Summary

Part 5 is titled “Cultural Repatriation,” and subtitled “on being claimed, gratitude, and the return home” (327). The author begins by discussing the differences in experience between her darker-skinned brother, who is able to joke about looking like a potential terrorist, and her experience of lighter-skinned, having her nose altered, and being able to pass as a non-immigrant. She discusses her experience of feeling no shame at drawing on her Iranian-ness when it is to her own benefit, but of feeling shamed when her apparent whiteness also is to her own benefit – that is, when she benefits from racism. She then comments that she is aware that the system from which she benefits is broken, and that she would like to be part of the process of trying to fix it.

The author then considers the tense and awkward question of what a refugee owes the...