Migrations of the Heart

Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Story...from Her Point of View
Review: I rate this book highly insomuch as it held my attention to the end. It reads like a novel, which makes it difficult to put down. I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the challenges of inter-cultural marriages, especially as lived in a foreign country. But the powerful lessons of this book cannot be grasped unless the reader takes into account the inherent flaw of all autobiographies: It is one-sided.

The reader is pulled into the life of Marita and is forced to see and feel the sadness, happiness, and grief of her life. The images she paints of the characters are less reflections of reality than they are reflections of what she has seen in them. Although the American is inevitably disturbed by some Nigerian cultural traditions, a closer look reveals American culture is just as, if not more, disturbing. Marita's story illustrates, perhaps unintentionally, the severe judgment and selfishness of Americans that prevent true multi-cultural understanding. Some passages reveal this more profoundly than others. In one, she discusses the culture of arranged marriages. As she reflects on the American girlfriends of a Nigerian man, she ponders the contradictions as she remembers the women: "Girls like me. Who chose their own husbands. Who thought love was a miracle that bound them to him...Yet when he wanted to marry, he sent home for a wife. A stranger whose body had curves and secret places he would discover only after the fact. A woman of his culture to whom he would owe no explanations. A faceless, anonymous, obedient woman." As an American, I could relate to her perspective, but I could not help feeling ashamed of it also. It is embarassingly one-sided, and the condescending tone is too profound to ignore.

Once married, Marita's American contradictions become more pronounced as she is openly repulsed by polygamy but condones and even commits adultery. The most disturbing part of the book is also the clearest example of the autobiographical flaw: when her emotional "needs" take precedence over even the right of her child to have a father. She was no more innocent than her husband in destroying the marriage she is hurt by. She imagines a desperate situation when there was really only the realities of a troubled marriage, where the sins of both husband and wife are clear and it is impossible to guage who is more guilty.

The only reassurance I felt at the end was the reminder that the author was young when she wrote--and experienced--this. Perhaps, now that she has grown older and wiser, the wisdom of age has inspired her to live her life with more sensitivity to the needs of her child and his father, instead of forcing them both to suffer because of hers.

Rating:
Summary: Things aren't always what they seem to be
Review: The author goes into detail about growing up in Washington, DC and then talks about her relationship with her African husband and the other relationships that women and men have formed with Africans. Her marriage at most, was turbulent due to patriarchal customs. She befriended a woman in Nigeria who was an African-American married to a Nigerian who was barren and treated as an outcast by his family and him. Marita has heard from this woman that women have left their husbands not even requesting for their things that they have left behind. The author thought that because she was marrying an African, she would have been treated better. Sadly, she learned that a man is a man, no matter what ethnic origin he is.

Rating:
Summary: Things aren't always what they seem to be
Review: This bood offers a very good depiction of Cross-culture relationships with too much detail. The author goes into great lengths in expressing detail wich fills the book. Essentially the book could have been written in 100 pages or less, with the main points.

Rating:
Summary: Great Autobiography
Review: This story begins in the 60's, during a time that there was a constant question in the air, I believe, of Blacks, amongst Blacks and Africans, regarding loyalties.

I truly loved reading this autobiography, because Ms. Golden lives through many social pressures, that in the beginning she accepted as part of her responsibility to live in, and endure.

She marries a man who in the beginning seemed like the right guy. But soon learns that her self-concept, her causes and her life view conflict with her husband's emotionally shut down attitude. It also conflicts with the unspoken social rules that her in-laws expect of her.

I especially adored some of the wisdom that Ms. Golden shares in this book, when she learned from other women, "Our husbands will forgive infidelty. But a betrayal of our most importnat duties as wife, that's what they'll never forgive."

She asks what is meant by this, and is told a very true, unspoken message that is part of every culture. The message is that the duty of all wives, according to traditionally thinking men, is that we are there to set the stage on which their lives will unfold.

I had the opportunity, after reading this book to ask many men what they think of this message. And I asked in different ways, to each men. The answer was the same - "Yes. It is true."

And for the women that I discussed this with, they responded with, "Wow. That is true."

A message like this, one which we women learn, and make part of our lives, can make a huge difference in our relationship, because then we are more able to accept that if we are to set the rules, from the very beginning, and be consistent with those rules, we are more apt to get what we want.

Read this little book to explore a woman's journey to finding her place in life.