We Are Displaced
Malala Yousafzai
1 ratings • 1 reviews
We Are Displaced
Malala Yousafzai
1 ratings • 1 reviews
After her father was murdered, María escaped in the middle of the night with her mother. Zaynab was out of school for two years as she fled war before landing in America. Her sister, Sabreen, survived a harrowing journey to Italy. Ajida escaped horrific violence, but then found herself battling the elements to keep her family safe in their new makeshift home. Author Malala Yousafzai introduces some of the people behind the statistics and news stories we read or hear every day about the millions of people displaced worldwide. Malala's experiences visiting refugee camps caused her to reconsider her own displacement - first as an Internally Displaced Person when she was a young child in Pakistan, and then as an international activist who could travel anywhere in the world except to the home she loved. In We Are Displaced, which is part memoir, part communal storytelling, Malala not only explores her own story, but she also shares the personal stories of some of the incredible girls she has met on her journeys - girls who have lost their community, relatives, and often the only world they've ever known. In a time of immigration crises, war, and border conflicts, We Are Displaced is an important reminder from one of the world's most prominent young activists that every single one of the 68.5 million currently displaced is a person - often a young person - with hopes and dreams.
No posts yet
Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update
We are displaced
- I don't super love this format: a collection of experiences. Was interesting to hear multiple perspectives and see a range of "how bad" different people had it, but it felt like I did not have enough time to know a character or feel what she was really going through before it was on to the next
- it was heart-wrenching to hear these stories, interesting to have the lens of the young person, to be reminded of how they are losing friends, School, maybe only place they have ever called a home
- there was a surprising amount of "patriotism" and longing in this book, for a location and country of origin
- is definitely an element of acknowledging my privilege and Fortune to not have suffered in any of these ways. It is interesting that so many of these women went on to be Advocates, as opposed to "simply surviving"
- "Many people think refugees should feel only two things: gratitude toward the countries that granted them asylum and relief to be safe. I don't think most people understand the tangle of emotions that comes with leaving behind everything you know. They are not only fleeing violence-- which is why so many are forced to leave, and is what's shown on the news-- but they are escaping their countries, their beloved homes. That seems to get lost in the conversation about refugees and internally displaced people. So much focus is on where they are now-- not on what they have lost as a result."
0