Quotes from Bushra Rehman

There's this trope that repeats itself in the books you and I read to save our lives: that if where you grew up is killing you, you can leave and make a chosen, identity-based fam that takes up where your bio-fam left off.

I saw my mother shrink in her eyes. I wanted to tell the cashier there were no roaches in Pakistan, but something stopped me.

You make yourself go to sleep. You just tell yourself it's a dream.

We were leaving the empty shells of our childhoods behind and becoming prey.

Money was why my father had to work day and night and was never home. Money was why girls like Shahnaaz got heart-shaped lockets and thought they were better than me. Money was why Saima and I couldn't speak.

My mother knew Allah accepted late namaazes the way teachers accepted late homework: begrudgingly, but glad we'd put in the effort.

Before reading this book, I did not understand that my power and my commitment to fighting oppression lay in finding those places where my experiences of privilege and oppression seem to be at odds with one another. Lorde's work and life taught me that I must not be afraid to go to those complex and "messy" places to understand myself, the history of my people, and to learn how to use my identities in a clear and subversive way.

You'll wear the taweez and drink Zam Zam, but you'll also read.

Safia cried day and night as if she too had a hard time connecting this world with the one she'd left behind.

My mother turned her face up toward the highest branches and got a shiny look in her eyes.

I didn't blame my mother for needing an escape. I felt guilty for my existence and the burden we were on her.

It was always this way with our fathers. They made stories of cruelty seem so funny.

For our families in Pakistan, our parents were the real Santa Claus.