Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference

Just last year, the University where I am (gratefully) employed started a First Year Reading Experience (FYRE).  This year has already shown improvement, including giving each incoming student a copy of the book rather than expecting them to buy an optional text (something I felt VERY strongly about).  They've also chosen a book that might have broader appeal: Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference.  Written by NYT journalist Warren St. John, the book follows coach Luma Mufleh as she somewhat stumbles into founding a powerful youth soccer program for refugees in Clarkston, GA just outside of Atlanta.

The book taught me a lot that I probably should have already known: that the UN and the US Office of Refugee Resettlement funds and coordinates refugee relocation to places like Clarkston at startling numbers (the population of Clarkston went from a mostly homogeneous middle-class white community to one-third of the town now being foreign-born); that communities like Clarkston are chosen because of their proximity to large, urban centers with good public transportation and lots of low-wage jobs; that most refugees move on to another location after a stint in their original resettlement home.

It also reminded me of a few things I either knew or had suspected (see corresponding quotes):  that forced diversity is not always a cure-all (1); that soccer is a uniquely team-oriented and unifying sport (2); and that merely getting to know people can change the world or at least some small corner of it (3).

1.  "Inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life," the authors [of a 2007 study] wrote, "to distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television." (40)

2. Unlike basketball, baseball, or football, games that reset after each play, soccer unfolds fluidly and continuously.  To understand how a goal was scored, you have to work back through the action - the sequences of passes and decisions, the movement of the players away from the action who reappear unexpectedly in empty space to create or wast opportunities - all the way back to the first touch. (8)

3.  Luma decided that the kids really needed a free soccer program of their own.  She didn't have the foggiest idea of how to start or run such a program.  She certainly couldn't fund it, and with a restaurant to run and a team of her own to coach, she hardly had time to spare.  But the more she played soccer in the parking lots around Clarkston and the more she learned about the kids there, the more she felt a nagging urge to engage, and to do something. (51)

The book is not without flaw, and I suspect many of my students will be turned off by the attention to minute detail, the slow-moving passages without much action, and (like me) the repetition of material that seems to indicate a lack of editing.  It should spark some good conversations though, not the least of which will be how my students (decidedly lower-middle to middle class themselves, if not actually working class) will relate to the struggles of the refugees or how they might use the Fugees' experience as a mirror on their own sense of entitlement and privilege.  On that note, The New Yorker has an excellent article on spoiled American children.  Even if you haven't read Outcasts United, check out the article.  It is definitely food for thought, especially with passages like this:

“Most parents today were brought up in a culture that put a strong emphasis on being special,” [Levine] observes. “Being special takes hard work and can’t be trusted to children. Hence the exhausting cycle of constantly monitoring their work and performance, which in turn makes children feel less competent and confident, so that they need even more oversight.”

Little Things

Ok, so there's this:

Several years ago, Sheryl Crow apparently (satirically) advocated for 1-square of toilet paper per trip per person.  This little tidbit of information came up in a debriefing meeting for work last week (why?  WHY?), and the ones spreading the news were sharing it as though it were a serious assertion on Crow's part.  But it got me thinking:  one square?  That's serious economy.  And it implies a certain type of toilet paper has been purchased, which just underscores the class divide in environmental issues.  I don't care how "green" you are, there are some toilet papers that would not hold up in a one-square wipe.  I'm just sayin'.

Also this:

Ernest Hemingway, of the big gun fame, apparently had a a big heart as well.  In this month's Harper's, there is a letter (made available by the JFK Presidential Library's Hemingway Collection) written soon after Hemingway had to put his cat down after a bad injury.  The cat, Uncle Willie, had been hit by a car or some other heavy object and had walked home on two broken legs.  In the letter, Hemingway conveys that amazing feeling of animal loyalty: "But he purred and seemed sure that I could fix it."  Hemingway knew he could not, so he made the cat comfortable and shot him.

Monstruo wished to shoot him for me, but I could not delegate the responsibility or leave a chance of Will knowing anybody was killing him.

