Outcasts United Analysis ‘Outcast United’ is a book by Warren St John based on the incredible tale of a refugee soccer team and how a small town in America transformed to find unity in diversity. The book ‘Outcasts United’ expounds the story of the challenges and triumphs of a group of refugee players, the strength and determination of an exceptional woman who coaches them, and their neighbourhood. Clarkston, Georgia was an ordinary town in the south until the government designated it as a refugee settlement centre in the early 1990s. as a result, the town became the first American neighbourhood for hundred of refugees fleeing the war-torn zones such as Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Liberia, and others. In the long run, Clarkston was filled with a higher number of different cultural groups, replacing its previous homogenous community. Unlike in the past, now there were women wearing hijabs, scents of curry and cumin, and children of different colours playing on any open space in the town. At that time, Luma Mufleh, an American-schooled woman of Jordanian descent also resided in Clarkston, Georgia. It is Luma Mufleh’s right actions that resulted in the foundation of a refugee soccer team, with the objective of establishing unity among different culture groups, and to keep children off the streets (Outcasts United, 2009). In the story, so many problems occurred for refugees in their new community, but my main focus in this essay will be how to use specific tools to reduce the
The poem ‘Migrants by ‘Bruce Dawe ’should be included for the core text for journeying as it portrays journeying through the perceptions and experiences of a migrant group. This poem depicts feelings of ignorance and disrespectfulness encountered by the migrant group as they are treated with a lack of concern by people living in Australia.
The art of survival is something that is not easily learned. For some, however, it is something that comes from a natural desire to be defiant and rebellious. In the novel Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, protagonist Louie Zamperini fights for survival through a number of trials that are presented to him. His life takes him from being a troubled child, to an Olympic runner, to a bomber lost at sea, to POW in some of the worst camps Japan could conjure. Louie not only survives these trials, he stands up and goes directly against the normality and ease of submission and faces his adversity head on. Throughout the novel, Louie shows that his ability to survive stems from his natural urge to rebel and defy anything that he deems too controlling in his life.
Did you know that according to the Un refugee Agency’s annual Global Trends study found that 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2016- a total bigger than the population of the united kingdom and about 300,000 more than last year. ? Its tragic that this is true but this is what the world has came to.In the text Going to School as a Refugee the main issue for SB was he couldn't speak the language so he was always lost in school and always made fun of for being different than everyone else. Every refugee struggles with this problem because they flee their country to different one with a different language. When war comes to their village some of their family members die because if they dont agree with whats going on the communists or the army will kill them and move on. Since they don't know how to speak the language they can't make friends so they are always lonely, the only people they can talk to is other refugees that speak their language or their family. In the book Inside out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai the main character is a 10 year old girl named Ha. Since the war came to her village she had to put her childhood aside and be a grownup. She couldn't be picky because the she got were very limited because she wasn't rich her dad was captured and never came home. Like Ha, refugees are turned “inside out” when the war is coming to their village which means they have to flee their country and it means that they have to restart their
In the film, “We are Marshall”, there is a major theme that includes being able to move on and a rebuilding of a community after a tragic event. In the following paragraphs I will be discussing with a chain of events how football helped rebuild a community after a tragic event and how religion and sport are intertwined. This paper is significant because within a short span it highlights different aspects of not only rebuilding a football team but a community. This paper is important because it shows how the concept of structural functionalism played a big part in this film in addition to the socialization of youth and adults in the community. This paper will also talk about major points and scenes from the film that have a connection with the
Within sports, pressure is always there; you have to learn to deal with it. H. G. Bissinger’s book, Friday Night Lights, hones in on the football team the Permian Panthers of Odessa. Through this focus on the team, one can see how football is an integral part of the town thriving, maintaining its hopes and dreams. Despite the racial and social divide within the community, those Friday night games become a place where dreams may be made possible. In this way, sports, specifically football, not only have an impact on the players but the community as well.
Did you know that it’s estimated that about 50% of refugees are under the age of 18? In the autobiography, Of Beetles & Angels by Mawi Asgedom, Mawi and his siblings came to America when they were under the age of 18 fitting the statistic. The book, Of Beetles & Angels is about a young boy’s journey from a refugee camp in Sudan who then comes to America, and then finally goes to Harvard. Mawi overcomes his obstacles and builds a successful life for himself. Growing up as a refugee in America Mawi encountered the obstacles of poverty, bullying and death.
In Warren St. John’s Outcasts United, the citizens of Clarkston, Georgia had a fantasy of living in the ideal American town. However, that fantasy stood no chance when faced with the harsh reality of life. When a myriad of refugees from war-torn countries were placed in Clarkston, the townspeople saw their fantasy begin to slip away. Clarkston’s residents disliked the influx of refugees because they feared the thought of losing their ideal American town. The citizens were too selfish to live in such a state of liminality as depicted by St. John. Rather than helping their neighbors, the “old” Clarkston residents maintained their ideology by isolating the refugees and making it nearly impossible for the refugees to survive or have a desirable life in Clarkston. The Clarkston residents were driven by fear of the unknown and were reluctant to accept the refugees. Luma started a youth soccer program, which was aimed toward the refugee children to help the younger generation of refugees fit into the American society and lessen the tensions between the Clarkston residents and the refugees that was evident in her generation of refugees. The Clarkston residents had to accept and become a part of the inevitable change in their community.
