An Other World : The Fight for Freedom, Joy, and Belonging

An honest memoir about navigating mixed-race otherness and an inspiring call to inclusive action for the BIPOC leaders of today and tomorrow.
Healing the world for our BIPOC children by healing the children we once were.

In this memoir and call to action, Fazal documents the challenges of growing up as a young man of mixed Mexican and Indian Muslim heritage in the all-consuming whiteness of Portland, Oregon.

From suffering merciless taunting about his name, to dodging gangs of white supremacists on the city streets, to feeling split between two unknown heritages in the divorce of his parents, Fazal unearths the social and generational trauma that haunts BIPOC families.

Fazal writes to the BIPOC leaders of today and tomorrow—to those who have found success and to those still seeking it. An Other World alternates between deeply personal reflections on Fazal’s formative social environments and heart-wrenching but hopeful letters to his daughter, Amina.

Fazal pinpoints how educational and professional frameworks often perform surface-level inclusion but refuse to invest fully in the complex realities of their BIPOC learners and employees. He also stares down the myth of “making it” when success is always tainted by racially imposed imposter syndrome.

In his interspersed letters to Amina, however, Fazal reveals a tangible, hopeful path forward where joy is the norm rather than struggle, where work is collective rather than selfish, where Brownness and Blackness are as worthy as whiteness, and where BIPOC families can prioritize peace and healing over conflict and survival.

The book, An Other World : The Fight for Freedom, Joy, and Belonging [Bulk, Wholesale, Quantity] ISBN# 9781774583319 in Paperback by Hanif Fazal may be ordered in bulk quantities. Minimum starts at 25 copies. Availability based on publisher status and quantity being ordered.