Jessica Goudeau in her debut book, After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America, has done what few journalists and fewer policymakers have been able to accomplish: bring the extraordinary tales of two war survivors—one from Southeast Asia and one from Syria—into the everyday normality of life in the United States.
Mu Naw, a Karen refugee from Burma (also known as Myanmar), has been running practically her whole life. After growing up in Southeast Asia’s refugee camps, she arrives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two young children in 2007. But resettlement is not the end of her odyssey—it’s the beginning of another equally arduous one.
Hasna al-Salam is a Syrian mother and grandmother when we meet her in 2011, living in a house constantly filled with extended family and neighbors. Her hometown, Daraa, becomes one of the first flash points in the Syrian War that will splinter her community, sending Hasna to Jordan and then to the United States in 2016, where she too arrives in Austin.
Goudeau, a graduate of Abilene Christian University with a doctorate from the University of Texas, meets both women in the course of more than a decade of volunteer work in Austin among refugees. The national journalist applies a reporter’s skill with the passion of a caregiver to reconstruct each mother’s story, bringing together the trauma of displacement most Americans can’t imagine with the familiar life in America that’s strange to its newcomers. Mu Naw’s efforts to navigate American grocery shopping are unforgettably mortifying.
Spliced between their stories are chapters on the history and politics of U.S. refugee resettlement since 1945. It’s a fascinating replay with present-day consequences. Republican administrations historically resettled more refugees than Democratic ones, while the Trump administration virtually ended the program.
Overall, we see how a bygone bipartisan consensus grew around protecting those who flee authoritarian regimes and meet qualifications as asylum-seekers. That changed after 9/11, and particularly under Donald Trump, as “anti-refugee rhetoric became more and more mainstream,” writes Goudeau. His administration slashed refugee admissions, in the process dismantling a system involving churches and nonprofit groups that once welcomed new arrivals. Those changes directly reordered life in Austin for Hasna, who never imagined it apart from her family, kept apart first by war then by politics.
Goudeau approaches these contentious issues as a gifted storyteller and diligent reporter, carefully building a historical backdrop while also following the stories of Mu Naw and Hasna where they lead, without smoothing the rough parts or making the women sentimental archetypes. After the Last Border builds to a powerful conclusion, where both women must grapple with not only their traumatic experiences but also their pride and shortcomings. It’s in their flawed state that we learn to care deeply for them, and to appreciate better what they and millions of refugees endure.
"freedom" - Google News
November 20, 2020 at 12:05AM
https://ift.tt/330gxeA
Flights to freedom | WORLD News Group - WORLD News Group
"freedom" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2VUAlgg
https://ift.tt/2VYSiKW
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Flights to freedom | WORLD News Group - WORLD News Group"
Post a Comment