After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America

After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America

by Jessica Goudeau
After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America

After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America

by Jessica Goudeau

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Overview

The story of two refugee families and their hope and resilience as they fight to survive and belong in America

The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees has been central to America's identity for centuries—yet America has periodically turned its back at the times of greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the twenty-first century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.

Mu Naw, a Christian from Myanmar struggling to put down roots with her family, was accepted after decades in a refugee camp at a time when America was at its most open to displaced families; and Hasna, a Muslim from Syria, agrees to relocate as a last resort for the safety of her family—only to be cruelly separated from her children by a sudden ban on refugees from Muslim countries. Writer and activist Jessica Goudeau tracks the human impacts of America's ever-shifting refugee policy as both women narrowly escape from their home countries and begin the arduous but lifesaving process of resettling in Austin, Texas—a city that would show them the best and worst of what
America has to offer.

After the Last Border situates a dramatic, character-driven story within a larger history—the evolution of modern refugee resettlement in the United States, beginning with World War II and ending with current closed-door policies—revealing not just how America's changing attitudes toward refugees has influenced policies and laws, but also the profound effect on human lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780525559153
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 08/03/2021
Pages: 368
Sales rank: 202,218
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jessica Goudeau has written for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, among other places, and is a former columnist for Catapult. She produced projects for Teen Vogue ("Ask a Syrian Girl") and A Line Birds Cannot See, a documentary about a young girl who crossed the border into the US on her own. She has a PhD in literature from the University of Texas and served as a Mellon Writing Fellow and Interim Writing Center Director at Southwestern University. Goudeau has spent more than a decade years working with refugees in Austin, TX and is the cofounder of Hill Tribers, a nonprofit that provided supplemental income for Burmese refugee artisans for seven years.

Read an Excerpt

Prologue

Mu Naw

Myanmar/Thailand border, 1989

Mu Naw is five and she is running. Thick wet grass rises higher than her chubby thighs and she lifts her legs as if she is marching, almost jumping to keep up with the frantic adults. Her mouth is silent, but her body makes noises because she hasn’t learned yet how to run and hide well in the woods. Her mother is carrying her baby'sister; her toddler brother is with her aunt. Mu Naw struggles valiantly, pushes back tall plants, breathes hard, but she cannot keep up. Her young uncle swings her up onto his shoulders and she wraps her arms under his neck, lays her cheek on his head to keep it out of the way of slapping branches, and holds on.

They run for three days. On the back trails in the mountains, they encounter another family. They are wary at first, but soon realize they are prey hunted by the same predators. They run together. There is safety in numbers. They pool what knowledge they have. Someone heard there are openings at a refugee camp across the river in Thailand. They set off in that direction.

At night, in the darkness, in hushed voices, they share their stories.

Mu Naw overhears her young uncle whispering to another man about what happened; he had waited until his sister, Mu Naw’s beautiful aunt, was off gathering firewood to speak. Mu Naw’s beautiful aunt is married. She caught the eye of a soldier in the tatmadaw; not just any soldier, a dangerous soldier with burnished stars on his green sleeve.

Mu Naw remembers a man with stars on his sleeve. From her uncle’s whispers, she learns those stars probably mean he was a general in the tatmadaw, the Myanmar Armed Forces. The villagers are Karen, one of the many ethnic minorities that the Burmese junta is targeting on a variety of fronts. All over the country, everyone who is Karen—or Kachin, Karenni, Rohingya, Chin, or any of the other groups of people who are not ethnically Burmese—will run. Or they will think about running. Or they will wish they had been able to run. They will pour into camps in Malaysia and India and Thailand, depending on how the vicious scythe of war cuts through their villages and cities. When the scythe sliced through Mu Naw’s village, that general held it.

Mu Naw understands from her uncle’s tone that the stars on the general’s sleeve mean her aunt could not refuse. If she told him she loved her husband, if she said politely, with her eyes down respectfully and her teeth bared in an uncomfortable smile, that she would rather not—she and all of her relatives had better run the second he turned his back.

