sent to prison for mistakenly selling merchandise to a drug cartel. As her father struggled, Shahani's grades dropped. Though she found a place at the University of Chicago, her faith in both the American dream and the justice system was shattered. Becoming an active seeker of social justice, the author spent the next 15 years using her connections and journalistic savvy to help exonerate her father. Barely escaping deportation, he finally became an American citizen only to die shortly afterward. As it chronicles immigrant tragedy and triumph, this provocative book also reveals the dark underside of the American judicial system and the many pitfalls for people of color within a landscape of white privilege.

A candid and moving memoir.

Kirkus Reviews