There are 60 million forcibly displaced worldwide. An example to this community of the displaced is men, women, and children who have been forced to flee their homes and countries because they are afraid to stay caused by tragedies or frantic experiences. These are called Refugees. In the historical fiction novel, Inside out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, A young girl named Ha must flee her home country, Saigon, to escape communism and became a refugee who faced countless challenges. As she experiences life in America, her life is completely turned inside out but manages to adapt to American life. The universal refugee experience is when one must flee their home generally due to war, unequal treatment, the feeling of superiority over others, …show more content…
Washington, Pam, Steven, and the Cowboy. Mrs. Washington tutors Ha and helps her with a myriad of challenges that Ha faces. According to the novel, “MiSSisss Washington/ has her own rules./...For every new word/ that sticks to my brain/ she gives me/ fruit/...cookies/...pan-fried cakes floating in syrup./ My vocabulary grows!/...MiSSisss Washington says/every language has annoyances and illogical rules,/ as well as sensible beauty./ She has an answer for everything./ Just like mother” (Lai 167). This statement shows that Mrs. Washington helps Ha successfully adapt to life in Alabama by helping her improve her English positively and helping Ha with challenges at home and at school. This assistance has greatly impacted Ha’s life in a positive way. Ha’s new friends, Pam and Steven, Help Ha adapt to life in Alabama by staying and being there for Ha when she needs them. Ha explains, “I run, / Pem and SSsi-Ti-Van/ close behind. outside/ Pem and I exchange/ coats with hoods./ Pem heads down/my usual path./ I zip to the left./ SSsi-Ti-Van stays/to block the door./ Running so fast,/ I fly above the sidewalk./ Alone./ They must all be with Pem” (Lai 224). This quote supports the idea that reception by a host community help Ha adapt to life in Alabama by helping and preventing Ha from getting bullied. Pam and Steven try to stop pink boy and others from getting to Ha and to hurt her physically and mentally. Lastly, the cowboy assists Ha in being assimilated. Inside out and Back Again states, “Our cowboy,/...delivers us/ to his huge house, / where grass/ spreads out so green/ it looks painted. / Stay until you feel ready” (Lai 115). This piece of evidence connects with the concept of assimilation because the cowboy took in the whole family by sponsoring them to Alabama and allowing them to stay in his home which is plentiful and this action helps Ha adapt
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
Rothe, Eugenio M. "A Psychotherapy Model For Treating Refugee Children Caught In The Midst Of Catastrophic Situations." Journal Of The American Academy Of Psychoanalysis & Dynamic Psychiatry 36.4 (2008): 625-642. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 May 2014.
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.
In the nonfiction article “Children of War”, by Arthur Brice is about a few of the many children who were affected by war, and were forced to flee their home and relocate to the US. Before the war these children lived prosperously. During the War, they lost everything including their homes, jobs, and families. Because of this, the children were forced to flee, and they ended up in the United States. Once these refugees resettled in America, their safe asylum, their lives changed for the better. Although they did struggle with homesickness, the children could go to school and they were not discriminated against for their nationality or religion. America gave these refugees a chance for a better future where these child refugees may hope to
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugee is a term applied to anyone who is outside his/her own country and cannot return due to the fear of being persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership of a group or political opinion. Many “refugees” that the media and the general public refer to today are known as internally displaced persons, which are people forced to flee their homes to avoid things such as armed conflict, generalized violations of human rights or natural and non-natural disasters. These two groups are distinctly different but fall ...
The decision to leave one’s native country is a result of a wide variety of push factors, where war is no exception. Refugees have a unique migration experience, as seen through the Vietnamese refugees of the 1960s and 1970s. Refugees’ traumas lived in their war-torn home countries, follows and integrates into their everyday lives, even years following their flee. Specifically, refugees’ experiences and distress persist and influence family dynamics. This is seen in Thi Bui’s memoir, The Best We Could Do, where she shares not only what her family’s refugee journey was like from Vietnam to the United States, but also the implications it had on her family’s unit. Bui uses medias res, symbolism, and graphic weight to show how the turmoil of the refugee journey that her family had to endure, has manifested into the damage of
About seventy-five thousand refugees enter the United States each year. These refugees come from all over the world. Their lives turned inside out and back again, just like Ha’s life. Ha and universal refugees both had to face hardships because they had to escape terrible situations, survive long journeys, and adapt to life in a new place.
In the article “Syrian Refugees”, Paul Salopek writes that the refugees “...were running from the bullets and knives of the Islamic State”(Salopek). Fearing their own people, they are in a footrace and death is a contender. Individuals are afraid to escape because the war is right outside of their houses. In the novel Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai, Ha describes what her surroundings are like. In the poem “Early Monsoon”, Ha hears “...bombs explode like thunder, slashes lighten the sky, gunfire falls like rain…[the war is] not that far after all” (48). The realization is that the war is closer to their home than they thought. Personals fear for what will come in the future and what will the war bring. Refugees all around the world have to be around the fear and panic, which are
Thousands of people are forced to flee from their homes in order to have and offer their future generations a better life. According to the United Nations 24 people per minute are forced to flee countries like Syria and Afghanistan. 24 people a minute, adds up to 34,560 people a day. 34,560 people that are forced to give up what they know; that have to leave the place they call home, in order to have the opportunity to be safe. Both novels, The Kite Runner and Persepolis, give an example of this dreadful event.
If I were in a refugee’s shoes and going to a different country, I would have an initial thought similar to Deo. “I don’t know why I am here, but I’m here” (99). Later after realizing, I was, for lack of a better word, the odd person in the group, the thought would pass my mind that I will probably never be able to go back to my homeland. After tackling mental road blocks, I would then think of the families, I left behind, and would torture me until I could find them and make sure they were safe as well.
In the novel Inside Out and Back again the main character's family lives in a war zone in 1975. A ten-year-old girl named Ha lives in a war zone in 1975 and she and her family have to decide if they should move from their house or stay.
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.
Being a refugee is not a choice. Packing your entire life into a couple of suitcases to relocate into a foreign land full of uncertainties can be daunting. Except, we did just this, I was two years old when I moved to Arizona with my family as refugees. I did not truly understand what it meant to be a refugee until the age of sixteen. Although I may not have experienced extreme violence or grief that my parents have endured, I have faced challenges of my own.
Picture this: Think about a country where you are born and raised entire life. As part of daily lives, we have to work to feed ourselves as well in order to sustain our daily lives. Likewise, your are life is going pretty well.One day, after your finished work, you came home to eat dinner, take a shower, and then you slept. As tomorrow sun rises, Unfortunately, you heard noises of people shouting and banging at home by saying ”open your door, you have to move another country you can stay anymore here” At this moment, What you do? Where would you go? Emotionally In late 1990, my parent leave Bhutan and then make way to Nepal. Then they start leaving in Bhutanese refugee camp, where I was born. Despite so much negative rhetoric going on the world about “refugee”, I am one of thousands refugee put that perspective on a side. My own experiences had taught me to be hopeful regardless how desperate thing became.
The refugees went through orientation to American life in the camps before coming, but many of them still have to overcome huge obstacles (11). Having to not only speak but learn in a new language is challenging and the resources in the schools to help these students is slim because of budget cuts. The students are vulnerable to teasing due to their accents, foreign dress, and different cultural norms. Other students will mock the dress or call-out their Muslim classmates of being terrorists. This has long-term effects and damaging their confidence in themselves and their culture (7). The students are not able to seek support at home because both parents are usually working long hours to pay for