The laconic style of writing in Margaret H. Essebaggers Dopirak’s book, Missionary Kid: Born in India, Bound for America, belies both the exotic nature of her childhood home in India and the historic time period of her life spent in the USA. The reportage nature of her writing also lends a similar laconic feel to her personality, as if neither locale registered any dramatically meaningful impressions. However, a much larger story lies behind the sparse words of an apparently normal girl living an apparently normal life; a story told as if it were merely background to the mundane events of a young girl’s life. From her often casual observations of deeply cultural images presented from Indian life – the low level din of train station beggars, unappreciated encounters with the identifiably foreign threats posed by cobras, malaria, and local swimming holes, along with an easily accepted existence living at a leprosarium – to the oblivious youthful disregard she holds for her war time passage across the enemy-infested Atlantic Ocean, “Margie” relates her story sounding much like a privileged child.

Margaret H. Essebaggers Dopirak is indeed privileged to have lived the life she tells about in Missionary Kid. Her book is filled with memorable documentary photographs showing confirmation of her words and perhaps telling more than she does about the often times hidden drama surrounding those historic years. Like any child absorbed by the wonder of her youth, Dopirak’s tale remains consistently self-centered and self-concerned as she pens a memoir intended to be personal and one-sided, only inadvertently disclosing what it means to grow up like any other child, but in an environment and locale completely different from that of her cultural peers. And this, perhaps, is the genuine interest of this book: how, in the end, one child’s life so exotically lived may seem just so very normal.

Missionary Kid: Born in India, Bound for America by Margaret H. Essebaggers Dopirak is an autobiographical account of life in the mid-twentieth century in India from a foreigner’s perspective. Missionary Kid chronicles the author’s life growing up in India just as colonial rule was coming to an end there. Her parents were missionaries and a large part of her childhood and early teenage years was spent in India. Later, the author grew up and went to boarding schools, and her travel experience as well as her adult life in America is chronicled as well. Margaret H. Essebaggers Dopirak takes us through the heat and tropical conditions of India, catching tropical illnesses such as malaria, and of course the native culture and places. We also learn about her life after she leaves India, her college experiences, relationships, and more. There are several photographs sprinkled throughout the book as well which add to the book’s narrative.

Missionary Kid: Born in India, Bound for America by Margaret H. Essebaggers Dopirak is an interesting glimpse into life on two continents and different societies and cultures. The book is written from an entirely colonial era perspective and does not offer insight into how the locals and native people of the Indian subcontinent lived and worked or an in depth glimpse into their day-to-day lives. This is probably because the author did not know that her world was different from theirs, although they all lived in the same place. I wish there had been a bit more of this aspect covered in the book as well. But aside from that, I found Margaret’s life story interesting and different and was glad to get a glimpse into that era.