Refugee/ Exile

REFUGEE: one that flees; especially : a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution

EXILE: 1) the state or a period of forced absence from one's country or home 2) the state or a period of voluntary absence from one's country or home

“A refugee is someone who has been expelled from

somewhere but does not go anywhere because they have

nowhere to go” (137).

It is estimated that there are currently 35 million refugees in the world.

• More then the entire population of Canada.

• 8,750 times the undergraduate population of UMW.

• 0.5% of the World’s Population.

• About 1/196 people world wide are refugees.

World War II• In 1939 the United States

refused to allow 908 Jewish refugees who came on a boat called the St. Louis seeking asylum.

• The boat was then forced to turn back towards Europe. Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium all agreed to take some of the ship’s passengers.

• 254 of these passengers (about 28%) are known to have died in the Holocaust.

The United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

• A treaty that gives an international definition of refugee.

• It was ratified in 1967 to protect refugees across the world.

• 147 counties have signed

The Roma • Mihai Lingurar and his wife, Rada-Soma

Rostach were living in a Roma encampment that was raided in August. When the French police gave them there expulsion order, no one to into account their youngest son.

• Marc is five months old and is in intensive care in Paris. He is only about eight pounds and is in and out of a coma, making him unable to leave the hospital.

• They are fighting their family’s expulsion on medical grounds.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories- Rushdie was forced into

exile by the fatwā.- Ayatollah Khomein called

faithful Islamic people to execute the writer and publishers of the book. A one million dollar reward was placed promised to whoever killed him, so he was forced into hiding.

• The Grammy award winning rapper who was made popular by the song “Paper Planes”.

• Fled to London to escape civil war in Sri Lanka when she was 9 years old.

Albert Einstein

• Fled Nazi Germany after being accused of treason by the Third Reich.

• He came to the United States seeking refuge.

The Bride-Groom

• The 14th Dali Lama lives in exile because Tibet was unable to defend itself from Chinese take over.

• Along with him are 30,000 Tibetan refugees who are living in road camps in northern India.

Bob Marley

• He was forced to flee Jamaica and come to the United States after being shot at during political violence.

“The Lives Gained By Fleeing Jim Crow”

• NYT ‘Books of the Times’ Article about The Warmth of Other Sons: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

• “Ms. Wilkerson makes a case that people who left the South only to create home-town based communities in new places are more like refugees than migrants: more closely tied to their old friends and families, more apt to form tight expatriate groups, more enduringly attached to the areas they left behind.”

“In countries where people have to flee their homes because of persecution and violence, political solutions must be found, peace and

tolerance restored, so that refugees can return home. In my experience, going home is the

deepest wish of most refugees”.