Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots

<br /><i>“Reconsideration is what history is all about; history doesn’t care what you feel. I had to be OK with being uncomfortable with whatever I would find out about my family.”</i><br /><br /><i>Wandering in Strange Lands</i> is a memoir mixed with cultural history and social commentary. Morgan Jerkins investigates the Great Migration while tracing back her family history. This book provided many interesting and thought provoking facts that <b>aren’t necessarily taught at schools</b>. However it suffered from its lack of emotional connection. <br /><br />Morgan Jerkin’s personal connection with the topic meant the book had potential to be heightened in terms of emotion. However, it <b>felt quite detached</b> from the facts and history interspersed. I would have loved to see the two parts of the story interweave in a larger and more nuanced way. <br /><br />Some aspects will definitely stick with me (such as the section about water) but <b>not the book as a whole.</b> At some places it felt a bit dense which made it difficult for me to stay engaged. <br /><br />Overall, I found this book to be an interesting look at American history through a black lens, and undoubtedly well researched. However, due to a lack of emotional connection it felt at time more like a textbook at times than a memoir/non-fiction read. <br /><br /><i>Thank you to HarperAudio and <a href="http://libro.fm/referral?rf_code=lfm163720" rel="nofollow noopener">Libro.fm</a> for this ALC</i>

Morgan Jerkins had heard her family’s many stories and histories throughout her life but over time she began to wonder how those tales, folk sayings, etc might relate to the reality of her background. Just who were her “people?” By tracing the Great Migration in reverse and tracking specific parts of both paternal and maternal forebears, she creates a portrait of black life in America post slavery that is likely relevant for many Black people in this country. <br /><br />The author physically travels to areas from her family’s past, as close to specific sites as possible, and locates as many records as possible. She also finds local experts on the people and history. Her first destination was the Low Country of Georgia and South Carolina. And the Gullah Geechee people who have lived on coastal islands and were able to maintain many African practices. She researched the starting points for those who migrated to Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, like her mother’s family and found Georgia. <br /><br />Her father was from North Carolina but tracing earlier migration patterns took Jerkins to Louisiana and to a much better understanding of Creole culture. From there she follows displaced slaves, freedmen and Indians to Oklahoma, the land at the end of the Trail of Tears. The mix of people and cultures here became a battle of sorts that is still unsettled.<br /><br />Lastly, she trailed those who continued to seek a better life and headed for California. For me, this was perhaps the hardest and harshest part of the saga. Here there were few, if any, good endings, rare acquisitions of homes and properties. More often there were those who were redlined out of good neighborhoods, pushed into jobs with no future, living in Los Angeles, a city with a history of racist police. <br /><br />Reading this book at this time in our country’s history feels right and powerful. The final section about Watts, South Central LA, etc, was eye opening. This was written in 2019 for publication now. What timing. While it approaches black experience through a personal filter, it also deals with general experiences. While I am white and have not had the same life experiences, I am also interested in genealogy and my forbears. I am glad I had the opportunity to read this book and learn.<br /><br />A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

<i>"No one spoke about the past—the goal was to move forward and never look back."</i><br /><br />Morgan Jerkins, an up-and-coming young Black writer from New Jersey, didn't know the full extent of her family history. Like many Black Americans, she knew she had roots in the South and ancestors who were enslaved in this country, but she had never fully connected with those roots. Intrigued by social patterns that began with the slave trade and repeated in new ways during the Great Migration, she embarks on a nationwide journey to uncover not only her own family history but many of the untold stories of Black American history. <br /><br />Jerkins ventures to Georgia and South Carolina to learn more about the Gullah-Geechee population that occupies the Lowlands of the South and has been consistently displaced and overlooked by local government agencies, before moving on to the Creole populations of Louisiana and their unique cultural history in that region. She then travels to Oklahoma to investigate the ties between Black people and Indigenous people on the Trail of Tears, an event during which many people of both races were forcibly removed from their own homelands and made to exist elsewhere. Her search for a more fully-fleshed out history of Black people in America finally concludes in Los Angeles, where many Black people relocated in hopes of new opportunities not previously available to them in other parts of the country, only to be consistently caught up in the police brutality that influenced the development of gangs initially meant to protect Black folks against corrupt law enforcement. She does all this through the lens of her own family and understanding her roots by coming to know who they were and are and what their journey has entailed. <br /><br />This book definitely opened my eyes to new populations and stories in history that I did not know much about and for that I am grateful. However, I was hoping to learn more about the Great Migration itself. Not only that, but this book was for me difficult to follow, which is why this not-so-well-written review is probably reflecting that. It was very oddly structured and I think it could have been helped with another round or two of editing, or maybe some new eyes on it altogether. Maybe she could have co-written it with another Black author, I'm just not sure. The premise behind this book is really stellar, but the execution just didn't quite resonate with me. I found myself spacing out a lot while listening to it and wonder if I would have been better off physically reading it; maybe I would have better digested the information and it might have had more of an emotional impact on me, but I was left wanting. <br /><br />I know the book was supposed to be a memoir and pertain directly to Morgan Jerkins' personal experience and her family, but for me this was lacking the depth—emotionally and factually—that could have taken it from passable to phenomenal. The information that was included was well-researched but awkwardly presented. I would have liked to learn more about Chicago and Detroit and other parts of the North. It just felt like pieces of the puzzle were missing. I hope to come back to this book in text sometime and see if I can maybe piece together a better review or even have a better reading experience, but for now, I'm just happy to be through with this book which felt like a task to me and hopefully on to some better material before the end of Black History Month!

This is a solid well researched book. I learned a ton. More thoughts to come.

[3.5] This book is a personal exploration of the author's family history, using US history as a backdrop. Jerkins wanders from New Jersey to Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma and California touching on various parts of her background and her identity as a black woman and then moving on - sometimes rather abruptly. Overall, well researched and engaging.

<b> I was seven years old when I learned that I wasn't my father's only daughter </b> This is the line that opens Morgan Jerkins sophomore novel and sets us up for a historical look into her family tree. Morgan sets out to understand more about her family's history, where they came from, why they left and why they settle where they did. Jerkins holds nothing back, she is unafraid of learning more about her history and this was a genuine look. <br /><br />I really enjoyed reading this, I feel like I can relate to Jerkin's family in a way. As someone who is always asking about my family history and is constantly met with "why you want to know" "thats how how its always been" etc it felt good to see someone win at looking into their history. I also felt like this book reignited my interest into researching more about my family. <br /><br />A well researched and written book. I also learned sooo much. <br /><br /><br />One things I learned reading this book:<br /><br /><b> It is important to remember that Louisiana was not originally a part of the United States. </b>

<br />Not to be this person, but I'm truly processing everything this book brought me... <br /><br />Review to come.

Why hasn't this gotten more attention? It's fantastic.

I'm not sure exactly how to review this book. Maybe it's because it's a memoir (more of a memoir that I expected) and I find rating memoir's uncomfortable. There were parts of this I found really engaging, and really interesting. Mostly the more personal elements, and the historical narratives. But the second half, especially when she begins talking about social constructions of race I didn't find as engaging (not because they were bad, I just thought I had read books that discussed it more effectively.<br /><br />That said, I really did love parts of this, and I learnt a lot. I'm not American obviously, but I still found the subject matter and history very interesting despite that.

This book is well researched and offers lots of information that was new to me. I loved learning more about The Great Migration. The writing/craft of the book was lacking and felt very simplistic. The content was very interesting and some parts were really new to me.