The Happiest Refugee Book Review

After reading Isabelle Knockwood’s book Out of the Depths, residential schools really opened my eyes on what really happened to the Aboriginal peoples who were sent there. Knockwood did a very good job explaining what she went through during the long 11 years that she was at the residential school. It’s still hard to believe that human beings would do that to other humans.

‘Stolen girl’ written by Trina Saffioti and illustrated by Norma MacDonald, is a touching, emotionally stirring picture book about the tourment a young aboriginal girl experiences when she was taken away from her mother, by the Australian government. The story takes place in a children’s home and is told with the use of small bursts of detailed paragraphs and intense, colourful and melancholy illustrations. Written for 8-10 year olds, the purpose of the book represents the experiences of children who were a part of the stolen generation in the 1900s-1970s. In this time period it was government policy in Australia that each indigenous Australian child was to be removed from their families as the

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. For example, during her

Throughout ‘The HAppiest Refugee,’ Anh Do, uses both optimistic and pessimistic language throughout the happy and sad times. Do does this to keep the reader on the edge of his/her seat. However, when Do’s dad begins to spiral, he does the courteous thing and steps up to the plate, hence becoming the man of the family, this warms the reader 's heart as Do never once gives up on his family throughout her autobiography.

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

Recently, I have read your controversial and callous article ‘If Britain is prepared to provide an all-inclusive resort service for asylum seekers, the least they can do is wear a bloody wristband.’ From a student with a family member who has experienced being a refugee, I know that the issues regarding asylum seekers and refugees are critical in the modern society. Therefore, I feel that your article, mostly oversimplified and prejudiced, could mislead lots of readers to have undesirable views on those people who are in need.

Imagine if you were born into a country filled with poverty, fear, anxiety, despair and sorrow. The pain and suffering you would go through every day was so violent that you and your family had given up on all measures of hope. Every day you would fear persecution and you couldn’t even feel safe in the comfort of your own home. But what if there was a sliver of hope of escaping this drama occurring in your homeland by leaving by boat. All this drama gone in a flash, wouldn’t you want to try? putting your life at risk, but anyways what is the point of staying back, where you are just suffering emotionally, psychologically and physically as the day passes. 51 million people worldwide and 800,000 people in Australia have experienced these feelings

Australia is said to be a multicultural and multiracial country. So why can’t we, as a country and as a nation, say yes to immigrants fleeing from a different country? As immigration to Australia is supposably apart of our history and it would be wrong not to continue on with the actions of our ancestors.

I have never lived away from home before attending college, so at times I feel homesick for the luxuries my family home provided me with. For example, I greatly miss my cats, my sister, having a private kitchen and bathroom, access to a car, and our spacious backyard. I often cannot wait to go home as I know all these things await me. I even frequently complain about missing these aspects of my life. For the millions of people displaced across the globe the feelings I have are massively multiplied as they are not just away from their home for a few months, but instead forced to abandon their homes forever. The human rights film that I watched was Human Flow, and the main topic discussed was the life and perils of people forcibly displaced from

I wonder as I write and think of ideas of ways to engage Indigenous students and communities back into education system how has none of this been implemented in our curriculum. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples embody the world’s oldest living cultures, so the corollary is that they must be the world’s oldest intellectual tradition. Yet that tradition remains essentially mute and invisible in the curriculum, the impact of this omission runs deeper than an academic oversight (Rose, 2012). The overshadowing of whiteness and its dictatorship over the Australian education system, this want for all students Indigenous and non-Indigenous to learn the western way of life, for it is seen as the ‘successful way of living’, western economic

The pain and agony due to the fact that I might not be prepared for college class was on my shoulders. Since day one of highschool, my biggest desire throughout school was to be engaged in learning while being well prepared for the next step in life: college. What class was the answer to this class desired? It was in a meeting with my guidance counselor in eighth grade that struck me and sparked the interest in my heart to do well. All of my highschool career I have never known what it actually meant to do well and be ¨successful.¨ The abstract idea occurred to me, in room 201, in the front row of Dual Enrollment English 111; this idea regarded what it means to be successful and obtain a good work ethic while producing a high quality essay.

Ha is an example of the universal refugee experience because she goes through things that many other refugees go through, such as the feeling of being “inside out” and not belonging anywhere. Ha has to learn a new language and a whole new way of life, she has to give up many of her old traditions and ways of life like many refugees do. A universal refugee experience is something that is experienced by not all, but most refugees. Ha started out stubborn and forceful before they fled their home, "I decided to wake before dawn and tap my big toe on the tile floor first," (Lai 2). Ha is angry that only men 's feet bring good luck and she will not let that be the case for she wants to bring luck to her family. She loves her mother very much but she would rather hide her brother 's sandals then say that she loves them too, she does but she wouldn 't admit it. Ha from the book Inside Out & Back Again experiences many of the same things as other refugees do, this is known as a universal refugee experience. Many refugees are turned inside out as they go through the process of moving from their home country to a new country and as they try to find a sense of normal life again.

During the course of English 102, I took this year of the spring semester. I have accomplished a variety of goals I once thought were impossible. I have not only grown as a writer and a student but as an individual as well. I feel that through my experience of this English course, I have achieved knowledge and self-confidence to step out into the real world. In putting together my portfolio, I could definitely see that I have made an incredible progress from the foundation of this class. My practice of grammar, words and the general structure of my papers has improved massively. Reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, as well as things I have learned in my own writing process is a big accomplishment.

When first writing in my journal I struggled with how deep to go with my discussion questions and what I should be asking my classmates. I feel that I have struggled with this because I lack confidence on what I am trying to prove or say in my writing. When reading in the past I have never pushed myself to question the author’s purpose or ask questions that invoke much thought. Up to this point in the year writing in my journal as well as annotating in the text, has helped my reading and writing immensely. My journal this year mostly contains quotes from texts and points from in class discussions that I felt were useful to understanding the novel and its purpose. I do not journal as much as

As a College freshman in his second semester, I have learned to deal with the challenges that I have to deal with peaceful, yet exhilarating moment when my mind engages with an author’s thoughts on a page. As John Dewey states “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” What Dewey insists is from my early days in high school to my first year in college as a freshman, I wanted to know the full concept of English; however, I have now realized this subject would fill in my void of English with noteworthy complexities. This was not the case for most of my second semester in Montgomery College; I always had trouble in various parts of the subject, such as development in thesis statement, sentence writing and reflecting on previous essays.