For millions of evacuees around the world, finding support from their communities can be a significant obstacle while trying to rebuild their new lives (Fantino & Colak). For the main character, Há, in Thanhha Lai’s novel, Inside Out and Back Again, not being accepted by her peers causes difficulty during her adjustment to American life. She is constantly bullied and excluded at school, which results in her having tantrums at home (Lai 209-211). However, as soon as Há begins to make friends and gain support from her neighbor, Mrs. Washington, she starts to feel like she is “Back Again” and supported by community members (Lai 253). The struggle of being accepted by peers is experienced by Há’s family and real refugees alike, until they can find …show more content…
In an article about refugee children in Canada, the authors state “The community...play[s] a crucial role in assisting and supporting children to adjust and integrate into… society.” (Fantino & Colak). This quote demonstrates that with the community’s consistent support, refugees can have a sense of belonging in their new homes, which can be extremely important while trying to acclimate to society. In Inside Out and Back Again, Há says “She says it over and over like a chant, slowly. Slowly the screams that never stopped inside my head turned to a real whisper” (Lai 210) while describing the actions of Mrs. Washington, a neighbor and role model of Há’s. Mrs. Washington played an important part in Há becoming used to Alabama, clearly demonstrated when she helped Há calm down after she was bullied and disrespected by Pink Boy after school. Due to Mrs. Washington’s actions, Há could feel more supported during her struggle against the bully, and in turn she could feel like she was “Back Again” in her new environment. Há says in one of her poems that “Before school our cowboy shows up… he whispers to Mother and Brother Quang” (Lai 203). After being bullied, her family’s sponsor finally gives her support by trying to fight back against Pink Boy. Though this action doesn’t help Há at the the time, it helps Há feel like she is supported during her adjustment. This support, in addition to the support given by Mrs. Washington, results in Há feeling like she belongs, which helps her make it through her difficult journey of adjusting to Western society. The more support evacuees receive from their host communities, the easier life becomes for them and the more comfortable they become, which results in positive adjustment to their new
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
Outcast United, written by warren St. John, illustrates the numerous struggles refugees face and how they can look past complex differences and come together with a little help from Luma Mufleh and her soccer program. The outcast united is used symbolically to indicate the union of a town, a team and a coach in a spontaneous social experiment. It is a story about refugees from Sudan, Congo, and Burundi among other countries who were resettled in a small town named Clarkston. In this book, St. John tells a true story of refugee families that moved to Clarkston, Georgia. As all of the families struggle to make their new and better life in the small town of Clarkston, Georgia, Luma Mufleh changed the refugee community of Clarkston for the better
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 share similar experiences and emotions when they move to a new country. The book Inside Out and Back Again splits these feelings into two categories, “inside out” and “back again”. Refugees from around the world experience these feelings. For instance, it is easy for a refugee to feel “inside out” when learning a new language, or they can feel “back again” when they find a familiar object that reminds them of their past. Many refugees mainly struggle with learning a new language, but to make them feel more comfortable, they can find satisfaction in items from their home land.
Anh Do’s story starts and centres of one thing, family. In the book ‘The Happiest Refugee’ written by the successful Australian comedian Anh Do, his autobiography starts when Anh’s role model his father steered them out of a war, poverty and misfortune from the country of Vietnam in 1980 over the rough seas into his beloved home today, Australia. To what he has pushed through and become to this day, merely by having a ‘can do attitude’ and consistently showing bravery and exceptional resilience throughout every challenge he faces.
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.
