Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

Chapter 2 is formatted like a photo album, with many pages of collages that include several real photographs of Mira’s family and childhood. Mira recounts the story of her parents’ marriage and immigration to America as well as the answers she would get when she asked questions about it. Her parents are Syrian Christian, and Mira points out that both Wikipedia and general Western knowledge are wrong about when Christianity came to India; according to Syrian Christians, it was with the arrival of Saint Thomas in 52 A.D. There is a great deal of subtle humor, such as when Mira’s older brother states they were “raised by wolves” (31) or when Mira’s dad calls her an ugly baby. Mira’s parents met, married, and immigrated within the span of three months and were the third Indian family to move to Albuquerque. This took place in 1968, just weeks before Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. Mira’s mother reflects that she wondered, “My God, what savage country have we come to?” (28). However, numerous attempts to move back to India did not prove successful, and the family remained in America.

Mira and Z are on the subway. Mira suggests to Z that he should ask his dad if he is afraid of him and his mother. Z says he does not want to make his dad sad and begins making knock-knock jokes to distract his mother out of the conversation. Mira wants Z to talk to Dad to “make him a part of the conversation” (33) and open up a dialogue, but Z shuts her down with a knock-knock joke: “Canoe stop talking about this?” (35).

Mira goes back to India when she is five, and her aunts and grandmother lament the fact that Mira’s skin has gotten darker since she was a baby. They refer to her brother and parents as “fair” (36), and Mira overhears this. She begins comparing her skin tone to everyone else in her family and finds that when she puts her arm next to others’ their skin turns lighter “like magic” (37). This serves as a metaphor for the way race only becomes noticeable when we pinpoint it. Mira learns through this experience that people associate dark skin with ugliness. In these scenes, Mira is shown with a scowl on her face. Her grandmother tries to give her a bottle of “Fair and Lovely” (38), a skin lightening cream, to which her mother objects. Mira imagines herself becoming lighter and happier at the same time. It continues each time Mira goes back to India, and her cousin explains that dark skin is associated with servants. She makes a snide remark about how Mira is a “darkie” (41), and her parents will have a hard time finding someone who will settle for her. In America, Mira does not feel too dark because there are fewer sources of comparison-most people are white. However, in India, people seem to be preoccupied with being lighter, which makes Mira feel isolated in her own family.

Mira has a best friend named Alison, who is white. She and Alison go for walks together to sort out issues they may be having in their lives. Mira confides that she is worried about Z feeling isolated from Jed and whether she might be confusing Z with the answers she does or does not give to his questions. She wonders how much she should say, how to answer questions he may not be ready to have answers for, and whether keeping him away from the news is the right thing to do. Alison assures Mira that she is doing a fine job because Z knows that his questions are important and worth discussing.

By fifth grade, Mira is certain she wants to be a writer. She describes her experiences with her fifth-grade teacher Ms. Morrell, who was Mormon, very thin, and terrifying. She had rules for everything (“Sit up straight when you raise your hand or I will not call on you” [50]) and could “get mad about anything” (49). One afternoon, Ms. Morrell tells Mira she has won the recent Daughters of the American Revolution Essay contest and is being invited to read her essay out loud. Ms. Morrell sends a picture of Mira for the program, and two weeks later she drives Mira to the event. They arrive at a Dry Cleaner’s, and Ms. Morrell knows something is not right. She finds a phone at a nearby convenience store and makes several calls, eventually getting the correct address. When she and Mira arrive, she tells Mira to read her speech no matter what. They get inside and the women pretend it was just a mix up, though Ms. Morrell knows they gave a fake address intentionally after seeing Mira’s dark skin. They try to tell them they are out of time, and Ms. Morrell insists on the reading. Afterward, Mira gets a loud applause. In the car, Ms. Morrell squeezes Mira’s arm and tells her in a grave fashion, “You are an American. Do you understand me? […] Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that you’re not” (59). This is a pivotal moment for Mira, and on the drive back to school, Ms. Morrell tells Mira she should become a writer.

Mira has two writer friends named Kaitlyn and Tanwi, who are both women of color and published books around the same time as Mira. Beginning in Fall 2015, they start getting together just to hang out and talk. One such discussion revolves around Trump and the racism he seems to be inciting with his slander of Muslims and Mexicans. Tanwi reminds the other two women that “this country was built on messed up. It’s not something new” (62), and Mira wonders if cultural relations are getting worse rather than better. None of them can understand why people still support Trump, and it seems that no matter what he does, he does not lose those supporters. They start joking about how it might require “nighttime raids on immigrant families” or “prison camps” (65) for people to wise up. A frame is shown in which all three women stare blankly, saying nothing. Finally, Kaitlyn says, “I’m scared” (67). 

Mira’s first experience with sexuality come in sixth grade when she and her friends read Judy Blume books and “practice with tongue” (68). It is then that she discovers she is bisexual. Mira has trouble in the dating world as she gets older, with boyfriends asking her if Indian people are psychic or just being insulting toward her. Mira feels more comfortable dating people she will likely never see again. Once again, she is isolated due to her skin color.

C is two years older than Mira, and her first real boyfriend in freshman year. He makes her feel like “something bright and rare and precious” (71) and alerts her to the subtle racism she seems naïve to. For example, teachers talk about diversity but are actually racist, and when two girls tell Mira and C (who is Black) that they “look like seriously perfect together” (75) Mira takes it as a compliment. C tells her it was an underhanded racist comment because he and she are both people of color.

C invites his friend J, who is Black, and his date to join him and Mira for Homecoming. On the ride there, J asks Mira how her parents came to America, and she answers that her father did his residency for cardiovascular surgery here. J replies, “huh” (75). The next two pages show Mira’s brain and her thoughts going down a path of tv shows, the news, movies, drugs, and “things I had heard about young Black men” (77). There is another road leading to things Mira actually knows about J, including his nice smile and suit, but that road is closed off. Another section of the brain shows a voice of doubt. All these influences combine in Mira’s mind, and despite her own experiences with discrimination, she makes the false assumption that J does not know what a cardiovascular surgeon is and replies “that means heart doctor” (78). This incident upsets C, who soon breaks up with Mira as a result.

Mira and her son have another conversation about race. Z asks if brown people can be racist, and Mira believes they cannot literally be racist because racism is about “keeping another down with a whole system” (81). However, she does admit that people of color can be bigoted toward other people of color. She must be honest about this because, as shown in the previous chapter, she has been guilty of it herself. She has also experienced it from her grandparents and aunts in India. Z asks if an Indian superhero could be racist against the Falcon (who is Black) and Mira explains that Indian people can sometimes “get treated badly and sometimes do it to other people” (85). She tells Z there is room for improvement in how Indian people view race, and Z replies, “I’d rather just be the good guys” (85).