Sustaining the ambitions of not only themselves but the alumni and town of Odessa, Texas is a lot to ask from a young adult. That’s exactly what Permian football provides to the people of Odessa, where the post economic boom of the oil business has left the town in a racially tense, economic crisis. The lights on Permian High School’s football field are the only sanctuary for the west Texas town. Socially and racially divided, Odessa’s mass dependence on high school football constructs glorified expectations for the football team to temporarily disguise the disappointments that come with living in a town tagged as the “murder capital” of
“Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.” ― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose. Outcasts United, by Warren St. John, follows the stories of war-torn refugees that found themselves in the small town community of Clarkston. Tensions were high as the wave of new culture clashed with the status quo of “Old Clarkston” residents. However, in light of the unstable situation, a group of young boys were able to find their home on the soccer field. The human need for belonging is explored in this book. However, refugees have an extremely difficult journey to acceptance due to the isolating tendencies that resettlement can cause.
This essay is about the universal refugee experience and the hardships that they have to go through on their journey. Ha from Inside Out and Back Again and other refugees from the article “Children of War” all struggle with the unsettling feeling of being inside out because they no longer own the things that mean the most to them. Ha and the other refugees all encounter similar curiosities of overcoming the finding of that back again peaceful consciousness in the “new world” that they are living in .
For the podcast, I interviewed Lina Abdulnoor, with the intention of exploring the intricacies of refugeehood by analyzing Lina’s refugee experience. Lina lived in Iraq with her family until they began receiving death threats due to their religious beliefs. Convinced that they needed to flee the country to survive, they left Iraq as refugees. After leaving Iraq, they settled in Jordan, where they waited two years until the U.N. to approve their request to move to the U.S. in 2012. Lina and her family initially settled in Virginia, where she experienced culture shock as she adapted to American culture and the English language. However, Lina did not feel accepted in Virginia; her experiences in the state led her to think that Americans treated her according to negative stereotypes of Iraqis. After living in Virginia for several months, Lina and her family chose to resettle in San Diego, California, which harbored a larger Iraqi population than Virginia did. Supported by San Diego’s Iraqi community and various refugee organizations, Lina flourished, and she currently studies at UCSD while holding a stable job.
As Outcasts United began to unfold, one can note many values that endorse those of Bethel College, St. John amplifies certain ones. The most prevalent value is diversity, which Bethel proposes they prize individuals for their uniqueness.(Bethel) Which goes is parallel with the entire book Outcasts United. St. John shows us different experiences with diversity, for example, the diversity experienced by the original people of Clarkston is vastly different from what was experienced by Luma and the refugees that were relocated to the town of Clarkston. In chapter three of the novel, St. John states “in the late 1980s, another group of outsiders took note of Clarkston: the nonprofit agencies that resettle the tens of thousands of refugees accepted into the United States each year”. (St. John 35) Some experiences with diversity are more negative than others. After analysing Outcast United one can
More than half the refugees around the globe are under the age of 18, even though children make up 31 percent of the world’s population. Refugees are people who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disasters. The stories that will be covered in this essay are called “The Teacher Who Changed My Life,” by Nicholas Gage and the second novel is “Letter to a Young Refugee from Another,” by Andrew Lam. These stories have many differences between each other but they both left their country to America. What if you had to flee your country?
Lj Smith, the author of the Vampire Diaries, wrote, “...but right now everything looks strange to me, as if I don’t belong here. It is me that is out of place, and the worst thing is that I feel there’s somewhere that I do belong, but I just can’t find it.” In 2016 65.3 million people are refugees around the world that are displaced throughout the United Nations. These people now have to adjust to a new life, in a new country, and a new “home.” Although some might believe that newcomers, immigrants, and refugees adjust and adapt to culture easily, Lahiri illustrates through Interpreter of Maladies the difficulties and issues men and women experience when adjusting to a place and culture where they do not feel at ease.
The Olympics, which comes every 4 year and gives both happiness and despair at the same time to countries, is proceeded by harmony from various countries in the world. Last year in 2016, among the many countries participating in the Rio, Brazil Olympic games, there was a remarkable team which were named the ‘Refugee Olympic Athletes’. For the first time since the Olympics started in 1896, they participated in the same league as the other teams. It was organized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to recognize the global refugee crisis. The refugee squad consisted of two Syrian refugee swimmers, two Congo refugee judo players, one Ethiopian refugee marathoner, and five South Sudanese middle-distance runner refugees. Every sportsman