A refugee story is a complex account because it is a fusion
of multiple identities. Refugees, as I mentioned in my previous definitions,
often exist in a state of limbo- straddling the pressures and expectations of
competing and partial identities. Refugees, forced from their native homes due
to tragic external factors, have an innate connection to their first identity,
yet they must also compensate for they changes they undergo in their new
cultures (both the culture of the camp and of their final location). Thus,
refugee stories are more complex than other narratives because the voice is not
rooted in a single identity. Rather, the voice is submerged in an atmosphere of
competition. The competition of identities present in a refugee’s voice has
many profound effects of the direction of the narrative. It allows the author
to express many feelings of lust- lust for their homes and families and lust
for the potential benefits of a future life. For example, Selamawi struggles
with maintaining his Ethiopian roots and
his new education in Chicago. The voice of a refugee is unique because it comes
from the place of an unknown, and potentially unachievable, single identity;
other stories are rooted in the faith that a final identity will be attained.
Refugees may not have the luxury to adhere to this faith.
A refugee’s story helps to highlight the principles of the
Fadlalla piece. Fadlalla warns against the universalization of refugees, or the
West’s tendency to reduce refugees to an undistinguishable accumulation of
sufferers. This portrayal leads to the dehumanization of refugees as wealthy
humanitarians gain the power to assume refugees are warlike and animalistic by
nature. A refugee’s story disrupts these Western assumptions because it
highlights the complexity of an individual voice. A refugee’s story accentuates
specific details about his or her life and connects them to the themes and
hardships many refugees experience (i.e. forced displacement, disconnection
from culture etc.). In other terms, a refugee’s story acts as a bridge between
the varied representations of refugee culture present in humanitarian work
today.
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