The life of a Refugee “Today, more than 14 million men, women, and children have been forced to flee their homes, towns, and countries because they are afraid to stay. We call these people refugees. The book Inside out and back again is about one of those refugees and her family. The title Inside Out and Back Again is a representation of how her life changes, how she encounters and and adapts to a new culture, and how she makes America her new home. Ha’s life changes in many drastic ways in the book. In the beginning of the even though it is not directly stated by any of Ha’s family, Vietnam is being seriously affected by the war with the Vietcong and it has lead to an increase in the worth of everything making a lot of people very poor. On the verge of the fall of Saigon Ha leaves Vietnam on a Navy ship that has left its country. After a long hard journey she finally makes it to a refugee camp waiting for her family’s “cowboy”. In school she is ridiculed for her racial background. Ha’s family is barely making a living on simple jobs, for example Ha’s mother works at a sewing factory and her brother is working at an auto shop. But even with all that against them Ha makes friends. She also has a Tutor to make her literate in English and to tell the tutor her problems. …show more content…
One of the things refugees struggle is learning the language of their new home. Ha goes into this extensively in poems about how she doesn't get the rules of English. She also complains about the food in America. An example is that she doesn't like the taste of fried chicken in America because it didn't taste as good as it did in Vietnam because it wasn't fresh enough for her. She also has a hard time dealing with the religion in America. She gets teased because she believes in Buddha, other kids in her class tease her by yelling BUDDA at her on her way
Everyone needs hope to get through hard times. In the book Inside Out and Back Again Written by Thanhha Lai HA is going through hard times in Vietnam. Her country is at war and she sleeps to the sound of bombs. Ha is missing her father who went to war when she was just one and never came back. Ha and her family fled Vietnam and moved to Alabama
How would it feel to flee from post-war Communist forces, only to face an ethnocentric population of people in a new country? In Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a portrait of a disquieting, often times touching, ethnography (i.e. a book that details particular data of an extended period of time an anthropologist spent living closely with a community of individuals during his or her field work) of Fadiman's experience living in Merced, California, which was home to the largest population of Hmong refugees, such as the Lee family, from Laos who suffered mass confusion when trying to navigate the American health care system. Because the Hmong could not speak sufficient English until the children gained language skills native to the United States, residents of California were not accepting of the Hmong community. Fadiman aims to better understand how knowledge of illness among Hmong and Western medical practitioners differ, which pushes the reader to understand how the complicate medical treatment in the past as well as the present from a perspective of an American observing a Hmong family's struggle with the system. In America, it isn’t uncommon to be judged for your clothing, your house, or the amount of money your family makes, so it is easy to believe that the Hmong people were not easily accepted into American society. As a whole, ethnocentrism, or the tendency to believe that one's culture is superior to another, is one of America's weaknesses and this account proves ethnocentric behavior was prominent even in the 1970-80's when Fadiman was in the process of doing her fieldwork in post-Vietnam War Era California.
A Refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country because of the war or the
Having been ripped from their world by violence and chaos, refugees find themselves adrift in a completely different realm. To clearly observe such a struggle, look no further than Clarkston, Georgia, and the works of author Warren St. John. In John’s novel Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman’s Quest to Make a Difference, the challenges of refugees in Clarkston are chronicled and encountered in many ways, including discrimination and bias from other races and cultures, inadequate English education in the past and present, and the desire to belong in a world refugees are not sure they fit
14 million refugees, men, women, and children are forced to flee their homes, towns, and family. The refugees are scared to stay but have to leave (Gervet). Refugees have to face losing a loved one to losing a little thing like a doll both hurts them greatly. Like many refugees, Ha the main character in the book “Inside out & Back again” by Thanhha Lai, have to face the similar losses as other refugees.Many refugees, like Ha, face the feeling of turning “Inside out” when they mourn the losses of their loved ones and their precious belongings, then they are able to turn “back again” with acceptance and support from their communities and friends.
Symbolism has been used throughout history to used to represent religion and country. There are many symbols in the novel Inside Out and Back Again. Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai is a work of historical fiction. First, Ha, her mother, and her three brothers were forced to flee their home country of Vietnam due to war. They have to face this hardship without the support of their father, who was kidnapped by the Communists and disappeared. Then, they travel on a boat in unsanitary and awful conditions to a refugee camp in Guam. Next, they are sponsored by a many they call “Cowboy” and are taken to live with him in Alabama. In America, the family faces discrimination because of their race, language, and struggle to adjust to their new life. Finally, In the end Ha, her Mother, and her three brothers are starting to adjust to their new life in Alabama. In Inside Out And Back Again, Mother’s amethyst ring symbolizes value, comfort, and love.
