This exceptional and powerful anthology explores the joys, heartbreaks and triumphs of immigration, with stories by critically acclaimed and bestselling YA authors who are shaped by the journeys they and their families have taken from home—and to find home. WELCOME From some of the most exciting bestselling and up-and-coming YA authors writing today...journey from Ecuador to New York City and Argentina to Utah...from Australia to Harlem and India to New Jersey...from Fiji, America, Mexico and more... Come On In. With characters who face random traffic stops, TSA detention, customs anxiety, and the daunting and inspiring journey to new lands...who camp with their extended families, dance at weddings, keep diaries, teach ESL...who give up their rooms for displaced family, decide their own answer to the question “where are you from?” and so much more... Come On In illuminates fifteen of the myriad facets of the immigrant experience, from authors who have been shaped by the journeys they and their families have taken from home—and to find home. The immigrant story is not one story. It is a collection. What do I leave behind and what do I take with me? I am being told to divide myself into pieces and choose which parts of me are the most important. —Nafiza Azad “But where are you really from?” —Misa Sugiura Travel bans really put a damper on festive occasions. —Sara Farizan I know something big is about to happen. And I can’t wait. —Sona Charaipotra “It’s so easy for you. You can come and go. You never have to worry.” —Lilliam Rivera She calls herself whatever she wants to, because she doesn’t believe in borders or other people naming her. —Isabel Quintero We’re leaving everything we know behind. Everyone thinks we are so lucky. Are we? —Varsha Bajaj Without more questions, he stamped her passport and smiled. “Come on in,” he said. —Yamile Saied Méndez Come On In 15 Stories About Immigration and Finding Home Edited by Adi Alsaid Contents EPIGRAPH ALL THE COLORS OF GOODBYE by Nafiza Azad DEDICATION STORY AUTHOR’S NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR THE WEDDING by Sara Farizan STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR WHERE I’M FROM by Misa Sugiura STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR SALVATION AND THE SEA by Lilliam Rivera STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR VOLVIÉNDOME by Alaya Dawn Johnson STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR THE TRIP by Sona Charaipotra STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR THE CURANDERA AND THE ALCHEMIST by Maria E. Andreu STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR A BIGGER TENT by Maurene Goo DEDICATION STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR FIRST WORDS by Varsha Bajaj STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR FAMILY OVER EVERYTHING by Yamile Saied Méndez DEDICATION STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR WHEN I WAS WHITE by Justine Larbalestier DEDICATION STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR FROM GOLDEN STATE by Isabel Quintero STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR HARD TO SAY by Sharon Morse STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR CONFESSIONS OF AN ECUADORKIAN by Zoraida Córdova STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR FLEEING, LEAVING, MOVING by Adi Alsaid STORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR EPIGRAPH They came in by the dozens Walking or crawling Some were bright-eyed, some were dead on their feet And they came from Zimbabwe, or from soviet Georgia East Saint Louis, or from Paris, or they lived across the street But they came, and when they finally made it here It was the least that we could do to make our welcome clear —“Color in Your Cheeks,” the Mountain Goats ALL THE COLORS OF GOODBYE Nafiza Azad DEDICATION To Ishraaz, the brother I left behind. I love you. I say goodbye to the hibiscus first. I planted them with my amma on my seventh birthday. Three red hibiscus plants, two orange, four pink, and one yellow. They have been my responsibility ever since. I water them, I count the buds and wait for them to bloom. Once they do, I tell the flowers my secrets and all the prickles in my heart. Now I have to leave, and I don’t know who will look after them when I am gone. This morning my abbu returned with a thick brown envelope from the post office in town. When he opened it, his eyes widened first with disbelief and then with joy. He told us we are leaving. That we are moving to another country. He said that home will be a different shape, color, and feeling from now on. Why would the idea of leaving make him so happy? A grove of mango trees grows by the road just a little distance from our house. This grove is filled with large boulders and smaller stones that my grandfather placed between the roots of the trees. When the wind rushes through this grove, it sings a strange, mournful tune. I say goodbye to the song and to the stones. Five months ago, there was a military coup in the capital city. The prime minister, in the midst of celebrating his first year in office with chai and cookies, was deposed, and someone called George Speight announced himself captain. The radio shot bulletins into the air. The media, international and local, went into a frenzy. Some people looted the capital city. Others augured the coming of The End. We, on the other side of the island, some three hundred kilometers from the capital city, found ourselves on a break from school. Suddenly Fiji was no longer safe. Even though nothing has changed on our side of the island, even though there has been no violence or looting here, people insist that things are no longer the same. They talk about the government and its supposed bias toward the natives of our country. They say that it is time to leave. My father cloaks his eagerness to be away and calls it a concern for my future. My mother is silent—as she always is—in front of my father. I do not want a future if it dawns in a place I do not know, but no one listens to me. My cousins and I, drunk on the sunshine and the sugarcane, can’t see what the trouble is. Our lives were unaffected by the coup, by the political riots, by everything outside our village—until my father brought home the brown envelope that will change everything. My room is not very big. The bed, leaning against one wall, faces the door while the other two walls have screened and louvered windows that somehow provide no barrier to the mosquitoes. The faded curtains wage daily war with the unrelenting sun that makes the obnoxiously blue carpet on the floor even brighter. The walls are a gentle pink. Tube lights overhead provide light and death to moths. My broken-down wardrobe is beside the door. My precious cosmetics (if you must know, one tube of half-used pink lipstick, a tube of lip gloss, baby powder, and a comb) lie on what serves as a vanity table. The mirror is not attached, and I often think it is going to complete its slide onto the floor and lose the little lease it has on life. My shalwar kameez have the place of honor and hang from hangers, flaunting their grace and their glory. In a little green tub I keep under my bed are all the clothes I wear at home. I have a bookshelf crammed with secondhand books, books borrowed, and books received as gifts. The walls contain posters of Bollywood actors I might have crushes on. The back of the door is decorated with lipstick kisses. This room has held all my corners and filled me with myself. It grew as I did and blooms as I do. When the setting sun paints the walls orange and shadows emerge from under the bed to hide the damp on my cheeks, I whisper a goodbye to my room. I have an older brother I don’t really know how to talk to. I also have six first cousins I grew up with. Their parents live in two different wings of my grandmother’s house, which is two hundred meters away from mine. Three cousins per family, four girls and two boys. Our names rhyme and our thoughts are collective. We have fought each other and fought for each other. We have whispered secrets about our changing bodies, assuring ourselves that we are normal. We know each other like other people know themselves. The spaces between us are thick with memories. Two hours after I found out, I tell my cousins about the brown paper envelope, about my father’s words, about leaving. They are quiet. We sit on the cool rocks under the mango trees in the grove my grandfather built. The wind makes music out of the day. Perhaps they, like me, cannot understand what leaving means. Perhaps, they cannot comprehend, either, the nature of distance and what it will do to us. I don’t know how to be myself without them. Do they know how to be themselves without me? My eldest cousin is angry. “Do you know how big your goodbye is?” She spits out the question. Pauses. Then answers it herself. “It is the size of forever.” “Then I won’t say goodbye,” I reply stubbornly. It is not as if I am leaving because I want to. “Some goodbyes do not need to be spoken,” she replies. “You will come back, won’t you?” my youngest cousin asks anxiously. She’s only seven. There are ten years between us. Even if I do come back, the home right now and the people right now will no longer be as they are.