Who you think you are

The Good Immigrant, a collection of essays about black and ethnic minority experience and identity in Britain today, is inconsistent, infuriating, uncomfortable and just occasionally insulting. It is also right to be every one of those things, and highly recommended.

Its editor, Nikesh Shukla, was prompted to compile the book by an online comment on a Guardian article; but what really prompted it, of course, wasn’t just one commenter’s assumption but the society that the comment epitomises: a society in which immigrants are welcome, but only under certain conditions. That they are the right kind of immigrant, that minorities dutifully and above all gratefully play the role assigned to them. And that any attempt to assert their presence in any other way is met with hostility, implied or otherwise.

What the 21 varied contributors have in common is some identification with an immigrant narrative, and the un-resolutions this brings with it, even after (in some cases) several generations. Some struggle with a pressure to find a ‘neat’ way to define themselves (that’s Vera Chok’s word); most struggle with other people’s definitions of them. What can a name tell you about an identity? Skin colour, features, hair, all these external things can be the triggers for these definitions — they certainly trump citizenship, let alone individual personality — and assumptions (or insults) based on surface appearance cut deep. In a drama workshop, Miss L is told her ideal part is ‘the wife of a terrorist’.

Many of these essays are very personal, painted on a tiny, individual canvas. One of the many highlights is Coco Khan’s ‘Flags’, whose thoughts are triggered by a single, apparently shocking morning-after revelation. But running through them are the bigger questions about belonging, about appropriation, about identity.