ipl-logo

Refugees In Warren St. John's Outcasts United

1189 Words5 Pages

“The U.S. received 84,995 refugees in fiscal year 2016, effectively meeting the 85,000 ceiling set by the Obama administration at the beginning of the year” (Connor). In the novel, Outcasts United by Warren St. John, a Jordanian woman, Luma Mufleh, forms soccer teams of refugees to give the children structure in their lives. As a result she discovers who she is from the soccer field, and how she can help others. The novel shows how families can overcome the challenges faced with being a refugee like racism, language barriers, poverty and hunger. Around the 1980s in Clarkston, Georgia when refugees were arriving, it was discovered that top-down efforts to impose contact and understanding between various groups were more likely to fail, but …show more content…

One example of this is how soccer turns into therapy for the children. “The soccer field, [Luma] felt, should be a place where they could leave all that behind” (St. John 58). The children have gone through war and the loss of friends and family. They needed something in their lives to get away from all the trauma and hardship they were going through. Not to mention they are in another country where everything is different and stressful. Luma’s soccer program is an effective way for the refugees to be free and just be kids again. Soccer gives them structure in their lives so that they can succeed in their new country. Also, Luma’s soccer program helps the refugee children with their education. “Many had come from societies that had been fractured by war, and as a consequence they never had access to any kind of formal education” (St. John 58). Luma held tutoring sessions for all of her players to help them catch up in their schooling; since in the United States students are in classes by their age group not by how well they perform. Luma effectively helps the refugees succeed in their schooling which helps them learn English better and will help them find success in the United States. Hence, Luma consequently unites the refugees through her soccer program and as a result they are able to thrive in

Show More
Related
1444 Words | 6 Pages

In the book Outcasts United, the author, Warren St. John, tells a story about a young Jordanian woman, Luma Mufleh, who founded a youth soccer program that consisted of the majority of young refugee boys now living Clarkston, Georgia. The teams consisted of players from the ages of nine to seventeen that were forced to flee their war torn countries and have since been relocated in apartment complexes in the Clarkston area. Luma’s purpose for starting the “Fugees” was to help keep these boys off of the streets and she hoped to help them build a better life in the United States. She knew what it was like coming from a completely different country. Luma came from her home country of Jordan to go to college but when she told her father that she

Read More
940 Words | 4 Pages

The universal refugee experience consists of “fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” (Gevert 9). Throughout a refugee 's life they will go through ups and downs, or inside out and back again. The universal refugee experience isn’t something people dream of having but it happens to people everyday all over the world. In the book, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, the author focuses on the events that happen to Ha and her family. These events are the same experiences that every refugee goes

Read More
1435 Words | 6 Pages

Refugees are people who have been forced to leave their countries in order to escape war, persecution, and natural disaster. Most refugees are ordinary people coming from ordinary places. One of these ordinary people, Kim Hà from South Vietnam, was created as a fictional character for the novel Inside Out & Back Again, written by Thanhha Lai, who modeled it after her own life as a refugee. Lai, just like her character Hà, was forced to flee her home during the Vietnam War, and ended up in the United States, in the state of Alabama. While Hà is a fictional character, Lai gives her certain characteristics so readers of her novel will realize the struggles refugees have to face, and the ways they must recover from them.

Read More
1200 Words | 5 Pages

She was not shy about admitting her failure and how ashamed she was of herself, but instead saw it as a chance to seek out other prospects that would benefit herself and the families of the soccer players she coached (60-61). Openly admitting to her failure and suggesting the idea to begin helping others despite their misfortune, were the initial steps Luma took to reinvent herself and her position in the community. This traumatic experience inspired Luma to help refugee families combat isolation and personal issues of their own. Her plan was to start a small

Read More
544 Words | 3 Pages

Aaryan Nair Mrs. Bugni Adv ILA 7-8 23 February 2023 Refugee Analysis When all is lost and war breaks out, hope is found and it saves the day. Refugee, by Alan Gratz expresses hope in dark situations. This includes the 2011 Syrian War, and the 1994 Cuban Political Riot. The book Refugee explains hope by having faith in someone who can help them, and courage to fight anything that comes into their way.

