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Abraham Contreras

Professor Sara Doan

Engl 250

February 5, 2015

Home At Last by Dinaw Mengestu

Dinaw Mengestu’s “Home At Last” is an essay about his personal identity as an

immigrant from Ethiopia. After immigrating to the United States at two years old, his family

never quite settled down in one location. Due to his several transitions from city to city, he

begins to disassociate with any particular location. In his essay, Mengestu writes about his

experiences, which gives him enough ethos to make his point valid or realistic, and it also helps

appealing to other people’s emotions and helps connect the reader to his writing in a more

personal and emotional way using imagery.

Mengestu writes in the first person point of view, creating an intimate tone throughout

the essay. He creates the sense that he is speaking to the reader directly, although he never uses

the term “you”, by the end of the essay he addresses the audience, saying, “What I admired and

about Kensington, was the assertion that we can rebuild and remake ourselves and our

communities over and over again…” (79). In this sentence, found towards the end of the reading,

Mengestu states what he admires and adores about Kensington, but when he talks about

rebuilding and remaking, he seems to address the people living in Kensington, and anyone else

that might have gone through similar experiences. In this way, it makes me think he is targeting

readers who can share or connect with his own thoughts and experiences. Throughout the whole

essay, Megnestu tells his story as a flashback. The events he tells from his own personal life

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follow in chronological order, from living with his parents to going off to Brooklyn to live on his

own. He writes with the purpose of sharing his own story for others to follow or relate.

Mengestu, having written about his personal experiences, is able to provide the reader

with the ability to connect with his writing. Making the reader connect to the context then allows

for the author to appeal to their emotions. He begins appealing to emotions of sympathy and

compassion by describing his childhood living with his parents. Mengestu describes how his

parents are “tied and lost to their jobs,” (76) and how he learns “what it meant to lose and be

alone,” (76). Towards the second half of the essay the mood changes and Mengestu describes his

transition to Brooklyn. The tone changes into a more intimate, and optimistic tone from which he

describes his adaptations into a new community.

Mengestu uses imagery to illustrate his newfound neighborhood. He places the images of

“a Latin American restaurant and grocery store, a Chinese fish market, a Halal butcher shop,

followed by a series of Pakistani and Bangladeshi takeout restaurants” (77), in our heads, giving

the reader the illusion of actually making their way to the F train. He uses reoccurring images of

immigrants, who have recreated their lives in Kensington, and his interaction with them as a way

to illustrate the new community, which he has now become a part of. Immigrants such as his

landlord’s father, “and old gray-haired Chinese immigrant who spoke no English” (77) or “the

men behind the counters of the Bangladeshi takeout places that knew him by sight” (77). The

vivifying illustrations of the community elucidate the fact that he has found a home at last.

Mengestu’s point of view, emotional appeal, and use of imagery are the basis for his

claim, that no matter where you come from, anyone can find a home somewhere, even if it just is

a corner on Brooklyn. If it were not have been told in first person and if it were not based on his

own life, his claim would have made less of an impact on the reader. His vivid imagery helps

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appeal to the emotions of the reader and shows the transition from getting to know Kensington to

becoming a part a community.

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Work Cited

Mengestu, Dinaw. "Home At Last." Identity: A Reader for Writers. Ed. John Scenters-Zapico.

N.p.: Oxford UP, 2013. 74-80. Print.