Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013) is one of the most favored by survey participants at the Rebellious Lawyering Conference on “Race” in 2014.   Nothing like an adult immigrant fiction writer to provide a fresh perspective on race in the United States.

From Americanah:

“’The biggest problem in this country is not corruption. The problem is that there are many qualified people who are not where they are supposed to be because they won’t lick anybody’s ass, or they don’t know which ass to lick or they don’t even know how to lick an ass. I’m lucky to be licking the right ass.’ She smiled.”

“To be a child of the Third World is to be aware of the many different constituencies you have and how honesty and truth must always depend on context.”

“Philadelphia had the musty scent of history. New Haven smelled of neglect. Baltimore smelled of brine, and Brooklyn of sun-warmed garbage. But Princeton had no smell.”

“Before, she would have said, ‘I know,’ that peculiar American expression that professed agreement rather than knowledge”

“Afterwards they would return to America to fight on the Internet over their mythologies of home, because home was now a blurred place between here and there, and at least online they could ignore the awareness of how inconsequential they had become.”

#RebelliousLawyering