Brown Girls, Grow Up by Sima Qadeer
Review by Rachel Shaver
“Funny, how we learn from a very young age that the only way to be accepted by others is to reject parts of ourselves.”
Sima Qadeer’s debut collection Brown Girls, Grown Up begins where many immigration stories stop. Her characters are Canadian South Asian women who have grown into lives that look, from the outside, entirely assimilated—entirely post-immigration. Marriages, careers, families.
That shift in vantage point is what makes the collection feel like something new. Qadeer is focused on the aftermath of the aftermath. Inherently the collection is still interested in immigration, but it turns its focus slightly and still lands somewhere equally resonant. It structures smaller acts of assimilation into every story, making it, both at large and in detail, rich with these themes, and this aspect of the collection is what, in my opinion, makes it so successful in curating stories all in conversation with each other.
The collection’s strongest pieces are those that most directly connect personal insecurities to larger questions of identity. In “Paki Pussy,” Leela’s anxiety in her interracial relationship becomes a much deeper exploration of race, beauty standards, and cultural belonging. Humorous conversations about a bikini wax gradually reveal a piece about family expectations and the lingering influences of heritage. Meanwhile, “Momxiety” shifts its focus to suburban motherhood, following Yasmeen as she desperately tries to navigate the social hierarchy of other parents. Through her fixation on fitting in, the story touches on how childhood insecurities often survive well into adulthood. Both stories earn their emotional depth because Qadeer is playing on the same link between past and present. Her characters are insecure and self-aware, struggling to find their place in a world that has never easily made one for them.
“Belonging had been a nebulous goal ever since Stacey Withers had told her in third grade that no one cared about Yasmeen since she was ‘not from here’ and her parents spoke with a ‘weird accent.’ From then on, it had been her lifelong aspiration to fit in, and she had shape-shifted her whole life with that singular goal in mind.”
The collection’s most direct engagement with identity comes in “Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil.” Through reflections on culture and shame, Qadeer examines the ways people learn to suppress parts of themselves in order to be accepted. But what’s interesting is the way this story seems to shed the collection’s humorous tone. Instead, it follows fragments of memories that pop up unexpectedly, with second-person asides that address shame as a character of its own, in a way. This story seems to look farther to the future at what shame does to a person over decades. It is, in form, more experimental, and its contrast comes late in the collection in a way that brought a solemn air back to the light tone of the collection.
Personally, I think it’s impossible to read these stories without understanding the greater implications and parallels, but that’s what I think makes the structure so compelling. These are just human stories, relatable moments to any reader. But Qadeer is intentional in this choice. Because the larger theme of identity ties all of these moments together.
“For some of us, telling the truth was never an option. Half- truths, omissions, lies were my normalized MO, the secrets I kept marooning me on an island while everyone else was on the mainland. Only now, my little island was being washed away by the rising tides surrounding it. Soon, I was sure, I would be swallowed whole.
For me, the most poignant story arrives at the collection’s end. The title story, “Brown Girls, Grown Up,” brings together women reflecting on the lives they have built and where they have ended up. The story embodies what feels so prevalent in each narrative: what comes after change, where the past version of you goes when you leave it behind.
Through all of its humor and rich characters, Brown Girls, Grown Up ultimately returns to the same powerful idea. Qadeer’s characters are in constant negotiation with themselves and others, and in their search for acceptance, the collection seems to say again and again that the act of assimilation cannot ever end in true belonging when it requires changing who you are. There is something so vividly human in this concept. Even though some of Qadeer’s readers may not relate to the immigrant experience, the act of suppressing some part of yourself to be accepted is something most readers will recognize, in one form or another. Qadeer’s vivid characters and interior writing make it universal, which is why the collection resonates beyond its specific cultural context
Rating: ★★★★★
Nine beautiful stories from a rich new voice. A debut on belonging, identity, and wanting to become someone the world will accept.
About the Author:
Sima Qadeer a Toronto-based author whose writing explores themes of identity, belonging, and empowerment. She previously worked in public policy and administration, focusing on gender equality with the Canadian International Development Agency and Global Affairs Canada.
About the Reviewer:
Rachel Shaver graduated from Eckerd College with a BA in creative writing and a minor in literature. She lives in Tampa, Florida with her twin sister and spends her days consuming media in all forms. She has been published in Collision Literary Magazine and worked as editor-in-chief for Eckerd Review, as well as editorial intern for Cleaver Magazin
