Refugees In Inside Out And Back Again

Pick a random person on the street, there’s a chance that they could be a refugee. Refugees are people just like you, but they have a lot more challenges that they have to conquer. They have to leave their country, their home, they place they grew up. In the novel Inside Out & Back Again, the main character, Ha, had to flee from her home, and changed throughout the book. In the beginning of the novel, Ha was jealous of the fact that there was things that she couldn’t do, that she didn’t fit in with her brothers. Ha, like most refugees, also had to experience the feeling of her father being missing. Refugees everywhere have to experience new customs in a place they don’t know, sometimes without their loved ones.

Most refugees have to leave
without a loved one. Their loved ones are either being left behind, or is dead. The feeling of not being with their loved ones affects the refugees, it makes them feel inside out. In the novel we read, Inside Out & Back Again, it states, “Brother Khoi says What if Father comes home and finds his family gone?” (Lai, 44) Ha and her brother’s didn’t know if their father was alive or not. They hoped and prayed everyday for the safe return of their father. This made them hopeful, while preparing for the worst, their father’s death. Also from Inside Out & Back Again, it states, “Father won’t leave if we hold on to him. If you feel like crying, think at least now we know. At least we no longer live in waiting.” (Lai, 252) This shows that the family felt horrible about the father’s death, but they don’t have to wait for the moment that their father walks through the threshold. In the article Children of War by Arthur Brice, a refugee also lost her father, it states “Before the war, I really enjoyed life. But after my father’s death everything seemed so useless I couldn’t see any future for myself. I didn’t know where I was going. I wasn’t the same person anymore.” (Brice, 2) This shows how a girl refugee felt about her father’s death, how she felt like she didn’t enjoy life. All refugees have to experience life without someone they love, they also have to learn how to get used to the customs of a new country without them.

Before refugees become refugees, they get used to their home country.
They’ve been there for most or all of their life. When they have to start over in a new country, a country they know nothing about, they have to be able to try new things. So they can fit in and feel back again. They have to make friends and learn how to speak the native language just to fit in. According to Refugees: Who, Where, Why. by Catherine Gevert, it states “In a country of asylum, refugees have the right to be treated the same as legal residents and as such are entitled to basic civil rights, medical care, and schooling.” (Gevert, 1) This shows that the refugees already have the things they need to be in the country. But they are not given the social experience of making friends. In the novel Inside Out & Back Again by Thannha Lai, it states “I firm my muscles, ready for the giggles to explode into laughter thrown at me. But smiles appear instead.” (Lai, 184) This shows that Ha was used to being bullied and not making friends. Making friends is hard for everybody, especially if they don’t know how to speak in the same language. Also from Inside Out & Back Again by Thannha Lai, it states “My vocabulary grows! She makes me learn rules I’ve never noticed, like a, an, and, the which act as little megaphones to tell the world whose English is still secondhand.” (Lai, 166) This shows that Ha had to learn a new language from the very beginning. She learned more and more things everyday. All refugees
have to learn new social customs in order to understand their new country, their new home.

Every refugees have difficulties that they have to work with. The most common are being without their family and having to fit in with society. At the end of Inside Out & Back Again by Thannha Lai, Ha finally felt like she fitted in because she had friends and learned English, like how the people in her new country live. Ha and her family also had to move on without their father. They had to face their future of being a refugee. Refugees are people just like you and me, but they have much harder struggles than you can ever imagine.