Home at Last - summary

Summary of a text – Home at Last by Dinaw Mengestu

This is the story of Dinaw Mengestu. He was born in Ethiopia and moved to America with his family when he was two years old.

He had never been able to feel belonged to the Ethiopian culture since he left Ethiopia at a very young age.

His parents never integrated into American culture and continued to dream of returning to Ethiopia and the culture they left behind.

When he grew up he tried to find a place where he belongs. He moved with his family to Peoria - one of the suburbs of Chicago.

Peoria was surrounded by all white schools and churches, and he did not feel a sense of belonging. From there he moved to Washington DC, and he found a large community of immigrants from Ethiopia, which he could not fit into.

Throughout that period, his parents continued to think all the time about the family they left in Ethiopia and they could not fit in because they clung to the past. For him and his sister it was very difficult because they did not belong to the past of the family in Ethiopia.

When he was 21 years old he moved to Brooklyn to a neighborhood called Kensington. In this neighborhood live many immigrants from different countries. He describes the neighborhood and lives there. He says that at first even in this neighborhood He did not belong.

The change came one night when he saw Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants laugh together outside one of the restaurants. It reminded him of meetings of Ethiopians who were meeting to speak their language, and tell their jokes.

At that moment he realized that the community can be part of it even if people come from different countries. The common denominator is that they are not in their home country anymore.

He felt that you can build and belong to the community as well in a new place.

He ends the story when he says he went every night and watches the people in Kensington because he enjoys the fact that he felt for the first time that he belongs to something.