Have you ever heard or read the novel “ Inside Out & Back Again ?” It’s written by Thanhha Lai , but she goes by Ha in the novel . If you haven’t keep reading this and I will tell you some things about it . All the people in the country has to basically flee their homes . Some have to leave their things behind . When they find their homes , they are happy about not having to deal with the war anymore . The characters feel inside out and back again because every year they can make a difference from last years . Ha and her family’s life was related to the universal refugee because they were forced to leave .
Refugees are people that flee from home because of a disastrous event that has happened in their home land to neighboring countries. In this story, “Inside Out and Back Again” by Thanhha Lai, Ha, the main character that is ten years-old, lives with her mother in Vietnam during the time of the Vietnam War in the year of 1975. Because Ha has to live without her father, not only Ha has to deals with internal issues but also she and her family has to move on with their life. Refugees deal with losing a loved one just like how Ha has to. Refugees turn “Inside out” when they lose a loved one. They can turn “back again” when they get used to their new lifestyle in the new country. Ha is an example of this because Ha lost her father, he was captured
Not only are men and women become refugees, but, children and teenagers are also becoming refugee victims of natural disasters, war, and or racial and religious discrimination. In the novel, Inside Out and Back Again, Hà is feeling dumb beCause she doesn’t know enough english to tell her teacher that she has already learned some things that no American human being would probably NEVER LEARN IN THEIR LIVES!!! Hà is a very smart and intelligent girl who is relearning everything she's already learned. She feels dumb because the class claps for her as she recites her ABC’s and her 123’s in front of them. Hà finds out once she arrives home, that Brother Vù has been acting happy, when he actually hasn’t had the best of days either. Hà doesn’t want to run away from Pink Boy and his friends because they’re bullies. I inferred Hà isn’t a coward based off of the fact that she shouldn’t have to run away from bullies when she asks Brother Vù to teach her to fly kick. When Hà and Pink Boy fight, Pink Boy decides to throw a punch at Hà and she squats down in dùng tào. Hà shifts her upper body to the left and Pink Boy flies to the ground. Hà thought that she would enjoy seeing Pink Boy in pain. Hà is surprised how she made Pink Boy fly into the ground and she reveals the soft side of herself by actually feeling sorry for Pink Boy. Back Again in real life, means that that person is regressing to their normalcy, finding a new home and new friends, adaptation, new routine, finding
The title “Inside Out and Back Again”relates to the universal refugee experience of fleeing and finding home for both Ha and the many refugees around the world who had their lives turned “inside out” as they fled, but then came “back again” as they found a new
America was not everything the mothers had expected for their daughters. The mothers always wanted to give their daughters the feather to tell of their hardships, but they never could. They wanted to wait until the day that they could speak perfect American English. However, they never learned to speak their language, which prevented them from communicating with their daughters. All the mothers in The Joy Luck Club had so much hope for their daughters in America, but instead their lives ended up mirroring their mother’s life in China. All the relationships had many hardships because of miscommunication from their different cultures. As they grew older the children realized that their ...
Most refugees take some time to find themself after moving, as all the new things confuse them, but they figure it out and can end up doing amazing
Before I begin contrasting my home culture to the host culture at Friends of Refugees, I must explain some social norms of my culture. As I previously stated, I come from a mostly typical American family and display at least five of the norms presented in Craig Storti’s book, Figuring Foreigners Out, A Practical Guide. One norm discussed is Individualism, where identity is found in oneself (Storti, 1999). I experience individualism through the choices I am presented in daily life and through the expectations of others, particularly my family and school. For example, my parents did expect me to go to college, but they imposed little influence on the major I selected, that decision was mine alone. Apart from college, my parents, like most other
After the fall of the Saigon in 1975, Heidi’s mother- Mrs. Mai Thi Kim decided to send her to America as fearing for her uncertain future in Vietnam. Twenty two years later years, Heidi eventually found her Vietnamese mother. However, as she was raised in the States, Heidi is now "101%" American and has little knowledge of her Vietnamese heritage. Undoubtedly, this reality reveals potentials for cultural collision.
The novel Inside Out and Back Again has a great amount of similarities to the universal refugee experience. Ha was a girl who had fled her country, just to be able to find safety in another country that was so foreign to her. A universal refugee experience is fleeing and finding a home because there was terrible things at home so they had to flee to save their lives, not because they wanted to. Ha is an example of the universal refugee experience because there was war in her home country Vietnam. So, Ha and her family fled to the United States so they would be able to potentially start a better life for them. Ha was a Vietnamese girl who loved her papaya tree and her family. She went to school and fought with her brothers. Her father was gone at war, who she hadn’t seen since she was a baby. That of course had changed drastically when she became a refugee along with her family. This has happened to many other people that have become refugees as well, whether it was due to famine or because