Read More
793 Words | 4 Pages

She provide her team with a set of rules they had to go by, and if they didn’t they might as well didn’t show up to any practices or games. Besides of trying to teach her team discipline she cared for the fugees like family. The refugee families when through many traumatic events in their lives before moving to Clarkston. Luma created a soccer programs to give the boys something to do to get their minds off the problems they faced every day. Although the refugees faced many problem before their new lives became in Clarkston, they still had to deal with feeling like outsiders.

Read More
1110 Words | 5 Pages

Could you imagine having to leave your home due to incredible violence? Or being forced to leave your homeland or else face death? These are the struggles that the three characters Isabel, Josef, and Mahmoud faced in the book Refugee. Throughout the story each child is burdened with these hardships as well as overwhelming fear.

Read More
308 Words | 2 Pages

The most memorable and important lesson that I have learned from reading Outcasts United was the gradual, but mutual respect and commonality among a group of refugees playing soccer, whom more or less, shared very little in common when first arriving in the United States. This very common, yet profound theme of cohesion, teamwork, and overall unity of a group highlighted a key similarity between the book and my new experience at Georgia College and State University. Similar to how the newly arrived refugees in Outcasts United befriended other players of the same nationality and culture, students at Georgia College often associate and later befriend others based on a similar background whether that be through prior friendships or through

Read More
1109 Words | 5 Pages

The novel “Inside Out and Back Again” describes the life of a family of refugees searching to find home. It describes the highs and the lows of day-to-day life for the family, perfectly describing the universal refugee experience. The universal refugee experience is an umbrella term used to describe the myriad of trials and tribulations refugees endure as they move to a foreign place. These are experiences that all or most refugees typically go through in their process of finding a new home. Ha’s journey is a perfect example of the universal refugee experience.

Read More
1537 Words | 7 Pages

In the book Refugee, hope is an anchor

Read More
1151 Words | 5 Pages

She talks about how upsetting it was for her coming to an unfamiliar place by saying, “I was no longer a Jordanian citizen, but I wasn’t American, either. I felt a kind of loneliness that is still hard to put into words today” (Mufleh). To me, this shows that she can be someone who can be trusted with the feelings of these young immigrants because she has felt the same feelings that they are now feeling. She wants her students to know that she will always be an advocate for them, and that she truly cares about how they

Read More
1282 Words | 6 Pages

Refugees are individuals who require more hope to survive than anyone else. In Alan Gratz's historical fiction novel Refugee, he tells the tales of three young immigrants on their quest for asylum. Three children are fleeing their homes in the hopes of finding safety: Mahmoud from Syria, Josef from Germany, and Isabel from Cuba. Additionally, as these three people endure despite the perils of their travels, their stories parallel and overlap. The characters' traumatic experiences and difficulties make defeat seem conceivable, yet hope gives them confidence and fearlessness.

Read More
1492 Words | 6 Pages

Alan Gratz masterfully uses three, independent, historically accurate stories, to illustrate the journey refugees must take for their freedom. From the Night of the Breaking Glass, and a poor boy on a plastic dinghy attempting to escape Syria, to a girl crossing unimaginable distances on a small boat, this book showcases how humans have

Read More
1083 Words | 5 Pages

The lives of refugees are turned “inside out” out when they are forced to flee because they have to leave the only home they have ever known and try to figure out a way to leave their old lives behind. They are not leaving their country because they want to but because they are forced to and it can feel like

Read More
1120 Words | 5 Pages

The concept of social justice encompasses finding the optimum balance between our combined responsibilities as a society, our responsibilities as individuals to contribute to a just society (University of New South Wales, 2011) and ensuring fairness, freedom and equality regardless of race, religion and ethical background. The social justice issue of Refugee’s suffers from a deprived extent of human dignity, human rights and social justice. The definition of a "refugee" is revealed in the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating which defines a refugee as an individual who: "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the

Read More

More about Refugees In Warren St. John's Outcasts United

Related Topics

Open Document