Refugee

Refugee

YA/adult fiction
"Beverly Crawford, a professor emerita at the University of
California, Berkely, has written that refugees live three lives. The
first is spent escaping the horrors of whatever has driven them from
their homes--like the persecution and murder of Jews in Joseph's Nazi
Germany, the starvation and civil rights abuses of Isabel's Cuba, or
the devastating Civil War of Mahmoud's Syria. Those who are lucky
enough to escape their homes begin a second, equally dangerous life,
trying to survive ocean crossings and border patrols and criminals
looking to profit off them. Most migrants don't end up in refugee
camps, and their days are spent seeking shelter, food, water, and
warmth. But even in the camps, refugees are exposed to illness and
disease, and often have to exist on less than fifty cents a day.
If refugees manage to escape their home and then survive the
journey to freedom, they begin a third life, starting over in a new
country, one where they often do not speak the language or practice
the same religion as their hosts. Professional degrees granted in one
country are often not honored in another, so refugees who are doctors
or lawyers or teachers where they came from become store clerks and
taxi drivers and janitors. Families that once had comfortable homes
and cars and money set aside for college and retirement have to start
all over, living with other refugees in government housing or with
host families in foreign cities as they rebuild their lives."
I have just quoted extensively from Refugee because those two
paragraph's express the book's intent much better than I could.
Children and teens who see information about Syrian refugees can't be
blamed for seeing their experiences as new and unique in the world's
history. Older folks with adequate historical backgrounds know that
there have been refugees probably as long as war and famine and
persecution have existed. With the passage of time feared and
despised others become people we regret not saving. Alan Gratz
captures this concept beautifully for YA and adult readership by
braiding together the stories of three youngsters from different eras
facing challenges that, although differing in details, are similar in
essence.
"Someone was in the house!
Joseph scrambled backward on his bed, his eyes wide. There was
a shattering sound in the next room--crisssh! Ruth woke up and
screamed. Screamed in sheer blind terror. She was only six years old."
The scene is Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany. The Nazis are
destroying Jewish homes and businesses and even synagogues. They send
tens of thousands of Jewish men to concentration camps. One of them
is Joseph and Ruth's father.
After an agonizing six months with no news he is released on the
condition he leave Germany for good within two weeks. The family
books passage on the Cuba bound MS St. Louis. All is not well,
however. The father is a broken man, a shadow of his former self, a
stranger to his family. Some of the crew men are staunch Hitler
followers. And there is a rumor that Cuba may renege on the agreement,
leaving passengers to be returned to Germany and death.
"Rifles boomed, and Isabel ducked. More police were arriving by
motorcycle and military truck, and the protest was turning bloody.
The rioters and police traded rocks and bullets, and a man with a
bloody head staggered past Isabel. She reeled in horror. A hand
grabbed her, spinning her around. Lito! She threw herself into her
grandfather's arms."
The Cuban people are starving. Loss of Soviet support has had a
devastating effect on the country. People caught leaving the country
are jailed. This has happened to Isabel's father.
In the riot described above he has clashed with the police. A
cop has threatened to come find him. As the family discusses their
dire predicament, Fidel Castro makes an announcement. People who want
to leave Cuba may do so. The family joins their neighbors in a
homemade boat to take the perilous journey to Florida. Sinking is a
constant danger. Although they will be safe if they make land, if
they are caught on the ocean they will be returned or imprisoned in a
refugee camp. And Isabel's mother is hugely pregnant, due to deliver
any day.
"The wall of his apartment exploded, blasting broken bits of
concrete and glass through the room. The floor lurched up under
Mahmoud and threw him and the table and chairs back against the wall
of the kitchen. The world was a whirlwind of bricks and broken dishes
and table legs and heat, and Mahmoud slammed into a cabinet. His
breath left him all at once, and he fell to the floor with a heavy
thud in a heap of metal and mortar."
Ever since Arab Spring Syria has been caught in a brutal civil
war. Mahmoud has done his best to stay out of trouble, to be
invisible...
...all to no avail. His apartment building has been bombed. He
and his family are homeless in a very dangerous place.
Mahmoud's father decides that the family will travel to Germany
thousands of miles away. The journey will involve sneaking across a
number of national borders and crossing to Greece in an overcrowded
raft that could easily go down. Mahmoud's brother, Waleed is
unreactive, emotionless, in a state of shock. His sister, Hana, is a
helpless baby.
The stories are suspenseful, each chapter breaking at a cliff
hanger. The characters spring to life. I couldn't put the book down
although there were times I found it very hard to read.
I have seen Refugee described as a juvenile book. I would not
recommend it for most kids under YA. The scenes are brutally
realistic. I think it's a must read for the high school and college
set. Some middle schoolers can handle it. I just wish I could get
all the people who see the Syrian refugees as terrorists who hate us
or opportunists who want generous welfare benefits to give it a chance.
My first refugee encounter was up close and personal. My mother
needed someone to take care of Harriet and me between when our school
let out and her college did and on sick and snow days and to get
supper started. When I was about nine she hired Alla Lee who had
managed to flee Korea with her teen son, Boris.
Alla faced formidable obstacles. In Korea she'd been a college
professor. In America her credentials were worth nothing. She found
Enlish challenging. There was a lot of prejudice. The parishioners
of St. Peters Episcopal feared that Alla and Boris would sell Harriet
and me into white slavery or that Boris, one of the shyest boys God
put in the world, would impregnate us with half breed babies. They
alluded to her as a heathen Chink. In a fine bit of irony, she was as
Episcopalian as thr rest of us.
I couldn't see why she would want to be here. Mom explained to
me that if she went back to Korea she and Boris would be jailed and
tortured or even killed because of their religion and political beliefs.
On a personal note, I was holding my breath and constantly checking
weather predictions on Henry (my smart phone) Saturday. Sunday was
the Out of the Darkness suicide awareness and prevention walk. By the
time I went to bed it looked like we'd beat the rain. Mother Nature
did better than that. Morning grey gave way to glorious sunshine. I
helped set up. I tabled and sold bracelets for Active Minds. I was
one of the speakers. We were blessed to have Renaissance Singers, an
amazing all women a Capella group. When they started singing a nearby
bird that had been silent joined the beautiful music. While people
walked I helped transfer stuff to the river for the closing ceremony.
Of course I was on clean up. I am proud of my volunteer tee shirt.
And I collected $2.75 worth of water and Gatorade bottles toward grad
school.
I have turned the voices in my head from critics into cheerleaders and
good advice givers. You know about the ones that haunt lots of
people, especially women, with unhelpful messages of being fat,
stupid, inadequate, unworthy... Now mine say that I can do it, I look
great, I deserve the good things in my life...basically I am enough.
I was calm when I spoke because the voices reminded me I'm a good
speaker and the people wanted to hear what I had to say.
A great big shout out goes to all who attended, volunteered for, and
organized the walk. Together we are making a real difference.
jules hathaway




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