I feel like I would love to wake the rest of the immigrant community up. I wish someone had told me, it took me so long to figure that out. Microaggressions were present, but Malaka’s understanding in the differences between cultures helped embrace her own. The real world was white, pop culture and tv and magazines were majority white, and so was her college experience and job world. Especially in Cerritos with so many cultures represented.” Malaka’s drawings of high school friends highlight their identities, their multi-ethnicities.īut there was also an interest in white friends and assimilation. “Asking ‘what are you’ was a normal question growing up among people of color, it was a way to know our identity. I learned to be culturally sensitive, be more aware,” Malaka explained. “There are so many cultures in my hometown. Malaka also touched on growing up in a diverse community and how different it was than what she saw on tv.
Your culture is important.” So she shared her cultures and experiences.
I learned way too late in life that it’s completely okay to be you. “For me, I wrote the kind of book that I wish I could’ve had when I was younger. Soon an agent showed interest and she had a publisher. Her Instagram page gained traction, with a colleague suggesting she turn it into a book. I wanted to share a more nuanced picture of what it means to be an immigrant in this country.” If only they just knew what it’s like growing up here. I grew up my whole life not being able to tell my story. Having grown up in a very diverse part of Los Angeles, around immigrants and plenty of cultures, Malaka used her drawings as a way to course correct and portray immigrants in a different way saying, “I drew a cartoon about my mom in Manila and it was different from the news. With all that was going on in 2016, hearing all the ugly rhetoric in the news about immigrants in the US, Malaka began posting her cartoons on Instagram. That’s where her cartoons/drawings got their start. She would print her zines at her Tito’s office in Historic Filipino town, distributing them at Tower Records and concerts. Malaka spent her youth in Cerritos, California creating zines and drawing. These moments set the scene and provide an understanding of her growth, coming of age and feeling comfortable in herself. Moments of her life are captured beautifully in drawings and words with details like growing up a child of immigrants, her Filipino and Egyptian culture and food, family tree, pop culture influences, balance of life between cultures/traditions/religions, trips to visit her father, college in New York, microaggressions, finding love and an identity all her own. I Was Their American Dream, the premiere graphic memoir by writer and editor Malaka Gharib is a journey through her life, growing up in America, and finding her identity.
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