How to Assimilate: A Polite Guide for the Other
"I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory." - Warsan Shire, "Home"
Do not give your children difficult names. Do not resurrect your ancestors. Do not commune with spirits. Do not consult the dead. Eradicate memory. Forget your mother's face and your father's hands. Give your children new tongues for their new mouths. Never speak of before, only after. Do not give your children the old burden. Do not let the old ache lay siege to their new bodies. Do not speak at all. Feed silence to your children. Give your children to our great country. We will teach them precisely how to disappear.
‘Do not speak at all.’ A very moving piece- all your work on being the Other is almost like God came down and wrote the word’s through you. Magnificent
"... Do not give your children
the old burden. Do not let the old ache lay siege
to their new bodies." is so powerful