I Belong Here By Amin Ahmed

Do many people write about racial inequality and how it is still a problem? Amin Ahmad did; he wrote about a specific example of when it happened to him. In his story "I Belong Here", he wrote about how he felt when he experienced it and how he feels when he sees racial inequality. Ahmad shows us his experience as an immigrant trying to enter a new country. The purpose of this essay is to analyze “I Belong Here”, by looking at when the story was written, why Ahmad wrote the story, and if the story makes an effective argument with the problem of racial inequality.

Amin Ahmad is from Kolkata, India. He first came to America as an immigrant when he was 17 (Vora). Ahmad would have only been 42 years old when he wrote this story. It is important to know this because a person's age will affect how they view experiences. A child would view

His girlfriend is a white American, and he is Indian. He compares their passports in the story, "My passport tells the story of my immigrant life: my student and work visas; all the entry and exit stamps as I traveled between India and United States." (Ahmad 38). Ahmad tells how his girlfriend's passport is "sleek and clean" (Ahmad 38). The difference in their passports tells us that they came from two drastically different places. Her passport was barely glanced at because it was not tattered and glued together. As they were sitting on the bench he noticed that most, if not all, of the white people, were clearing while more of the minorities had been stopped. He, as a minority, would notice this more than his girlfriend because he had been stopped many times while traveling. It is important to know these facts because they show that he has experienced what he is writing. Events that happen around us affect how we are treated by others and Ahmad would have known that these recent events would affect the way that security treats and looks at