“Where are you from?” For Caroline Topperman — and many across the globe — this seemingly simple question opens a Pandora’s Box of complex histories, cultural clashes, and the enduring search for belonging. Her memoir, Your Roots Cast a Shadow, isn’t just a personal journey; it’s an exploration of the tangled threads of identity, migration, and the echoes of the past that reverberate through generations. Let’s unpack the power of this book, the insights of its author, and the urgent need for more narratives like it.
Synopsis
The thrill of a new place fades quickly for Caroline Topperman when she moves from Vancouver to Poland in 2013. As she delves into her family’s history, tracing their migration through pre-WWII Poland, Afghanistan, Soviet Russia, and beyond, she discovers the layers of their complex experiences mirror some of what she felt as she adapted to life in a new country. How does one balance honoring both one’s origins and new surroundings?
Your Roots Cast a Shadow explores where personal history intersects with global events to shape a family’s identity. From the bustling markets of Baghdad to the quiet streets of Stockholm, Topperman navigates the murky waters of history as she toggles between present and past, investigating the relationship between migration, politics, identity, and home. Her family stories bring history into the present as her paternal grandmother becomes the first woman allowed to buy groceries at her local Afghan market while her husband is tasked with building the road from Kabul to Jalalabad. Topperman’s Jewish grandfather, a rising star in the Communist Party, flees Poland at the start of WWII one step ahead of the Nazis, returning later only to be rejected by the Party for his Jewish faith. Topperman herself struggles with new cultural expectations and reconciling with estranged relatives.
A study in social acceptance, Topperman contends with what one can learn about an adopted culture while trying to retain the familiar and the challenges of learning new languages and traditions even as she examines the responsibilities of migrants to their new culture, as well as that society’s responsibility to them.
A Clash of History and Today
Topperman’s memoir goes beyond her personal experiences as a migrant adjusting to a new environment or a woman exploring her family history. She delves into profoundly personal history — not just her own, but one that has shaped her and her ancestors. She explores histories many still consider taboo, and illuminates a heritage and choices some might never imagine could coexist.
From the Jewish grandparents whose pre-WWII decisions, communist ties, and subsequent migrational eras reverberated through generations to the modern woman’s emotional journey of self-acceptance and family healing, Your Roots Cast a Shadow is a history — personal, messy, and eye-opening in its truth — that brings history to your doorstep in ways textbooks could never begin to cover.
Throughout, Topperman’s most pressing questions and revelations concern not just researching her ancestors’ choices and understanding who she is at a cultural level by those who came before her but also a hot-button topic of today: migration. What is a migrant’s duty to their new social environment and those they find themselves surrounded by, and what duty does that new society have to the migrant? How can one honor their cultural roots while assimilating into a new environment? More importantly, what lasting effects does the socio-political landscape migrants find themselves in have on the original migrant and those who come after them?
Deep Introspection of Identity and Belonging
Chapter 6 of Your Roots Casts a Shadow is, I believe, the query that resonated most deeply through Topperman’s memoir. The chapter’s main title, “In Search of Me,” reflects what I understand as the catalyst of this book’s research and eventual writing.
“When people ask me where I’m from, I say, ‘How much time do you have?’”
Topperman’s family might have originated in Poland, but her family migrated across Europe, the Middle East, and Soviet Russia before the start of WWII. As her family consistently found new locations to call home throughout the generations, they wove new threads into their cultural tapestry. So much so that by the time Topperman’s generation began, understanding the nuances and where her roots truly lay became a difficult journey to understanding who she was.
“My mother liked to say that she was Jewish from a cultural perspective rather than a religious one, but for a long time I had no idea what that meant. You were either a believer or you weren’t, right?”
Moving to Poland from Canada in 2013, Topperman began researching her family history and building relationships with her estranged family, who still called the country home. The move also brings a sense of understanding or at least comradery with the moves her family made as the “honeymoon phase” of being in a new place wears off, leaving her off-kilter and raw in light of the loss of the familiar and reality of their new home.
Society’s Reinforcement of Bias and Racism
A defining thread woven throughout Topperman’s memoir is the recurring experience of cultural shock accompanying each of her family’s migrations. Whether describing her grandparents, her parents, or her own experiences, she doesn’t shy away from depicting the persistent racism they encountered. Her 2013 move to Poland, in particular, presented a stark contrast to the celebratory atmosphere of Canada. The stoic, often tense, and sometimes dreary reality of her new home was a significant cultural shift. From the riotous Independence Day celebrations, where nationalists openly displayed hateful symbols, to the subtle, perhaps unintentional, racism she perceived at a local salon, Topperman’s time in Poland was marked by constant cultural friction. These experiences, while challenging, fueled her personal growth and illuminated the deep roots of prejudice, revealing how decades, even centuries, of ingrained hate could shape society.
A Compelling Nonfiction Narrative
Your Roots Cast Shadow alternates between the present and the past, further emphasizing the complexity of Topperman’s and her family’s lived experiences. The first person present is a call to all those with similar migratory backgrounds who find themselves both enamored and on shaky ground when it comes to assimilating to their new environment while trying to stay true to themselves and their identity. Not only are you getting the raw experience of Topperman trying to find even footing in her new home, but how she creates connections to what she’s living through now to what her parents and grandparents experienced when they found themselves in new locations helps to bring the murky past to clear present.
The past represents the pieces of her research into her familial history that set the reader within the thoughts and actions of those who lived decades before while bringing new light to the war-torn political battlefield that was and is this planet we live in. How everything is interconnected. How the experiences of Jewish Poles and Muslim Afganis mingled in ways far exceeding what many outside of such connective strings could fathom.
Final Thoughts
“There are some deeply unsettling things happening in the world right now. Scary people are using their bullhorns to talk about history and roots in dangerous ways that are clannish and
Exclusive. This is a slippery slope. A dangerous process that threatens our humanity. Our history, our roots, is deeply planted. It’s vital that we not let those roots be wrenched from the ground, let alone used to clobber others.”
— Caroline Topperman, Your Roots Cast a Shadow, Chapter 1
Topperman’s book is a study in cultural empathy and understanding. If you can read this book and continue to generalize a group of people of similar backgrounds based on a few descriptors, then you need to reread it. Perhaps a book that could be studied in classrooms to showcase the differences in academic history versus well-researched first and second-hand memoirs with a personal stake in truth.
Your Roots Cast a Shadow is a stunning revelation in truth and personal narrative driven by the insatiable need to know one’s self in a world where interconnection is often denied, unconscious and conscious racism is blatantly spewed, and migrants are always seen as other.
You’ll love Your Roots Cast a Shadow if you enjoyed these titles:
- Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
- Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
- Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
- Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee
Bookstr’s Dream Cast for Your Roots Cast a Shadow:
- Gal Godat as Caroline Topperman
- Patrick J. Adams as Pawel, Caroline’s husband
- Liev Schreiber Wojciech, Caroline’s father
- Natalie Portman as Maria, Caroline’s mother
- Paul Wesley as Frederyk, Caroline’s maternal grandfather
- Mila Kunis as Paula, Caroline’s maternal grandmother
- John Krasinski as Fraciszek, Caroline’s paternal Grandfather
- Mayim Bialik as Wanda, Caroline’s fraternal grandmother
Final Score: 4.5/5
If you want to add Your Roots Cast a Shadow to your TBR, you can order it on Bookshop and Amazon! Thank you to Caroline Topperman for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
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