This immigrant’s life

son of elsewhere: a memoir in pieces

Elamin Abdelmahmoud
McClelland & Stewart, 2022.

As a preteen, Elamin Abdelmahmoud – a political and cultural writer and podcast host – left Khartoum, Sudan to live with his family in Kingston, Ontario. In Son of Elsewhere, his interlinked essays explore the conflicted space between his place of origin and his new home. “I am interested in the constant calculus of how much of yourself to allow to each homeland and how you navigate the anguish that comes with giving one of them less,” he writes, “This is Elsewhere.”

Abdelmahmoud settles into a primarily white city with two new identities to navigate: immigrant and Black. He intersperses descriptions of his early days with the historical context of his divided homeland. Growing up in Northern Sudan, he was raised to think of his primary identity as Arab; even discussions about skin colour focused on Southern Sudanese people being shades darker. “A world away, it was still the same graceless dance, arching towards whiteness,” he notes. The roots of systemic prejudice run deep.

In these early days, Abdelmahmoud aligns with certain cultural expectations but bristles, even separates himself from, others. He feels pressure to love hip hop, the music of choice for so many Black youth, yet his conservative Muslim upbringing makes it difficult to embrace its themes. He admits to feeling superior when others make observations of him not being “really black.” In university, he opts to go by the common first name “Stan.”

Abdelmahmoud artfully grounds his quest to belong in his personal relationships. Some people embolden and comfort him, while others frustrate and hurt him. When a poised and assertive Black university student offers him a zine of Black writers, this gesture of inclusion sets him on a path to celebrating Blackness and “undoing the years of colonial thinking.” Various friends affirm and shape his cultural interests, such as professional-wrestling fanfiction, country music and the early 2000’s teen drama The O.C.

Then there are his beloved family members. His father, Baba – the first family member to immigrate – demonstrates comforting familiarity with Canada’s landscape language, and customs. When his father’s rejection of his white, non-Muslim girlfriend (and eventual wife) leads to a lengthy rift between them, Abdelmahmoud candidly captures the layered hurt and tension of this estrangement.

The sheer range of topics in these essays is impressive. Abdelmahmoud goes from stirringly condemning war profiteers to wittily proclaiming the virtues of television without losing his confident, inquisitive tone. He maintains a respectful curiosity about different worldviews – religious, national and political. “I may not be a Christian,” he writes, “but I like the idea of worship through essay, which is essentially what a sermon is.”

Abdelmahmoud invites his reader to savour the details of his journey, such as his ongoing personal connection to Highway 401. He includes everyday moments of living in “Elsewhere” as well as dramatic incidents of change. These experiences are all formative to him as he discovers that identity is not a static state to reach, but an ever-changing way of being.

Some will come to this memoir with similar histories of multiple homelands and others will relate through more general questions of belonging. Christians who read it with verses such as Deut. 10:19’s call to “love those who are foreigners” in mind might especially appreciate the opportunity to honour the particularities of Abdelmahmoud’s journey as a reminder that extending a truly loving welcome to anyone involves attentively listening to their story.

Abdelmahmoud is an easy person to learn from, connect to, and root for. He trusts that his story matters – it belongs. His funny, moving and media-savvy memoir has the power to cultivate in readers a deeper, more empathetic understanding of the complexities of the immigrant experience.