digging america anne tylerSunday Salon for me is less about the act of reading than the reflection that comes after finishing a book. So while I spent most of today with Reading Lolita in Tehran, my thoughts were still with Digging to America - the story of how two families with adopted girls from Korea became almost-just almost-one.

My family immigrated to the US in 1979 when I was just shy of my seventh birthday. As expected, I didn’t have much difficulty learning English or assimilating although, like Kristina, I always knew we were different. That doesn’t mean we were any more different than other families, though. I also always knew that other people were different in their own way no matter how blond, blue-eyed, and “American” they might appear on the surface.

From Digging to America:

“No, you see,” she said, “you can get in a, what would you say it, a mind-set about these things. You can start to believe that your life is defined by your foreignness. You think everything would be different if only you belonged. ‘If only I were back home,’ you say, and you forget that you wouldn’t belong there either, after all these years. It wouldn’t be home at all anymore.”

Over the years as I’ve hopped from country to country, I’ve come to realize that it’s not the differences between me and everybody else that really matter. The real differences are actually between the real me and that other “I’m going to fit in” me. Although I identify as a California girl who’s as American as can be, how can I possibly know anymore what an American believes or how an American behaves when I haven’t lived there since 1998? In any case, the “I’m going to fit in” girl usually prevails because one part of my American attitude hasn’t changed - I believe in the great melting pot.

Assimilation is a good thing when it contributes to social harmony. I consciously observe local customs and behavior even when it means I’m not quite the “real” me. I don’t find it necessary to assert my independence and cultural identity at every turn. Assimilating doesn’t mean you’re abandoning one group for another. Identity and belonging are fluid and can flow smoothly through time and circumstance.

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One more passage from Digging to America that made me feel melancholy:

He had embarked on parenthood reluctantly, sending regretful backward glances at his carefree young-married days, and although the first baby had proved a delight he hadn’t hankered for more. If not for Connie’s lobbying, Bitsy would have been an only child. Then of course the two boys were delights as well, and he wouldn’t have traded them for anything, but still he could remember quite clearly sitting in the melee of tantrums and wet diapers and little sharp-edged building blocks and thinking. Too many children and not enough Connie. He had felt almost childlike himself as he angled for Connie’s attention, snatched the smallest stray bits of her, competed for her ear and for her thoughtful, focused gaze.

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You don’t have to be an immigrant to appreciate Digging to America but if you are, you’ll be amazed at how Anne Tyler captured the many thoughts, feelings, and experiences of immigrant families and their children. And in America, that’s pretty much everyone.