57 pages • 1 hour read
Laila LalamiThe Other Americans
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Complicated American Dream
Nora tells Coleman that her father believed in the American Dream. The American Dream is a longstanding cultural tradition in the United States which suggests that hard work and dedication can help any suitably ambitious person become rich, successful, and a winner. Nora suggests that Driss saw his own life as a fitting example of the American Dream: a young immigrant family arrive in America, build a business from nothing, and become wealthy enough to send their two successful daughters to college. On the surface, Driss fits the model perfectly though the ideal is somewhat retrofitted. Driss did not move to America specifically because of the American Dream. His success was a byproduct which he later assembled into a convenient narrative. The narrative makes him a part of American society in a way that he race cannot. Driss’ investment in the American Dream as the narrative of his life allows him to see himself as truly American even though the society continually views him as foreign and other.
Driss’ success is held as an example of the American Dream but the arson attack on the donut shop reveals how he is excluded from American mainstream society. The attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 lead to an outbreak of racism and islamophobia across a nation struggling to come to terms with what has happened. Months after the attack, Driss arrives at his small business and discovers that someone has burned it to the ground. The attack is racially motivated. Driss is an atheist and (in his youth) a Marxist. His beliefs are as far away from those of the 9/11 attackers as could be imagined.
However, the color of his skin means that he is considered something other than American. The narrative of the American Dream is only applied to Driss when it is convenient for the society. He is very quickly returned to non-white, other status whenever people are scared, confused, or worried. The American Dream is inherently exclusionary to men like Driss. Driss’ response is to double down on his Americanness. He purchases a huge American flag and invests in a diner, an enduring symbol of American culture. He rebuilds his life and his narrative of the American dream, but it is cut short when he is murdered because of his race. The American Dream is a fleeting, exclusionary ideal which reveals the fault lines in the society of the United States.
Society, Loneliness, and the Meaning of Being at Home
Each of the characters in The Other Americans is searching for a way to escape their loneliness and find their place in society. Jeremy is scarred physically and emotionally by the events of his past, Coleman watches her adopted son come to terms with his sexuality, and Efraín is severed from the society in which he lives due to his undocumented status.
Jeremy has tried many cures for his loneliness. He joined the military, joined the police force, he drank, he hikes, he attends support groups, and he goes to gun ranges. Nothing helps him to fill the empty void he feels at the center of his life—until he feels at home with Nora enough to open up. Without her, he drifts through existence and rarely sleeps. He derives little meaning from the world and seems caught in an existential crisis brought about by post-traumatic stress disorder. When he meets Nora. He is able to confide in the girl he loved in high school and opens up to a person for seemingly the first time in his life. Nora makes Jeremy feel as though he belongs, and he does everything he can to make her stay.
Jeremy and Nora complement each other, in that she too has always felt a sense of not being at home. She feels most secure at the diner, walking in her father’s footsteps, but that too ignores the part of her that needs to engage in the word of composing. Her relationship with Jeremy is effortless in a way that she hasn’t experienced prior to him, and so she takes the entire novel to accept it.
Coleman experiences loneliness firsthand and secondhand. She is from the East Coast and finds herself disconnected from cultural life in the West. She is also Black and experiences microaggressions and explicit racism in the workplace. She struggles to fit into life in a small town where everyone knows one another but worries most about her adopted son. She notices that Miles develops romantic feelings for a boy in his school. She empathizes with his loneliness and does everything she can to help. Though Miles’ story is not resolved in the novel, Coleman’s supportive presence in his life suggests that he will have all the assistance he needs.
Efraín experiences a different kind of loneliness. He is an undocumented worker who lives in perpetual fear that he will be found and deported. This prevents him from engaging with society, even when he feels morally compelled to do so. Efraín has his family which helps to alleviate immediate loneliness, but his fearful existence reveals the lonely life of a person who is forced to exist outside of the bureaucratic order created by society.
Hidden Racism
Racism is a suffered by many characters throughout the novel. The attack on Driss is eventually revealed to be an explicitly racist murder, but there are subtler, more common forms of racism that are hidden and unseen by the white community. Often, these hidden forms of racism are dismissed and ignored. Jeremy provides an example of a white character coming to terms with the reality of what race means in America. He is a veteran of Iraq and, while he was in combat, he frequently used racial slurs to refer to the locals. He returns home and begins to regret his past actions. He dates Nora and is constantly aware of his past in the military as a potentially combustible issue which could detonate their relationship. This conflict comes to a head when he fights Fierro. Jeremy hears his friend use a slur they used many times in Iraq to refer to Nora. Jeremy hits Fierro. The anger is not exclusively directed at Fierro’s racism, but at Jeremy himself. Jeremy’s past racism is made explicit by his friend and Jeremy is infuriated by his past actions. He takes out his anger on Fierro in a hope that it will heal the wounds he once helped to inflict.
Non-white characters suffer constant racial micro-aggressions. Non-white children are limited to certain roles in school plays, Nora is assumed to be a waitress or mistaken for other non-white people, and school athletes are forgiven for racial slurs. These experiences remind the non-white characters that they will never truly be accepted by the white majority. These hidden racisms are perpetual reminders of their non-white otherness in relationship to the dominant ethnic group. Driss responds by stringing up an American flag and trying to become as American as possible. Nora responds by withdrawing from society. Coleman responds by becoming a figure of authority and power. Salma responds by developing a pill addiction. There is no single solution available to non-white characters because the issue is social, rather than individual. The society itself must be repaired and hidden moments of racism are a reminder of the fractures in the society. These fractures are ripped apart at the end of the novel. The reveal of the extent of A.J.’s racism shows that the hidden racisms can lead to explicit racism. Just like A.J.’s racist tattoos and comments are uncovered, so is the raw racism at the heart of society. A.J. is protected by the school, his parents, and the law. Social institutions work hard to keep racism hidden until it is no longer possible. Society’s fractures are torn open rarely but the subtle racism in the novel is a reminder that they exist.
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