Summary

Through a series of heartfelt, contemporary and reflective poems, Asghar talks about growing up in the United States while being a Kashmiri-Pakistani-American. She mentions her life before and after 9/11, growing up learning English as a second language and experiencing a new world without her parents. Living with her sister and their adopted “aunt” (“isn’t family but could be”), Asghar narrates the way of life for a brown girl living in a white dominated society. If They Come for Us incorporates intersectional feminism and brings new experiences into the cultural mainstream, giving a different perspective of growing up in the United States as an immigrant child, living without family, and with friends who come from all over the world.

Grace McKenna ’19