American refuge True stories of the refugee experience

Abdo, a professor of English and creative writing at Guilford College, grew up in Jordan as the child of Palestinian refugees forced from their home in 1967. She grew up acutely aware of her lost home. At Guilford in 2015, Abdo founded Every Campus a Refuge (ECAR) in response to the growing Syrian refugee crisis. ECAR welcomes refugees from around the world onto college campuses, where they can access resources to live. In this book, Abdo details the stories of seven people hosted at Guilford. After his community in Uganda turned against him, Cheps survived for three years in a refugee camp with a tribe known for its hostility to LGBTQ people. Ali evaded two assassination attempts in Iraq before deciding to uproot his family and go west. Ree Ree, whose parents fled Burma, was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. Empathetic and caring, Abdo's expert writing conveys the nuanced stories of people whose lives have been heartwrenchingly upended, and who are doing what they must to survive and rebuild.

This book contains a compilation of interviews from refugees in the United States. The interviews were conducted by first-time author Abdo (English, Guilford Coll.), who is the daughter of Palestinian refugees herself. At Guilford, Abdo founded Every Campus a Refuge, which hosts refugees when they first arrive in the U.S. The lives of seven refugees from Iraq, Burma, Uganda, and elsewhere are covered in this book. Each of their stories begins with their childhood and moves through the terrible circumstances and incidents that caused the need for an exodus. The book concludes with their journeys to the U.S. and the problems they encounter upon arrival. Abdo provides solid solutions to some of these problems at the end of the text. She also presents the material in themes, mainly that refugees leave their souls behind in their country of origin, which causes them great sorrow. Another theme calls out hypocrisies in language and attitude. For example, white people who leave their country are called "expatriates," while people of color are called "immigrants." Some readers might be put off by Abdo's bias towards Palestine. VERDICT Fans of Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee will find Abdo's book compelling.--Jason L. Steagall