And then, at the end, he writes

Have had to shoot people but never anyone I knew and have loved for eleven years.  Nor anyone that purred with two broken legs.

Aaagh.  Beautiful.

And finally this:

This week's Time cover article is on The American Dream.  I teach this issue in a class on American Values, and though I'm not teaching that class this fall, I'm entirely interested in what Jon Meacham has to say on the issue.   What do you think?  Is the American Dream still alive?  Was it ever really?


That is all. 

What I'm Reading These Days

I am working on the book for our First Year Reading Experience (FYRE), which is pretty decent and definitely up my alley: Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference.  I'm a little concerned students will be turned off by the attention to detail, but the story is a good one.

I also picked up and have read a bit of Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater on the excellent recommendation of Isabella at Magnificant Octopus.  I am loving it, even though it has stalled on the bedside for the time being.  So far, it seems like an excellent book to teach with older kids, maybe middle school.  Pinkwater perhaps overdoes the figurative language at times, but there are some really thoughtful and instructive similes like this one:

The people were passing by like a long freight train, and I felt like a car stopped at a crossing. (28)

What I'm not reading?  The newspaper.  For years now, I have enjoyed free daily delivery of our local paper (long story), but now that we have moved, I have made the difficult decision to not subscribe.  Here's the thing: I love the paper.  I love knowing what's happening in my community, even if some of it is stupid and small.  The problem is not just the expense.  It is a matter of priorities.  I have so much stuff (both mental and physical) to contend with at present, and the paper is a burden.  A great one at times, but it is still a burden.  If I don't get it read each day, I can't just put it in the bin and move on.  I must catch up, and the truth is I don't need another to-do item right now.

I don't really miss it.  How wrong is that?

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

I write this from my couch with the laptop perched on my lap (that's weird) because I don't have a desk yet, and all the stuff from my former desks (that's right - two of 'em) is still in boxes, and what will be my office/desk needs to be painted before I can start unloading stuff into it.  Are you tired of hearing me complain yet?  I certainly am.  But progress keeps occurring, and the desk will come soon.

Despite all the chaos, I am still reading (about 4.2 minutes each night before falling into deep sleep), and I actually finished The Penelopiad before we moved.  No picture of my copy because I don't know where it is yet (somewhere in the to-be-bathroom/library, I suppose), but I do have some thoughts.

The Penelopiad is Odysseus' loyal wife's perspective on the time and events surrounding The Odyssey.   It is a great concept and one I look forward to teaching this fall.  Penelope's intelligence, her strategy, her domestic politics all come through nicely, and I like the idea of turning Odysseus' journey on its head, especially from a somewhat feminist leaning.

The book is divided into sections, mostly in Penelope's voice, with occasional sections granted to the 12 maids murdered by Odysseus and Telemachus for their complicity in the suitors' crimes.  The maids serve as a traditional Greek chorus and offer an additional perspective on both Odysseus and Penelope. Penelope speaks from Hades as a shade telling her stories to present-day listeners.  This chronological choice distracted me as Penelope would periodically say rather obtuse things like "I can say this now because I'm dead" which weakens her strength in life a bit.

The weakness of the book is that it feels hurried.  It feels like Atwood got the request for her participation in this cool idea but didn't devote as much time to it as she would a novel of her own design.  It feels like a side project.  So, there are really interesting introductions to themes and ideas, but Atwood doesn't really tease them out or complicate them as much I would like in a full-blown novel.  It does, however, seem to be a good conversation piece for class as it will raise questions that it demands students to answer for themselves.

Perhaps more important than the feminist/gender equity themes it addresses is the excellent idea of the importance of storytelling and how different versions of a story don't necessarily make them less true.  That twisting of tale is really what I'm going to be pursuing in the class by chasing down various versions of The Odyssey throughout the semester, so Penelope's acknowledgement of the wiliness of truth or the Maids' comments that "the truth, dear auditors, is seldom certain - / But let us take a peek behind the curtain" (148) will likely be quite useful.