As she is forced to explore the differences between herself and her new community , she comes to a realization that culture isn 't a concrete idea or written down in a code of laws, culture is something that stems from ones imagination. Muslims have reasons to why they are skeptical and hateful towards Americans. When American expatriates go to Middle eastern countries to “help” and they are rejected they become “anti-Arab” pessimists. Wilson declares that people who have lost so much because of the Westerners can not be expected to believe that they are now going to be helped by the same enemy that destroyed them. She states “they fail to realize that people who have lost dignity and opportunities to the “clash of civilizations” can not be expected to welcome peacemakers who have lost nothing” (Wilson
Did you know that every day several hundreds of people are forced out of their home causing them to become a refugee? The universal refugee experience of fleeing and finding a home is difficult since the refugee doesn’t know or understand the language that well and can sometimes be viewed as an outsider. According to the article, “Children at War” by Arthur Brice, Amela Kamenica a teen refugee is forced out of her home due to the war near her hometown. In the novel, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, the main character, Ha is treated like an outcast since she doesn’t know the American traditions and ways. Ha is a ten-year old girl, who has to flee Vietnam because of the war between North and South Vietnam. It is dangerous and unsafe
In the story Reclaiming Culture and the Land: Motherhood and the Policies of Sustaining Community, the author describes just some of the challenges of working while being a Native American living on and off within a normal Caucasian society. One of the issues brought up in the story is that the author does a poor job in raising her children while they are at the most important stages in their childhood. In this Indian community, everyone knows each other and it is a close, tight knit community throughout. One of the principals which backs this up is that one or more mothers in the community take care of all of the children of the community, kind of like a daycare center. The author is indeed one of these caretaker mothers that would spend a lot of time with all the children. As a result, outsiders look at her and believe that she is doing a poor job at what she considers to be a fine parenting job. And other hardship that she has is trying to understand her place in society because she is a woman. In the story, she describes how things are constantly being taken from her and assumed by the male sex. These and more are some of the problems that she has to deal with in the story.
Allie was emotionally devastated and cried herself to sleep for a month until eventually she moved on with her life and found happiness again. Noah and Allie are both from different social backgrounds, a higher class style of life and a lower class style, yet they both seem to be able to adapt to one another’s social gatherings without a problem. Noah knows the possibilities of cultural conflicts could arise with the different cultural lifestyles perceiving things in different ways
Do you ever feel trapped when you are in a place that you have never been before? Isolation criticizes society since it does not let everyone be equal or have the same rights. Isolation can completely change a person, and it is usually for the worst. Society “acts” like they try to prevent isolation, but in reality they isolate people for certain reasons, then those people get judged for being “different.” Upon closer inspection it is human nature to deny equal rights because people that do not act, dress, or look the same are labeled as strange, and unfortunately, many times are not accepted by the majority of society. This gives authors a way to shine a light on society’s flaws.
Emotions. Everyone experiences them. No matter how old you are, or where you are from we all have emotions; however, we all experience them differently. My happiness is different than your happiness and what you find sad, I might see it as being angry. Emotions are powerful, and sometimes it feels at times that they take control of us. In our culture, there are lot of norms of what is supposed to be expected with our emotions. It is expected in the United States to be in a state of happiness. Going to the opposite side there has been a big rise in Depression, especially among young adults. For one it is normally expected that you feel one way or another way toward something. Emotions are hard to capture, even more so they are very difficult to put into picture. The film Inside Out, however, is able to break down emotion so that even younger kids can better understand them. Parallelism exists a lot between Inside Out and the American idea of how we are supposed to feel. The film, Inside Out, shares parallels to the United States, as it symbolizes the importance of feeling more than one emotion, it shows the effect of depression among the youth, and the sense to always feel happy.
Perception is a manner of selecting, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, situations, and or activities. The movie “Inside Out” is a perfect example of how perception affects our communication; it shows exactly how the process of selection, organization, and interpretation correlated to each other.
This past semester, I was very fortunate to be in two psychology courses that required me to complete a placement. Although it was difficult choosing a place in which I would volunteer at, I ended up completing the placement at a government-run organization called “English at First.” This was where Syrian refugees could come to get free education, and while doing so, their children would get free daycare. For my placement, I was in the daycare section with children aged 2-5. I never knew it was possible to learn so much from such young children, but they truly opened my eyes to how different the lives of one can be in another country, especially one like Syria, which is the opposite of Canada. Hearing the stories of what the children have gone
...e dysfunctional families we are all familiar with -- the overcrowded, meddling, abusive, alcoholic, substance controlled individuals that can make family life miserable and destroy the self esteem of the children they control. These families become encapsulated unable to function within the norm of the general population. Their children face the same trouble dealing with peers and finding their place in the world – because they haven’t been given the tools with which to work out their problems within their own family much less the rest of the world. In essence, it does take a village to raise a child – but it also helps if all of the tribe members have the child’s best interest at heart.