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Author: Sreety Das


‘The Good Immigrant’ edited by Nikesh Shukla is a collection of 21 writers, from a range of professional backgrounds, who explore through their own experiences “what it means to be Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic in Britain today.”

Some famous names amongst the authors drive the reader through a journey. They talk about power, responsibility, voice, colour, shade, language and many other dimensions of difference.

I felt that for me these stories connected with some of my own lived, as well as un-lived, and untold experiences. Some stories echoed the experiences and thoughts within the generation of my elders; their hope and hardships of coming to Britain. Other stories tell tales of surviving the challenges of being an ethnic minority in Britain; the discovering and re-discovering of the legacies that have been left with us as we move forward in raising the future generation of immigrants and the children of immigrants.

I have recently transitioned into being a mother. The chapter by Darren Chetty titled ‘You can’t say that! Stories have to be about White people’, really got me seeking publishers and children’s books where the protagonists were BAME children. When my children read stories, I want them to believe that stories can be about people like them too.

As a therapist I feel that these short stories and essays connect us to, and remind us of, some of the strands of experience that we, as much as our clients, live within us. Some strands of these experiences are voiced and others remain as the unsaid in the therapy room.

Sreety Das
Systemic and Family Psychotherapist

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