Home at Last

Home at last

Dinaw Mengestu, whom is the author of “Home at last” moves to Brooklyn when he is 22. He is originally from Ethiopia, and have never experienced the feeling of having a place to call home. His parents immigrated to the US when he was 2 years old. The author doesn't know what to call home, and do not know where to say he is from.

“What remained had less to do with the idea that I was from Ethiopia and more to do with the fact that I was not from America.”

However he only has a few memories of Ethiopia. His parents has strong memories from Ethiopia and reminds Dinaw, the author,  all the time that he should remember his home country, Ethiopia.

He started noticing that him and his family didn't fit in the local community when they lived in Peoria, Illinois. The authors evening walks with his father taught him that both his parents suffers from the feeling of loneliness and loss. They have that feeling because they both left relatives behind in Ethiopia. They feel even more lonely, because the author and his sister grew up in an American culture and not the Ethiopian one.

When the author moves to Brooklyn he is rejected for being black, and not being black enough.

“I had just graduated college and had had  enough of the fights and arguments about not being “black” enough, as well as the earlier fights in high school hallways and street corners that were fought for simply being black. Now it was enough, I wanted  to believe, to simply be, to say I was in Brooklyn and Brooklyn was home.”

He has never felt like he has been ham, it was ever thus. Hvad mener du??

In Kensington, Brooklyn, Dinaw determine a community of immigrants who come from the whole world: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Latin America, atc. Sluggish the author form habits, and walks similar, to his father, evening and morning walks. He begins to visit local restaurants and people begin to know him. He still feels partly like an outsider because the ethnical groups often speak their original language.         

The title of the essay gives the reader an idea, that the story will be about returning to home or feeling like home. The introduction is very direct and it presents the author moving to Brooklyn in hope to finally get the feeling that he belongs somewhere.

“At twenty-one I moved to Brooklyn hoping that it would be the last move I would ever make – that it would, with the gradual accumulation of time, memory, and possessions, become that place I instinctively reverted back to when asked, “So, where are you from?”