We Won't Budge: An African Exile In The World

by Manthia Diawara

In this deeply personal and unflinchingly honest exploration of what it means to be African, Manthia Diawara recounts the bittersweet experience of an expatriate who no longer lives life as an "African" yet is the object of others' fantasies and fears about people of the dark continent. Comparing his fortunes in America with those of his cousins in Paris, Diawara assesses the way tradition and community give meaning to their lives, despite the ugliness of modern French attitudes toward Africans. At the same time, he confronts the trauma experienced by Africans in America such as Amadou Diallo. Diawara's experience of life as an African and an African American yields fresh and stunning insights about race, ethnic identity, immigration, and assimilation in the modern globalized world.This important and original book will shatter many cherished notions about what it means to experience race as an African in the world today. Beautifully written and shrewdly argued, its unsentimental view of African culture and traditions, as well as its debunking of the idealized promise of an unracialized life abroad, is certain to ignite debate.

Genres: Read For School, Africa

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Kogiopsis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Update: Reread in 2020 as part of my ongoing shelf audit. This one will be moving on to a new home.

I have to admit, it was kind of a shock to the system to open this book and read the preface, wherein Diawara says that part of what moved him to write this book was the death of Amadou Diallo at the hands of New York City police. It's not that I didn't know that police violence has been an issue forever, but something about that particular reminder was palpable.

With that said... I still don't love this as a book. It's an interesting perspective and reflection on Diawara's immigrant experience in both the United States and France, but the structure and writing style don't really work for me. There's a not-really-frame-narrative wherein Diawara visits Mali, comes back with malaria, and then remembers portions of his life through the fever haze; the end result is a book that very loosely meanders, and which will digress for a page or more into something completely different before finishing a thought or a scene. It reminds me of watching French documentaries, which I also find to be wandering and often frustrating. There are also some sentence structures which I know are transposed from French and make sense in that language, but feel out of place in English - and while I'm aware that that's a rather nitpicky objection to have to writing in someone's third language, the fact is that it does distract me from the content of what he's saying at times.

The theme which stuck out to me most is Diawara's argument about loss:

People have to be willing to lose something, in every cultural encounter with the other, to have a real cultural coexistence. The notion of loss as a prerequisite for any intercultural understanding is important, because it helps us see beyond such notions as tolerance, difference, recognition, and sameness.

Throughout this memoir, he seems to be building on the same theme when discussing his own complicated sense of identity. He is, in effect, suspended between three nations, neither belonging fully to nor entirely claiming any of them, unable to keep all aspects of all of them. There's a sense of disillusionment, as he describes his progress from Mali to France to the U.S., with each new location being at first the Promised Land and eventually revealed to have its own flaws and dark sides. There is no perfect place, just as there is no perfect solution to the cultural conflict which arises out of human migration; something will inevitably be lost in the creation of something new, and if we're not prepared to accept that loss, we'll continue to wall off and isolate ourselves from the other, and never truly coexist.

So. Thought-provoking? Yes, especially in the current climate. Something I see myself rereading again? Less so. I'll probably be donating it to the local Friends of the Library booksale, and hopefully someone else will pick it up and find something new to contemplate in it.

Original (cursory) review below:
This was the fourth and final text for my African Lit course this semester, and by far my least favorite - still important, as a reflection on the experience of emigrating, but nonlinear and difficult to track, and also often very one-sided in discussing issues which affect immigrants.

Our essay prompt for this book was, in fact, writing a critical review, so once grades are in I'll probably post that in full-text here. (I'd rather it not show up if my professor runs essays through a plagiarism checker - it is my actual work, after all!) A bit weird to post an academic essay as a GR review, yeah, but better than writing essentially the same thing twice!

[Kamran Sehgal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Working as part autobiography and part journey into the history of racism in the US and France. I enjoyed Diawara's retelling of his escapades in Paris and D.C. in the 70's and the sections with his son and nephew were moving to me. The author knows how to tell a story that will stick in your mind long after reading and the book moves along breathlessly.

Sometimes the stories seem disjointed and the author's motivations and inner-feelings are not delved into. Nonetheless Diawara is a writer that should be on more reading lists for African studies as I find his views more nuanced and based in reality than many more, let us say, 'conventional' writers.

[Curtis J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was somewhat biased going in as Diawara was one of my grad school professors, and a man I respect very much for his work in education, film, literature, and overall knowledge and demeanor. But I never knew about this book until stumbling upon it online...and immediately purchased it. Frankly, the memoir is somewhat of a surprise as I didn't know the deeper aspects of his youth. Its writing style may be off-putting to some, but matched with the man it makes it totally engrossing. It's that even without knowing him though, the back and forth between present day and the past, his humorous insight into both expat and Malian customs, and more, make this book a treat. This is a fun and educational read, and is illuminating to those who don't have a first-hand knowledge of being a new man in an entirely new place making a brand new life for yourself, but still staying true to who you are.

[Ashleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was about his own perspective on African immigration in the United States and France. While parts of this were interesting something about it made me not love it. I didn't hate it either it was just fine.

[Chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m glad this book was required because it was a good memoir. I think the African immigrant to America isn’t often represented in media, so it was nice to read about it.

[Michelle Commeyras · Rating 2 out of 5]

Memoir about being an African emigrant in Paris having come from Mali.

[Dom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engrossing.