Exit west, by Moshin Hamid, is a book that depicts the world turning almost upside down, with national borders almost dissolving. Another thing that exit west turns upside down is the subconscious colonial assumptions that we have. One of the ways that Hamid subverts the colonial system is by referring to the white people of England as the “natives”. This simple word choice almost messes with one’s head as we are so accustomed to hearing about natives in reference to the less developed continents that European empires exploited. For white people it is almost a new experience to consider the ‘natives’ as being white. Hamid comments upon this: “And yet it was not quite true to say that there were almost no natives, nativeness being a relative matter” (197). Hamid then goes on to argue that the paler skinned Americans owe their nativeness to their several generations of living in “a thin strip of land between the pacific ocean and the Atlantic ocean” (198).

Yet realistically that makes them far less native than the ones who were there before European contact, but even among those peoples there are groups that arrived long before others.

Is anyone truly native?

Throughout chapters seven through nine Hamid depicts the tensions between the migrants and the natives of London. The natives of London today would be characterized by Norse and Norman genetics, Normans being Norse people who mixed with French. However these groups also displaced the Anglo-Saxons that were there before them. But these Anglo-Saxons arrived from Denmark and Germany to displace Roman groups which in turn supplanted Celtic and Pict societies. Even that natives aren’t native.

Does native as a term even mean anything? Humans are always on the move and always have been. If you look farther than all humans are “natives” to Africa or the Middle East, but we rarely think of things that way. The distinctions that humans create serve to organize their own interests. People could be natives when they want to protect their land yet toss aside the term when they want to take others’.

What do you consider yourself a native to, and why?

by McKale Thompson

In Exit West, author Mohsin Hamid utilizes magical doors to forgo an explanation of how the characters arrived in their new location. Hamid explained in a reading of his book that the doors help to focus the reader on the location and take away the need for a long, difficult, migration story. But, why did Hamid feel that including a long migration would dilute the real theme of his novel?

My grandparents immigrated to America around the early ’70s, but when my Grandmother discuss their early days in America she never starts her story with how she got here. Could her reason be the same as Hamid’s. The primary narrative of migration is the difficult journey from one place to another especially as a refugee seeking asylum. The media focuses on these difficult journeys to gain sympathy for migrants because otherwise non-migrant people diminish their stories. In countries, like America, that provide asylum seekers with a home, the narrative around migrant populations is that they somehow are taking advantage of the opportunities that the non-migrant residents have earned access to. This narrative is harmful because it makes it difficult for migrant people to find stability in a new country and create the foundation they need to start anew.

When my grandmother came to the United States she was discriminated against by Black people, White people, really anyone who believed they had more claim to opportunities in America because they identified as American. So, the media tries to soften the hearts of non-migrant people by covering the difficult often unbearable journeys of migrants, this, however, is not a solution. By reinforcing how difficult the lives of migrant people are, it allows non-migrants to exclude them and maintain power over them. In Jessica Benjamin’s theory of mutual recognition, she explains how binaries create power imbalances. In this case, there are Non-Migrants and Migrants, and non-migrants people reinforce their power over migrant people by pitying them. Mutual recognition between Migrant and Non-Migrant people would require people to realize that their seemingly stable environment could be destroyed within weeks, and they could be in the same situation as the people who they pity and separate themselves from.

In the case of Exit West, Hamid’s use of doors instead of telling a migration story helps the reader to combat this bias against those who have difficult journeys to safety and realize that just like Nadia and Saeed their normalcy is fragile.

