Love Thy Neighbor by Ayaz Virji

As you read those words this week, what ideas and traits did they bring to mind?  Courage ... Grit ... Resilience? All dispositions we try hard to foster in our students and ones which are certainly exemplified by Ayaz Virji, author of LOVE THY NEIGHBOR. His book relates far too many stories of bias and prejudice which he, his wife, and, even sometimes, his young children experienced.

Having graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine almost 20 years ago, Virji spent close to fifteen years in private practice in Pennsylvania before deciding to move his family to Dawson, Minnesota (about three hours from the Twin Cities). As chief of staff and head of the medical clinic, he answered a call to ease the doctor shortage in rural America. The family are the only Muslims in the area, but they become a part of the community - the children (Faisal, Imran, and Maya) settle at school and Musarrat, his wife, opens her own business. Having felt welcomed and accepted, Virji's reaction to Trump's election is even more emotional when he learns how sixty-five percent of that Minnesota county voted for Trump. Gradually, he realizes that the situation is an opportunity for learning - about the voters' motives (e.g., high medical bills, animosity towards Clinton) and about religion.

Pastor Mandy, an intern at Grace Lutheran Church in Dawson, invites Virji to speak to the community. They title the talk "Love Thy Neighbor" and this book, co-written with Alan Eisenstock, relates the content and context of that lecture. The text is very informative; Virji uses statistics as well as passages from the Bible and from the Quran to support his points about terrorism being separate from Islam, about the role of women, and about Sharia Law. He begins by saying, "I want to talk from love and humanity and diversity. These are the premises of your faith. You know that very well. These are the premises of my faith. These are the premises of every faith."
 

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. It is worth a read and made me think of other memoirs that prompt readers to reflect on their life's purpose, including Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture and Khizr Khan's An American Family. 

Where We Come From by Oscar Cásares

WHERE WE COME FROM by Oscar Cásares is a powerful novel.  It is a well-written story for our times, but it does much more than mirror headlines.  As Cásares noted in a recent interview, he began this work in order to explore the idea of cultural immigration and what happens to people as they become more assimilated. Strong emotions – love, fear, hope, shame, disappointment - are associated with WHERE WE COME FROM which tells the story of many characters, including:

• Orly, who is a twelve-year-old boy whose mother has recently died and who is sent to spend the summer near the border in Brownsville, Texas with his godmother, la madrina. She is named
• Nina, who is a retired school teacher and now cares for her ailing mother and for Chivito, another young boy, just becoming a teen. He is named
• Daniel, who is on a quest to avoid capture and to meet his father (who emigrated from Veracruz, Mexico) in Chicago

Cásares deftly explores misunderstandings, manipulations, and internal tensions as each faces questions of bravery and trust. As Cásares develops the relationships between characters, he also intersperses italicized vignettes containing the stories of otherwise almost invisible, minor characters like a local policeman who is the son of an unauthorized immigrant or an inspirational teacher facing deportation due to an expired work permit.

For a sense of the writing style and story line, see Texas Monthly’s recently published short excerpt here. Booklist says “Teens will be moved by this heartfelt story about an intensely timely subject that demands attention.” We will definitely be booktalking this title and encouraging classes like Global Voices and other Senior electives to consider adding it to the curriculum. WHERE WE COME FROM received a starred review from Kirkus.

Books related to Refugees ...

I have been intending to write this post for several months, and every time I start it, there seems to be more and more to write. I have decided to split it into two posts. The general theme is about Refugees and I will be providing a review on a number of books.  Still, that feels too short for this important topic so I encourage you to see the display in the library and to watch the video embedded below.   

THE NEWCOMERS by Helen Thorpe is subtitled “finding refuge, friendship, and hope in an American classroom” and that makes this book very applicable for our high school students.  Of course, our Social Studies classes and others study the impact of natural disasters, of war, and of discrimination on refugees from countries like Syria and Myanmar, but those situations can seem far away and all too unreal to our students. Instead, Thorpe shares the stories of twenty-two students from Room 142 in Denver’s South Side High School. The fact that the school year involved, 2015-16, is just prior to the presidential election makes these tales even more poignant and relatable due to their recency. 

All of these young people have come to America from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East with very limited English skills and their teacher, Mr. Williams, sets out to help them assimilate. In some ways, this is a coming of age story, but it also serves as a moral fable. Kirkus says reading THE NEWCOMERS will create “a wider, more sympathetic view of the world and its inhabitants - certainly something we need right now.” Our students have previously read Kids of Kabul and asked for more – I am hoping that they will embrace and learn from this important book as well. THE NEWCOMERS received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Here, too, is link to an author interview by Larry Ferlazzo for Ed Week.

RESCUE by David Miliband is compassionate, inspirational, and humbling. Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), subtitles his first book “Refugees and the Political Crisis of Our Time.” He explains that his own parents were refugees and offers a call for action in both the book and this video (online here, too):    

Miliband cites numerous statistics, such as “60 percent of all refugees live in urban areas, not camps.” He describes the differences in needs for housing, food, education and health care as well as the impact on the cities’ infrastructure. Continuing, he notes that “the assumption that the majority of refugees live in camps as opposed to urban areas is not the only mismatch between perception and reality.”  Another has to do with long-term displacement where, for example, approximately a third of the 330,000 refugees in a camp in eastern Kenya were born there. That camp is called Dadaab and was built 25 years ago (see also City of Thorns by Ben Rawlence). Clearly, these numbers are disturbing – can you imagine living your entire life in a camp?

I also wanted to highlight the graphic novel, THE BEST WE COULD DO by debut author Thi Bui.  In this illustrated memoir, she relates the events surrounding refugees from an earlier generation.  Her family fled the fall of Saigon in the 1970s and eventually learned to adapt to life in America. This work received multiple starred reviews: Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal and School Library Journal (which said, "Curricular tie-ins include immigration policies, refugees, colonization, and the Vietnam War. ... Hand this essential volume to teens ..."). 

As noted, there are so many titles on this topic worth reading – if you have one to suggest let us know and I will post more soon.