At the Voices of Refugee event, two individual refugees and
one family of refugees told their stories of their journeys to the US. The
panel included one male from Burundi, one female from Burma, and a family from
Bhutan. The stories all had a similar thread because all the refugees
extensively expressed their value of education. The daughter of the Bhutanese
family shared her hopes of attending community college and DU and the elders of
the family expressed that their only hope from the US was that “all their
children receive an education”. They all also had positive reactions to their
lives in the US; many of them have found a sense of community and support
through the work of the African Community Center.
The Voice of Refugee event provided many new insights about
how to tell a refugee story. Many of the stories were told with humor; they
highlighted lighthearted mishaps and small successes in the US. For example,
the woman from Burma shared the story of her kids going hungry in the airport
because “[they] did not speak enough English to talk to the vendor, so the kids
were just lying on the floor hungry”. Another example is when the young
daughter of the family jokingly explained that “she was born in a forest!” The
stories were also more broad and general than the stories we have read in
class, which was disorientating because I am used to hearing all the details of
a refugee story instead of just the rough outline. My reaction to the level of
detail incorporated in their stories illuminated another one of my inherent
assumptions. After reading the astonishing events and pain that both Mawi and
Valentino encountered, I developed the assumption that every refugee had
witnessed crazy, horrific events during their journeys to asylum. However, at
the VOR event, their stories seemed more ordinary to me. My definition of their
stories as “ordinary” was jarring because I realized how immune to human
suffering I have become. In an era that consistently displays stories of death
and war in the media, suffering has become an everyday aspect of life, and so,
without shocking details, the refugees’ accounts of fleeing their homes (an
event that should be unimaginable) seemed mundane. This realization has helped
me discover that I need to adjust my level of sensitivity to other people’s
suffering. Therefore, I thought the VOR event was effective because it told
real accounts without the amazing embellishments, which allowed me to analyze
my own assumptions about refugee stories.
Aly,
ReplyDeleteI totally connect to feeling like the stories were "mundane." I was also taken aback by this, and it honestly scared me a little. It was startling to realize my own expectations for the refugees as I was listening to their stories. I wasn't consciously aware that I had a preconceived idea of what a refugee story should sound like before going into last night, but in retrospect I totally do.