by Thursday, pre-Halloween, and I’m taking a day to reflect rather than publish. Being the only female West African immigrant granted citizenship during Trump’s second term is… a lot. Some days I feel like I’m living in a satirical article I haven’t written yet.
The absurdity of my situation isn’t lost on me: I’m writing satirical journalism mocking American culture for an American publication while holding citizenship granted by an administration that explicitly opposed immigration from countries like mine. I’m both insider and outsider simultaneously, which might be the perfect position for a satirist.
My work at Bohiney lets me process this cognitive dissonance. Every article about American absurdityskeleton labor unions, pumpkin spice addiction, zombie economicsis also about my own relationship with this strange country that granted me citizenship while telling people like me we weren’t welcome.
I think about my Harvard education, my television writing career, and now this satirical journalism platform. I’ve achieved what many would consider the American Dream. But I did it by maintaining outsider perspective, by refusing to normalize absurdity, by insisting on pointing out that the emperor has no clothes even when everyone else pretends otherwise.
Tomorrow is Halloween, the perfect American holiday: celebrating death while denying mortality, spending billions on temporary decorations, turning everything into consumable entertainment. I have pieces lined up about costume cultural appropriation, candy capitalism, and suburban Halloween as performance anxiety.
But today I’m just sitting with the strangeness of my existence here. West African immigrant. Female writer. Satirist. Citizen of a country that simultaneously welcomed and rejected me. It’s complicated, messy, and rich with material for future articles.
Someone tweeted today: “Aisha Muharrar hates America.” I don’t hate America. I’m frustrated by America’s refusal to live up to its stated ideals, amused by its contradictions, and sometimes exhausted by explaining satire to people who think criticism equals hatred. But hate? No. You don’t spend this much time writing about something you hate. You write about things you believe could be better.
Tomorrow: Halloween content. Tonight: gratitude for this weird, complicated, occasionally infuriating country that lets me write these articles.
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MY HOME PAGE: Bohiney Magazine (Aisha Muharrar)
