American Refuge is a book written by Nadege Nicoll that demonstrates the struggle of refugees through the perspective of an American-raised 6th grader named Isaac. He lives his life without worrying about the rest of the world. When a new student, Khaled, comes to the school, he pays no mind to his story and compares him to an alien. At first, Isaac goes all over the things that make him different and weird, then goes on to say how lucky he must be to join the school year late, not have to abide by the dress code, not have to do homework, and be treated nicely by all the staff. What Isaac doesn’t know is the horrors he had to go through to get to the United States. However, an incident involving Khaled gets him sent to the principal’s office. As he braces for punishment, he goes through all possible excuses in his mind, but the principal decides to do things differently. The principal tells him about Khaled’s story, his journey, and how he was ripped away from his home after his school in Syria was bombed. He talks about how one morning, Khaled got ready for school only to find the school in pieces on the ground because of a bombing earlier in the morning. Khaled’s family then decided to leave Syria immediately, not wanting to think about what would have happened if the bomb had been dropped a few hours later and the kids had been in school. Isaac then talks to the reader about all the struggles he’s learned about coming to the U.S. as a refugee, not knowing the language, leaving all your friends, having to stay in camps, and much more. After this incident, Isaac opens his eyes and finally realizes he’s messed up. As he apologizes to Khadel, he expects to be berated by him. Instead, Khadel simply hugs him and tells him, “You my friend.” Isaac then realizes how cruel he’s been to Khadel, yet he doesn’t understand and just thinks Isaac was being friendly the whole time. The remainder of the book is about Isaac learning to defend Khadel and trying to get others to understand as well. At the very end of the book, the author talks about how Khaled is not a real person, but his story is very real and what a lot of refugees go through. The last chapter shows the statistics of Syrian refugees and describes a few facts about the Syrian civil war, how refugees have seen and sometimes endured violence, feared for their lives, and how we can’t afford to be jerks when they arrive in our neighborhoods.
This book is about empathy and understanding the struggles of others while not taking your privilege for granted. What I love about the book is that it’s written through the perspective of an outsider, in this case, a boy who was raised in the U.S. as opposed to having migrated there. I think this is important because it demonstrates how others should be empathetic and learn to not judge someone too quick. This book is overall about empathy and how we need to use it to make the world a better place.
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