Who gets to belong? Who gets to write the story?
Within a few short pages I already felt like I knew Raj, in part because we share the same experiences of moving through the world as a person of color and always, always being in our heads about how we are received, perceived, and accepted. Members Only takes us through a particularly awful week in the life of Raj, but anecdotes of the past--cheeky answers to that all-too-awkward "What's your background?" request of someone you've just shaken hands with--are weaved in through nearly every movement.
We first meet Raj as an upper middle class family man on the new membership committee for his exclusive Tennis (and pool) Club. As the only non-white member in the club, he doesn't know if his invitation to the selection committee is inclusion or tokenism. He serves on the committee, anyway, hungry for allyship and driven to make the club more diverse.
Members Only explores the anxieties of what it means to be an Indian immigrant in America: a constant awareness of being visually different yet invisible; gaining access through hard work and luck yet never entirely belonging; the loneliness of not being afforded grace for saying something foolish or unqualified when your white peers are allowed to hurl microaggressions your way unchecked. Membership for Raj, as we learn, is tenuous, ever under review by his lighter-skinned colleagues, students, fellow club members, and anyone who makes it their business to tell him he doesn't belong.
We first meet Raj as an upper middle class family man on the new membership committee for his exclusive Tennis (and pool) Club. As the only non-white member in the club, he doesn't know if his invitation to the selection committee is inclusion or tokenism. He serves on the committee, anyway, hungry for allyship and driven to make the club more diverse.
Members Only explores the anxieties of what it means to be an Indian immigrant in America: a constant awareness of being visually different yet invisible; gaining access through hard work and luck yet never entirely belonging; the loneliness of not being afforded grace for saying something foolish or unqualified when your white peers are allowed to hurl microaggressions your way unchecked. Membership for Raj, as we learn, is tenuous, ever under review by his lighter-skinned colleagues, students, fellow club members, and anyone who makes it their business to tell him he doesn't belong.