Jessica Goudeau, a journalist and the author of this book, provides two engaging stories and a detailed history of immigration in the United States. Goudeau cleverly interweaves the three components of the book to create a logical account combining history and human experience. Mu Naw and her husband Saw Ku are refugees from Myanmar who lived in a camp in Thailand before being selected to go to the United States with refugee status in 2008. The other story features Hasna and Jebreel, a Syrian couple who first sought refuge in Jordan and eventually came to the United States in 2016.
Much focus is on the horrors the two couples and their families experience in their native countries. Goudeau successfully describes to readers the atrocities that force people to become refugees. None of the characters, pseudonyms for real people, wanted to leave their native countries; they had to. There was no particular desire to go to the United States. International law requires people to register for refugee status, and organizations determine which countries are willing to take them.
Both families arrive in Austin, Texas, for their resettlement. The welcoming in Austin is representative of areas that exist throughout the country where organizations and churches help people get settled in our country. The experiences of the two families when they arrive in the United States are somewhat similar in that they both must learn to accept meager apartments with few comforts. Their living quarters are nothing like the American homes on TV and in the movies; they are inadequate. In addition, multiple issues with the language and culture make it challenging to access essential services like medical care. However, the families’ stories differ because the Myanmar family overcomes more obstacles than the Syrian family. This difference is monumental because it coincides with a presidential decree suspending family reunification among refugees from certain countries. Specifically, an executive order in 2017 was designed to protect the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States, restricted citizens of seven countries—Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and Syria, and changed everything.
An interesting quote from the book that puts some of USA immigration sentiments in perspective is “Lindbergh’s anti-Semitic “America First” speech in 1941 destroyed his reputation. Trump’s Islamophobic “America First” speeches in 2015–2016 led to his becoming president. (p. 275).
