Lalami, Laila. Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America

Book Review

Abstract

New York: Penguin Random House, 2020, pp. 208. Growing up as a kid in Kulachi- a solitary town in the NorthWest of Pakistan along the bank of river Gomal - my first (conscious) encounter with America came in the form of a wrestling match featuring Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior that I watched on a brand-new VCR brought by my father from Lahore on a hot afternoon in 1990. This was followed by Madona’s La Isla Bonita, Bee Gees’ Stayin Alive, and Michael Jackson’s hauntingly powerful, Thriller, that shaped some of the early images of America and its people in my young impressionable mind. By the time I had seen Rambo 3 and mastered playing Guile - a tough US Army Major in Street Fighter 2 video game - my infatuation with America wasvirtually inducing hallucinations. Indeed, it grew stronger throughout my teenage years until the fateful events of September 11, 2001 when it all came crashing down, mirroring the fall of the twin towers.