Review: Behold the Dreamers

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Rating: ★★★★

Behold the Dreamers is an excellent picture of the faces at the heart of immigration into the United States, as it follows a family from Camaroon's struggle to fulfill their American Dream.

Neni and Jende Jonga arrive in New York full of hope, which is a bright light in the midst of the hard living in New York City. They marvel together over everyday things and work hard so that their children can have a better life. Diligence and a constantly grateful attitude seems to slip softly out of every pore, giving them happiness in the midst of exhaustion, bringing goodness to them in the midst of so many who've been beaten down by life. They really are "the dreamers" of America.

Jende gets a job as a chauffeur for a Wall Street lawyer, and his life changes dramatically. The two families' fates become entwined. The low-income, adult immigrants from West Africa interact on a daily basis with this very wealthy, American-born, New York family. The Jonga's thoughts on the Edwards' lives were always unpredictable and fun to read, just as the bizzar habits and attitudes of both families shocked me along. I particularly loved this quote from Jende on attitude in your work (he's talking to the Edward's oldest son who doesn't want to take on his opportunity at an ivy league education):

"I don’t want to be a lawyer. I’ve never wanted to be a lawyer.”
“But why?”
“A lot of lawyers are miserable,” Vince said. “I don’t want to be miserable.”
“My cousin is a lawyer.”
“Is he happy?”
“Sometimes he’s happy, sometimes he’s not. Is there anybody who is happy all the time? A man can be unhappy doing any kind of work.”
“Sure.”
“Then why can you not just think you will be a happy man no matter what kind of work you do?”

It's quotes like these that litter the novel, as the Jonga's decipher upper-class American life—it's so different from their own. It's sad to see their own lives in Africa discounted by Mrs. Edwards occasionally. 

Mrs. Edwards, now there was an interesting character. They were all so human, and Mrs. Edwards represents those who are consumed by our problems, who can't move on and think we're entitled to self-pity and an easy life because of hard things. Neni Jonga was her foil—strong, facing her problems head on. Together, they represented the options you have when you react to issues in your life. It's countless other encounters like this that make the novel such an interesting read.

The Jonga's have only one perceptible thing standing between them and their goal for happiness: Green Cards. They begin the long process of fighting a legal battle that will drain them: spiritually and financially. They are determined to win:

No, he wasn’t going to think about what he would do in Cameroon. He wasn’t returning. That was never the plan. He’d done everything the way he had planned to. He was in America. Neni was here with him. Liomi was an American boy now. They weren’t going back to Limbe. Oh, God, don’t let them deport me, he prayed. Please, Papa God. Please.

They begin to fight their battle, and it's a slow, sad decent into hopelessness from there. The immigration process can be brutal, and when a major collapse of the economic system hits New York City, that hopelessness grows, turning Neni and Jende into people they're not.

Jende and Neni were so real to me. They had very real (and sometimes horrible) flaws, but that just served to make me love them more for their humanness. A personal look at what coming to America means, emotionally and financially, to those who so desperately want to be here.