In Exit West, Mohsin Hamid does an excellent job of analyzing how migrants are perceived by the communities they move into. One of my favorite lines expressing the ideas of anti-immigrant proponents is in Chapter 6 when Nadia is watching the woman from the Vienna art gallery on board the train,

found herself surrounded by men who looked like her brother and her cousins and her father and her uncles, except that they were angry, they were furious, and they were staring at her and at her badges with undisguised hostility, and the rancour of perceived betrayal (110)

The most interesting part of Nadia’s observation is that people withthese beliefs exist and are probably more common than many would believe. Somebody’s looks don’t tell the whole story of their opinions or emotions. I’m not sure how common it is in real life but there have certainly been examples in history where people dislike others similar to them because they don’t like their past identities (or ones they don’t want to associate with anymore). These feelings come in many different forms such as pity, remorse, or the hatred and anger expressed by the men in the passage. I think this is a really interesting look at the human psych and how we view ourselves compared to other people.

by Jasmine Wood

Hamid’s level of detail on the smaller, more specific events and interactions of his characters in his novel Exit West creates a relatability to which his readers connect, despite the overarching circumstance of violence and conflict and resulting refugee crisis. While it is clear the novel’s attitude toward global change and immigrants is targeted mostly towards an audience far removed from the experiences of its characters, there is an equally important message of finding unity and respect despite cultural differences. The most readily example would be Nadia and Saeed’s lives early on before their city fell apart. They had movie theaters and cell phones and social media and hallucinogenic drugs – all things that almost every reader can relate to. And so, Hamid effectively bolsters his novel’s theme with subliminable connections that are impossible for his readers to deny.

However, another way Hamid unites his audience is through his writing’s attitude toward change. Even though the change in Nadia and Saeed’s lives is very different than, say, the old woman’s, the author still manages to connect them through the mode of time. Throughout the entire story, the author constantly uses phrases such as “back then” and “in those days.” Consequently, he reflects on his characters’ experiences on a scale of time – past, present, future. Similarly, he utilizes the same phrasing when discussing the personal changes of supporting characters, such as the old woman and her house in Palo Alto. Thus, readers make a connection between the larger global changes and smaller personal changes because both of them are framed as ‘before’ or ‘after’ or ‘now’ or ‘today’ or ‘back then’ or ‘in those days.’ So it is on this level, too, that readers are able to relate to people seemingly a world away. After all, in Hamid’s words, “We are all migrants through time.”

In the media today, stories of migrants are written in a way that emphasizes their journey, their struggle, and the hardships they come from. Essentially, these stories do their best to create an “other”, to emphasis everything that makes migrants different from the person reading the story.

In Exit West, Mohsin Hamid takes a different approach. The book focuses heavily on relationships between people, particularly Saeed and Nadia, as well as familial relationships and the connections Saeed and Nadia make with different people as they traveled away from their home. Everyone has relationships of some sort with people in their lives, and so people reading this book, who most likely live in entirely different circumstances from Saeed and Nadia, are able to relate in that way. The use of doors as methods of traveling from place to place reduces the emphasis of the physical journey of a migrant and allows the reader the focus on what is more important: who the characters are and the connections they form with others.

Exit West combats the narrative of migrants as nothing more than a distinct “other” from non-migrants. It emphasizes the things that humans have in common, regardless of what part of the globe they are from.

In the novel Exit West, a major idea presented is migration. While Nadia and Saeed are in England, the british people don’t want all of them coming in at first. This is very prevelant in reality with not only fugitives but just migration in America. Some people in the US are scared of people people taking their jobs which I think is ridicuclous. If a person that has most likely had a more difficult life than you can come here and take a job from someone, then I don’t think the people who were here originally are working as hard as they could.

My ideals about migration mostly stem from Dad. He legally came to the US from India when he was 13 and worked so hard for him and his whole family. Without knowing English until he came here, my Dad was able to put himself through med school and bought a house for him, his parents, and his siblings. I think many immigrants have his mentality that the hardest part was getting making it to the US. He was preparred to work as hard as possible to get ahead from the moment he got here. He is the only reason my family is currently in a wealthy neighborhood and if he could do it then I think lots of other migrants can too. It does not matter to me if immigrants got here legally or illegally because they should all be given a chance to thrive in the US.

