In Search of Safety: Voices of Refugees - Susan Kuklin
In Search of Safety: Voices of Refugees is a collection of 5 distinct stories of people forced to flee their countries of origin because of death threats, persecution, foreign invasion, and who finally end up calling Nebraska, USA their home. It is the story of immense struggles, heartbreaking sadness, hope, family, and love, and also of luck: behind these 5 stories are so many more who never make it to the US, despite years of trying.
Collected, edited, and assembled by Susan Kuklin, each subject narrates their personal story, telling us their life stories, the before and then the after. There is Fraidoon, the Afghan interpreter who worked with the US Army and other private US security firms in his homeland of Afghanistan. There is Nyarout, born in a village in South Sudan, who had to flee with nothing and survived in Ethiopian refugee camps for most of her young life, and then having to learn how to live for herself in the US. There is the story of Nathan, born in a refugee camp in Thailand, his family from the persecuted Karen ethnic group in Myanmar. And there is also Shireen, Yazidi, captured, enslaved, and tortured by ISIS, transported from Iraq to Syria, finally escaping and making her way to the US. And finally there is Dieudonné, who escaped genocide in Burundi with just the clothes on his back, and spent years in refugee camps.
These stories are so important for us to read and hear: the US government continues to reduce immigration and refugee quotas, while the number of displaced people in the world continues to grow. There is so much room in this country, and so many resources to help those who need them the most, that we should be fighting to help people rather than pushing them away. The refugee vetting process can take years and years, and so many people are rejected for no real reason. As an immigrant myself I went through many years of uncertainty, rejection of applications, and threats of deportation, but I was lucky enough to come from a country where I was safe to go back to. Many refugees do not have that choice or safety.
This book is written in such a way that it can be read by adults and children, and provides a lot of learning material that I think would be helpful to many US citizens who are unaware of how difficult the refugee application process is to navigate.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in return for an unbiased review.