Her aunt turned him down. Now Mu Naw and her family are running. They love Mu Naw’s beautiful young aunt more than they love their village. Leaving is safer for now, but true safety does not exist in Myanmar.

Mu Naw’s country is in free fall, a state of bewildering, breathtaking conflict. It feels as if everyone is fighting everyone. Families like Mu Naw’s—a Buddhist woman married to a Christian man, neither of whom wanted to fight—are caught in the crossfire from every side.

Fleeing is hard on the children; they must be carried and cajoled and whispered to. It is hard on Mu Naw’s aging female relatives, all referred to as “grandmother” with the deference and love she gives to all older women; the grandmothers have joints and bent bones that slow them down. It is hard on the young adults, jumping like rabbits at every sound in the forests, aching with fear for the children and the grandmothers, bearing the weight of packs bound in woven cloth with everything they can carry.

It is hard on Mu Naw’s father. Years ago, his right leg was blown off by a land mine, and though his body has adjusted to the makeshift crutch he fashioned then from a branch, his back and arms ache as he pushes through the damp, sticky branches that cling to him and pull at him. Once, when they stop to rest, he tells Mu Naw that the forest where he walked into a land mine was the same as this one, that she should stay close to him. As they walk again, she can see that sameness wears on him, warns him. He snaps at his wife all day, but not at Mu Naw. At night, he is silent.

Mu Naw’s mother, terrified for her children and for herself, turns her anger on her husband. The sight of his blown-off leg depresses her. Her abrasive tone sets everyone else on edge. One of the grandmothers chides her gently, but Mu Naw’s mother only snaps back. The other grandmothers murmur among themselves—they do not approve of a woman who is so angry, who speaks her mind to her elders.

Mu Naw is unaware of the whispered conversations curling through the camp. She tucks herself next to her father, who leans back against a tree with his amputated leg stretched toward the low fire. He strokes her hair behind her ear, and she sleeps, mouth open, her small body weighed down with exhaustion.

Her parents’ tension is her country’s war in miniature. Mu Naw does not know it yet, but her family has already shattered. Like broken glass in a frame, the cracks spread, deepen, divide, but the glass stays in place. For now.

That was the day Mu Naw crossed her first border.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xv

Character Maps xviii

Prologue: Mu Naw (Myanmar/Thailand Border, 1989) 1

Part 1

Chapter 1 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, April 2007) 7

Chapter 2 US Refugee Resettlement, 1945-1951 14

Chapter 3 Hasna (Daraa, Syria, March 2011) 22

Chapter 4 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, April 2007) 38

Chapter 5 Hasna (Daraa, Syria, March 2011) 47

Chapter 6 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, April 2007) 57

Chapter 7 Hasna (Daraa, Syria, March 2011) 71

Chapter 8 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, May-August 2007) 79

Chapter 9 Hasna (Daraa, Syria, March 2011) 87

Chapter 10 US Refugee Resettlement, 1880-1945 94

Chapter 11 Hasna (Daraa, Syria, March-April 2011) 101

Chapter 12 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, September 2007) 113

Chapter 13 Hasna (Daraa, Syria/Ramtha, Jordan, April-July 2011) 124

Chapter 14 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, October 2007-April 2008) 139

Part 2

Chapter 15 Hasna (Ramtha, Jordan, December 2012-February 2013) 149

Chapter 16 US Refugee Resettlement, 1950-1963 163

Chapter 17 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, April 2008-March 2009) 167

Chapter 18 Hasna (Ramtha and Irbed, Jordan, February-December 2013) 175

Chapter 19 US Refugee Resettlement, 1965-1980 184

Chapter 20 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, October 2011) 194

Chapter 21 Hasna (Irbed, Jordan, December 2013-July 2016) 199

Part 3

Chapter 22 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, August 2014, January 2015) 217

