Empathy And Immigration

It’s the usual playbook these days, with legislators blasting the White House about immigration, then refusing to provide funds for the legal teams needed to vet asylum seekers. Just as unexplainable are the social media posts crying foul about large amounts of drugs being confiscated. Isn’t confiscation of illegal drugs a good thing?

What’s missing in the immigration arguments is any understanding about why people flee their homes. Would you take off across a desert or board an iffy sea vessel if you had choices?

There are a few good books I wish the anti-immigrant crowd would read.

Home of the Brave, a novel in verse by Newbery Medal author Katherine Applegate, is the story of Kek, an African boy whose father and brother are killed by militants. Kek and his mother flee for their lives. Now, she has disappeared. An aid worker brings Kek to the U.S., to the home of his aunt and cousin, also refugees.

Kek makes friends at school, but he also faces bullies, and the fate of his mother is always on his mind. And there are the reminders of what he left behind, including his cousin’s missing left hand.

The scene that has stuck with me is Kek’s reaction when he enters a grocery store and sees food, so much food available that he breaks into tears.

Nowhere Boy, by Katherine Marsh, follows Ahmed from Aleppo, Syria. He and his father escape the civil war by boat. When the boat capsizes, Ahmed is rescued, but his father drowns.

Ahmed runs away from the refugee camp, using what money he carried to hire a smuggler to take him to Calais. The man takes his money but only takes him as far as Brussels. Now, he has nothing but his father’s watch and a fake passport as winter approaches.

When Stars Are Scattered is a National Book Award Finalist by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. The graphic novel, illustrated by Iman Geddy, tells the story of Omar and his younger brother Hassan, Somali boys growing up in a refugee camp in Kenya. When Omar gets a chance to go to school, he has to make a choice to leave his brother, his only family member, with the old woman who cares for them.

These books are well researched, readable, and suitable for readers of all ages. What might our lawmakers learn about the people they love to despise? And how might building empathy with reading turn students into citizens who want to help strangers in need instead of using them as political showmanship?