Migritude by Shailja Patel

    Let’s, for a moment, consider collage as a medium. Collage draws together pieces of various disparate sources to compile a new image. The histories of its components cling to the final product’s skin, become part of it, and yet something new has formed that, in the best cases, surpasses the sum of its parts. This is where we land with Shailja Patel’s Migritude, which is a cross-medium amalgam that proves the perfect creative outlet for a cross-generational, cross-continental storytelling.

    Migritude entered the world as a stage production in which Patel unpacks eighteen saris her mother passed onto her and weaves them into a narrative of migration. Having been born in Kenya, Patel offers an insightful perspective of her family history alongside broader global events (like Idi Amin’s expulsion of Asians from Uganda), tracing their journey to the United States. The explorations are varied and incisive, and, while I would have loved to see the performance, Migritude in book form does everything in its power to replicate the multimodal experience of a live show.

    The very design of the book is an assemblage. There’s a foreword by Vijay Prashad, Migritude itself, and a poetic account of the saris in the suitcase (think: Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons for eighteen fashion items). Following those elements there is what is called the “Shadow Book”, which includes drafts and cut material from Migritude, followed by a collection of poems, and finally a book called “The Journey” that provides a timeline of Migritude’s production and a few interviews and reflections following the performances. Like Patel’s collage-like identity, Migritude draws from different elements. Moreover, even within Migritude there are a series of different components that come together for a cohesive whole: poems, photographs, drawings, letters written in the voices of different family members, and historical data. The pieces of the work speak to one another to tell the full story.

    In at least a few ways, Shailja Patel’s play script reminds me of Fronteras Americanas by Guillermo Verdecchia. Verdecchia is more comedic and abrasive and Patel is more emotive and affectionate, but both draw on historical data to criticize the colonial enterprise. While Verdecchia’s incendiary commentary on U.S. imperialism in Argentina and Latin America draws on historical factotum for its vehemence, Patel’s usage is more sobering in its critique. There’s a dark irony in her presentation:

“We were the model the rest of Africa was supposed to look to! A happy, multiracial nation where Whites, Asians, and Africans all lived in harmony. // In Kenya’s war of independence, fewer than 100 whites and over 25, 000 Africans died. Half of the Africans who died were children under ten. // Sixty thousand white settlers lived in Kenya at independence in 1963. The new Kenyan government was required to take loans of 12.5 million pounds from its ex-colonial master, the British government. To buy back stolen land from settlers who wished to leave” (19).

The use of facts is so wonderfully strategic; the last two sentences of that passage alone serve as a scathing indictment of colonialism. It’s illuminating to see its far-reaching effects and ongoing influence running parallel to Patel’s family’s personal history. The Western ethos falls under broader critique. One of the most memorable moments—since it seems so far removed from the other cultural touchstones of the text—is actually a reference to Metallica:

Here’s how Empire congratulates itself:

Favourite American torture technique: blast Metallica music at victims until they scream, weep, lose bladder and bowel control. Metallica’s James Hetfield is proud that my music is culturally offensive. If they’re not used to freedom, I’m glad to be a part of the exposure. (37-38).

The notion of freedom, as seen from a Western point of view, takes on horrific connotations in this reframing. “Freedom” by force: as if bombarding them with unwelcome heavy metal is a gift. There’s a directness in Patel’s presentation that requires little commentary: the facts sprinkled throughout speak for themselves.

    The irony in the imperial project is that those subjected to it do, in fact, take on the qualities of their oppressors. For more information, I highly recommend reading Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, which explores the double-consciousness of colonial subjects, We see that reflected in Patel’s account of her schooling and their creative writing projects:

    We set them in European or US cities and schools and inserted ourselves into those landscapes. Or we stole freely from US sitcoms and soaps – Good Times, Dallas. One of my classmates, in an essay on “The Dangers of Hitchhiking,” reproduced, blow by blow, an episode of Diff’rent Strokes that had run the previous night on Kenyan TV. Didn’t even change the names of the characters—just cast herself in the starring role. The English teacher commented, You should use your own ideas in future! And gave her a mark of 75%. // In all those years, there was only one teacher who ever challenged this erasure of our own lives. Ironically, he was a British expatriate. He asked my Standard Seven class why we used English names and places in our compositions instead of Kenyan ones. We stared at him, confused: a classroom of 11 year olds, who had never imagined that our reality had any place in literature. Finally, one girl raised her hand: That’s what is in the books we read. (83)

What makes Patel’s critique refreshing is how it highlights the inner contradictions in the logic of cultural imperialism. The fact that a British expatriate is the one to challenge the cultural consciousness of the Kenyan children is a detail destabilizing in its irony, assuring no easy resolution for global conflict.

    And yet, the critique of the West is clear. Patel highlights the difference in mindset between African and American thinking: “We calibrate hunger precisely. Define enough differently from you. Enough is what’s available, shared between everyone present. We are incapable of saying, as you can so easily: Sorry, there’s not enough for you” (33). Earlier, I compared Patel to Verdecchia but this passage highlights Patel’s poetic sensibilities. The idea of “calibrating hunger” is a beautifully apt phrase for encapsulating an entire mindset.  The construction of the sentences also provides a varied rhythm. The combination of short and long produces a tempo that empowers the sentiments, Point. Point. Full explanation. Reprise. It’s nicely developed.

    I recognize I’ve focused this review primarily on the political commentary of the work at the expense of the more personal and familial. Truth be told, those elements were somewhat less resonant for me. That said, the central premise that incites the narrative is endearing in its quiet rebellion. Patel’s mother gives her the box of saris preemptively, rather than waiting for her to be married. The tenderness of that understanding and the deviation from expectations is really wonderful to see. Elsewhere, Patel lists words that do not exist in English (Najjar, Garba, Arati) and words that do not exist in Gujarati, among which she lists “self-expression,” “individual,” and “lesbian.” Those few lines are so suggestive of Patel’s experience, though there’s an ambiguity that is not fully addressed in the interviews which follow the collection. Those intimations of experience, to me, were more powerful than the more fully fleshed out interactions with family.

    To return to the central metaphor of Migritude as a collage, we see pieces of Patel throughout: those pieces formed by family, by colonial experience, and those pieces which are, perhaps, innate. Blending fragments of experience and historical fact elevates the experience to more than a facile or unidimensional narrative. Certainly, Migritude is more than the sum of its parts. More than any one instrument, is an orchestra, and it is probably only multiple listens that will reveal its full range of nuances.

    

    Happy reading—and be ready to buy tickets to Migritude if there’s ever another live performance.