Every once in a while you hear a story that forces you to pause and reflect. Such a tale stirs thoughts and questions in your mind that challenge many fundamental understandings of the society in which we live. Anand Giridharadas’ The True American is such a story. Told from the point of view of a Bangladeshi immigrant upon his arrival into the United States and the subsequent trials he endures at the hands of ignorance and racial tension, this work illuminates both unsettling and uplifting truths about the fragility of human nature.
Tolerance is one of the principal themes in the book, stemming from Rais, a Bangladeshi store clerk in a Dallas convenience store, being shot and seriously wounded by an upset man seeking retribution for the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Rais’ attacker, Mark Stroman, did not have a personal disagreement with him, in fact they had never even met before. Rather, this man believed that because of Rais’ dark brown skin tone and pronounced South Asian accent, he was a threat to the United States and was therefore partially to blame for the devastating attacks that had occurred in New York City just ten days prior. His ignorance towards his victim’s background blinded him from broadening his conception that those who appear different than him pose a threat.
What is remarkable is Rais’ reaction towards his shooter; instead of advocating for his execution, Rais initiates a campaign to save Stroman from the death penalty. Driven by a belief that one must forgive and attempt to understand rather than seek retaliation, Rais begins a journey of unheard of absolution in order to break the aforementioned cycle of violence as a form of conflict resolution.
The True American employs a heavy plot embedded with richly developed characters to investigate what it really means to represent the United States. Anand Giridharadas writes this investigation at a point in time where the United States’ population has become the most diverse in it’s history, giving way to a departure from the traditionally defined image of an American patriot in favor of an increasingly accurate representation.
– Bala Sivaraman is a junior at UMass Amherst majoring in Communications