Publishers Weekly
05/24/2021
Journalist Fishman debuts with an intimate and moving chronicle of the 2017–2018 school year at Sullivan High School in Chicago, where nearly half the student body was born in another country. Fishman explains that principal Chad Adams, who arrived in 2013, set out to turn the struggling school around by increasing funding for the English language learner program. Deeply personal interviews reveal how Sullivan students—ID’d by first names only—struggle with unstable home lives and anxieties over their immigration status. Sixteen-year-old Shahina, a Burmese refugee, escapes an arranged marriage but has to help pay back the $2,000 her mother was given as an engagement gift; meanwhile, Alejandro, a senior, fears that he’ll lose his asylum hearing and be sent back to Guatemala, where 10 of his friends have recently been killed in gang violence. Sullivan staff members provide emotional support in addition to English language instruction, and try to assuage worries caused by President Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. Fishman unearths the inner lives of her subjects with care and precision, and skillfully balances lighter moments (soccer games, TikTok dances) with harrowing turns of events. The result is a powerful portrait of resilience in the face of long odds. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Refugee High:
“Refugee High may not provide the answers, but it contains important messages. Fishman suggests that we ignore our growing xenophobia at our peril, for these students are creative, resilient, adaptive, and caring. Her book is also a shout-out to the lasting value of public education. Refugee High showcases a school that not only serves as a welcoming landing pad for immigrants and refugees, but also as a launching pad for talented, productive, future generations of Americans. Students can be heroes, too.”
—Martha Anne Toll, The Washington Post
“A feat of immersive reporting.”
—National Book Review
“Fishman has crafted a compelling and thought-provoking narrative. . . . The strong novel-like pacing keeps the story engaging throughout, and the weight of the issues it addresses leaves readers thinking about the book long after it’s done.”
—Milwaukee Magazine
“A deeply compelling chronicle that brings us the poignant stories of new Americans set against a political backdrop of intense anti-immigrant rhetoric.”
—Shepherd Express
“A stunning and heart-wrenching work of nonfiction.”
—Chicago Reader
“Educators and general readers alike will find this vividly intimate work insightful.”
—Library Journal
“Fishman unearths the inner lives of her subjects with care and precision, and skillfully balances lighter moments (soccer games, TikTok dances) with harrowing turns of events. The result is a powerful portrait of resilience in the face of long odds.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A wondrous tapestry of stories, of young people looking for a home. With deep, immersive reporting, Elly Fishman pulls off a triumph of empathy. Their tales and their school speak to the best of who we are as a nation—and their struggles, their joys, their journeys will stay with you.”
—Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here
“As the only refugee in an Oklahoma high school in the 1990s, I used to have fantasies like this: what if a school existed that represented the wider world, everyone displaced, everyone applying for the same papers, pockets of society not defined by ill-fitting American markers, but following the precise contours of my own continent, its many faiths and colors? Refugee High is the realization of that daydream, and a riveting real-life answer to those youthful mysteries. A deep dive into an experiment I’ve always wanted to witness, meticulously researched, lovingly written, and rich in revelation.”
—Dina Nayeri, the author of The Ungrateful Refugee and Refuge
“Beautifully written, deeply reported, and bursting with humanity, Refugee High is a book you will read in a hurry and remember forever.”
—Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A Life and Luckiest Man
“Elly Fishman’s Refugee High takes readers inside one of the most remarkable schools in the country. Fishman brings to life the individual experiences of the school’s teenagers, teachers and administrators, their struggles and joys. Through these intimate accounts, Refugee High shows the widening conflicts—of a city, a nation and world—that concern us all.”
—Ben Austen, author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing
“A riveting immersion into the world of Chicago’s Sullivan High School, where half the students are immigrants or refugees. Through the lives of four young people from different corners of the globe, Elly Fishman vividly portrays the perils and possibilities that confront those who come to the United States in search of a better life. No reader will be able to forget these students and the almost unimaginable hurdles they struggle to surmount, and no reader will forget the teachers who dedicate themselves to preventing the American Dream from becoming a betrayal.”
—Drew Faust, President Emeritus, Harvard University
“Beautifully written, deeply reported, and bursting with humanity, Refugee High is a book you will read in a hurry and remember forever.”
—Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A Life and Luckiest Man
Kirkus Reviews
2021-06-29
A chronicle of one academic year at Sullivan High School in Chicago, where refugee teens from all over the world struggle to acclimate to the U.S. while processing personal and inherited trauma.
Throughout the book, Fishman, a journalism professor and award-winning former senior staff editor and writer for Chicago magazine, delivers sharp individual portraits: Mariah, a sophomore from Basra, Iraq, who transferred to Sullivan from another school, struggles with her deteriorating relationship with her sister, who moved to Atlanta to get married at 17. Belenge, a Congolese teen who was born in a refugee camp in Tanzania, struggles with secondhand trauma after his close friend was shot during a possible gang recruitment exercise. Shahina copes with the stress of fleeing a marriage arranged by her Burmese parents, leaving the family $2,000 in debt to the fiance she refuses to wed. Other teens battle court cases to determine their petitions for asylum and endure persistent xenophobia and racism. Through it all, Sarah Quintenz, the beleaguered director of Sullivan’s recently created Newcomer Center, and Chad Adams and Matt Fasana, the school’s principal and assistant principal, watch over the students, working diligently to help them overcome their challenges through one-on-one interventions and by exposing them to American traditions like Thanksgiving and Halloween. The book is well researched and compassionate, particularly regarding the embattled educators at Sullivan, who often seem as traumatized as their students. Although Fishman is a sympathetic narrator, the emphasis is on struggle and tribulation rather than on the strength of character that her subjects exhibit and their occasional moments of levity and triumph. Additionally, many of them disappear for chapters at a time, leaving large gaps that detract from the narrative cohesion (the list of characters at the beginning helps somewhat). The strength of the book lies at the level of each individual student and educator.
A diligently researched and moving yet disjointed story of young refugees and their guardians.
