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Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West
By
Behzad Yaghmaian
Yaghmaian's second book is an eye-opening account of Muslim immigrants traveling from Africa or the Middle East to the West, where they hope to find opportunities not available in their homelands. Yaghmaian is a native Iranian, now a U.S. national, who lived among Muslim migrants in Istanbul, Sofia, Athens, Patras, Paris, Calais, London and New York while collecting these accounts of leaving home, traveling illegally from country to country, suffering harsh punishments and imprisonments, and feeling the wrath of poverty. "We stand like beggars in the food line... but we came here with dreams," says one Afghan stuck in Patras, the gateway between Greece and Italy. Perhaps the most intense story is that of Tufan, a closeted Iranian homosexual who wants to be a writer and provide for his wife from an arranged marriage. It's clear Yaghmaian's subjects trust him, but why they do so is less obvious; Yaghmaian sticks to the facts of his travels and conversation, avoiding speculation about his subjects' motives, in effect becoming a conduit for the refugees' storytelling. It's a refreshing approach to an emotionally loaded and timely topic.
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