Title: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
Author: Dinaw Mengestu
Sepha Stephanos has lived in the United States long enough that he's no longer starry-eyed about his prospects. He's no longer out to change the world. He's doesn't dream about sending money home to his family in Ethiopia (in fact, his mother sends money to him). For the last ten years, his life hasn't changed much. He runs his convenience store in an inner-city DC neighborhood and gets together with two African friends to drink, talk about their disillusionment and reminisce.
Then the neighborhood begins to gentrify, and new neighbors move in. Among those neighbors are Judith and Naomi, a history professor and her biracial daughter, and suddenly Stephanos finds that the world looks different. Better, at first, and then maybe not so much better.
Reading The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears reminded me a lot of my days teaching at Rochester Community and Technical College. Many of my students were either Ethiopian or Somalian, newly arrived in the United States and full of enthusiasm, if not English skills. The frustration that many of them felt as the semester wore on was palpable. For centuries, foreigners have come to the United States thinking that it held a better life. For many of them, it probably did. But what about those who found life as hard or harder than in the place that they left? Mengestu's book is beautifully written and allows those of us whose ancestors have been here for generations a glimpse inside what it might be like for those who have arrived more recently.
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