Something quite specific prompted last week’s rather generic musings on assimilation. The New Yorker article of May 25, 2026 by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, “In Plain Sight.” The article chronicles the saga of Djena, brought from Guinea at age ten, to serve Mohamed Toure and Denis Cros-Toure in the affluent Dallas suburb of Southlake, Texas.

The Toure’s, who are related to a powerful Guinean family, kept Djena in servitude for sixteen years, cleaning their home and tending to their five children. No schooling. Floor sleeping. Hand-me-down clothes. Djena was given over the Toure’s by her poor parents. Apparently, this is a common occurrence for Guinean children without prospects. In the United States we call it ‘human trafficking.’

As Djena entered her twenties, and found a few contacts beyond the house where she served, she became aware of the inequities of her situation. Eventually, she escaped and found social workers/prosecutors who took the Toure’s to trial. They were convicted of trafficking and served seven years in prison.

Djena’s is a horrible story of abuse. Yet what I found most interesting about the article, and I wish had been more elaborated, is the fact that during the Toure’s trial, the accused couple were national news in Guinea. When they were found guilty, the Guinea press roundly condemned the conviction, and when they were released, they were welcomed back to Guinea with open arms.

When the customs of a native country are in fact crimes in the new country, assimilation is not optional. The Toure’s possession of Djena may have been ethically and socially acceptable in Guinea, but there is no way, considering how fully assimilated they appear to have been to Southlake and how differently they catered to their own children over indentured Djena, that the Toure’s were ignorant that holding a person in servitude in this country to wrong. What the article does illustrate, shamefully, is how they managed to do it in plain sight for sixteen years. Because one aspect of American culture the Toure’s grasped to their benefit, is how we value individual autonomy to the extreme of wearing blinders against what’s right before us. After the story broke, people recounted years of wonder and doubt about the poor stepchild in the Toure household. Yet no one said or did a thing. In that respect, the people of Southlake helped the Toure’s preserve an aspect of their Guinean culture that should have never been transferred here.