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Nathan Abrams
reviews
Birdsplaining: A Natural History
by Jasmine Donahaye and
Finding Refuge by Andrea Hammel

‘In Britain,’ Jasmine Donahaye observes of a particular type of attitude in her new book, ‘if you’re brown in a rural place, you’re always seen as being from somewhere else.’ She goes on to say that there is a pervasive feeling here that immigrants can only be indigenous to the place they emigrated from. Speaking from her own experience as the descendant of Jewish emigrants to the UK, she writes, ‘The second and subsequent generations aren’t indigenous to anywhere. Without family roots in the place you’re born, you always carry the taint of being an introduced species. You might adopt a cultural tradition, a particular relationship to a specific place, a specific land, but they’re not really ever yours, not authentically.’

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