Chapter 23 US Refugee Resettlement, 1980-2006 224

Chapter 24 Hasna (Austin, Texas, USA, July 2016) 235

Chapter 25 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, May 2015) 243

Chapter 26 US Refugee Resettlement, 2008-2015 249

Chapter 27 Hasna (Austin, Texas, USA, October-November 2016) 260

Chapter 28 Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, March 2016) 268

Chapter 29 US Refugee Resettlement, 2015-2018 272

Chapter 30 Hasna (Austin, Texas, USA, January-July 2017) 284

Epilogue: Mu Naw (Austin, Texas, USA, January 2016) 295

Afterword 299

Acknowledgments 309

Notes 313

Further Reading 333

Index 335

Reading Group Guide

1. Why do you think the author chose to tell this story in this particular form, writing novelistic narrative sections interspersed with history?

2. There are many poignant scenes in the life of anyone who has gone through the intense process of resettling in a new country, and including those scenes might be necessary to fully tell their stories. Why do you think the author chose to include the scene of Mu Naw taking Pah Poe to the store? What were you thinking about while reading that scene? Did it tell you anything about Mu Naw?

3. For Mu Naw, though her young life was marked by war, upheaval, and stagnant years as a permanently displaced person, it’s in the US that she experiences the moments where she feels the most “untethered” to everything she thought she was. Have you ever experienced being disconnected from the places, people, and things that remind you of who you are? Did that experience help you relate to Mu Naws journey in those tough early months?

4. Mu Naw and Hasna lead drastically different lives leading up to their resettlement in the US, and drastically different lives afterward, despite similarities in their circumstances. Did reading this book change anything about your notions of who refugees are, or what their experiences might be like?

5. While Hasna is living in Jordan, she watches a mother bird guarding her nest on the walls of her new home. The bird is a hoopoe, which has a rich history of symbolism in Arabic literature. But for Hasna, the bird became a personal symbol—what do you think it meant to her? Have you had a moment like that, where something you observed or came across helped you understand your own situation better?

6. Before Hasna leaves for Jordan, she does something that might seem counterintuitive—she methodically cooks and stockpiles her freezer for Jebreel. What does that action teach you about her personality? How do you think you would have handled the situation?

7. Hasna is confused by Americans’ conceptions of what Syria is like. To her, the war is an aberration, and “Syria had always been a warm and open society, where Christians and Muslims and Druze, Circassians and Kurds, blended their lives beautifully. Muslim women were not judged for leaving their heads uncovered—hijabs were almost taboo in the years Hasna was having babies. . . . Later, as the association with the Muslim Brotherhood faded and it became more acceptable to show outward forms of religion, more and more women wore the hijab while others chose not to, and both decisions were fine.” What do you think of when you think of Syria? Has reading this book given you anything new to think about?

8. For a variety of reasons, stories about war, border issues, and refugees often center around men. What do we gain from seeing this experience through the perspectives of Mu Naw and Hasna?

9. In the afterword, Jessica Goudeau states why she settled on the method of storytelling used in this book, noting that many recent refugees in particular are often in the position of wanting their story told but needing their identities to remain anonymous—they still have loved ones in danger in their home country, and they don’t always feel safe in their new homes. She says, “My role is to hide what needs to be hidden and tell what needs to be told.” Does she accomplish this, in your opinion?

10. While reading the sections on the history of refugee resettlement in the United States, did anything surprise you?

11. Goudeau talks in the author’s note about how “our mercurial national moods lead to small and large policy shifts that radically affect real people.” In the history sections of the book, you can see how political rhetoric about refugees ranges from deeply humane to hurtful and damaging stereotypes. What kind of rhetoric have you heard in your own life and community about refugees? How have you seen that rhetoric change or shift?

12. After reading this book, what is one conversation you’d like to have with someone you know (or even don’t know), and what would you like to say?

13. Knowing how our policies and position on refugee resettlement as a country have changed throughout the years and knowing where it is now—what do you think we should do?

14. Goudeau begins chapter 2 with the “profound public awakening after World War II” that “shaped American refugee resettlement policies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” Have you seen the kind of “profound public awakening” about other issues? What do you think it would take to have that kind of awakening again about refugees?

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