82 pages • 2 hours read
Call Me American
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2018
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Introduction
Call Me American
- Genre: Nonfiction; memoir
- Originally Published: 2018
- Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 900L; college/adult
- Structure/Length: 16 chapters and epilogue; approx. 320 pages; approx. 10 hours, 36 minutes on audio
- Central Concern: As a child growing up in Somalia, Abdi Nor Iftin loved American pop culture and cheered when US Marines came to help those in his country. As a young man, he posted secret worldwide dispatches despite the rise to power of a radical Islamist group. His dramatic struggle to settle in America and earn citizenship is the subject of this memoir.
- Potential Sensitivity Issues: Civil war and genocide; violence; homelessness; refugee conflicts
Abdi Nor Iftin, Author
- Bio: Born around 1985 to nomadic parents in Mogadishu, Somalia; learned English by watching American movies; dispatched “guerrilla journalism” stories picked up by NPR and BBC; went to Kenya as a refugee in 2009; won entrance to US in a visa lottery in 2014; writer, radio celebrity, and journalist; advocate for immigrant and refugee rights
- Awards: Kirkus and Booklist Starred Reviews (2018)
CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:
- Cultural Differences
- Loss of Innocence
- Individual Versus Collective Action
STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:
- Gain an understanding of the historical and political contexts regarding Somalia and the Somali civil war that Abdi experiences.