There are positive aspects to life and negative For some it’s overwhelmingly the ladder, others would be the former. Regardless, both deal with change at some point in their lives. If death is the only certainty in life, then change is a certainty as well. People die everyday, and along with those deaths are changing lives. The theme of migration is interpreted in many different ways, which in Exist West is about the scariness of it as well as the overwhelming positive aspect of it for the specific character of the story. Change applies to everyone’s lives, and to give one example that everyone can relate to is almost impossible. One I would assume would be moving to a new house. The suffering of change equates to the suffering of existence itself. When one finds normalcy and comfort in their surroundings in an absurd meaningless reality, they are able to live side by side with their mortality (as long as there actually is comfort). To grow up/mature is to apply the reality of death to your life in continuously changing ways that fall in line with your values. That on it’s own is possible in any environment. But values do not always associate with well-being. One can live by their values and still suffer. The greatest comfort is living a life that gives you all the core human needs, including a familiar environment and routine. To have that stripped away in the name of change (or migration in Exist West) is painful. It’s incredibly difficult to instantly apply your values to a new life because there is a period of suffering you must endure before you’re able to start to get comfortable ang grow.

In the novel Exit West, Mohsin Hamid writes towards the end of the story with the last words, “We are all migrants through time”(209). After reading this, I reflected on this statement and tried to grasp the meaning of it. However, pondering this sentence only left me with this question…

If we are all others(migrants), is there such thing as an other?

My definition and what I have come to terms with is that “an other” is classified as — not a majority and alienated from the rest of the group. As I became more reflective, I realized that I still consider myself an other as a person of color in a predominantly white community because Asians make up about 5% of the population in Oak Park. When looking globally, I am a part of the majority race. There are more Asians in the world than any other ethnicity.

The same thought process can be put into terms with migration. Oftentimes, people look down upon people migrating from one part of the world to another especially when not done legally in fear of the people bringing more chaos into the United States. But, people move from one part of the country to another all the time. Understandably, the migrators are doing it without proper documentation, but in the bigger picture, they overall are the same.

Going back to Hamid’s sentence, I’ve realized that when expanding the lenses of an other, there is always going to be an opportunity to be “an other” but when taking a step back and approaching, a very simple, but complicated thought, we can all be categorized as “an other” in something. Even further, we can all be “an other” and take part in the same thing as Hamid said–with time.

The idea of certain groups of people being “others” seems like an outdated concept. In Exit West, every time Nadia and Saeed traveled to another place they entered feeling as outsiders. They would then often meet other migrants who’s feelings reflected their own. This communal awkward feeling is unnecessary and benefits no one. Even at the end of the novel, when the old woman was reflecting on her life that she had spent in one house she decided, “We are all migrants through time” (Hamid 209). A woman, who watched the block around her change throughout her life, knew that although the people who lived there were from other parts of the world, they were no different than her. As all people are technically “global others” to each other there is no need for this distinction as it only creates separation. While it is important that maintaining a distinction between groups of people is important for various reasons, the negative connotation that is associated with the word “other” creates a harmful hierarchical separation between those who are viewed as “native” versus “other”. All people, at one point or another will be considered as “others” and experience this outdated hierarchy. Although a distinction between people should be made, it should be based on feelings of pride and security, not fear or hate.

In Exit West, one of the common themes is borders and border security. This issue is still very relevant today. Borders are not real; they are a social construct that society accepts. In Hamid’s novel, there are so many migrants that the borders get more and more blurry throughout the novel. When Saeed and Nadia were in London you saw people get violent over their fear of the other as more migrants flooded in through the doors. In today’s America, the issue of border security is a very hot button issue. Some people are very concerned about illegal immigrants and border security which is seen in some of the natives in Exit West. The violence in London is something you could see happening today in the US. What we see in Exit West, though is something we need to remember, is everyone is a migrant. America is a country made up of migrants which is why when we talk about border security it almost seems funny since 90% of our country is made up of migrants or ancestors of migrants.