Learning America
One Woman's Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“[From] an influential educational leader and activist…an impassioned, penetrating critique and inspiring model for progress.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
It was a wrong turn that changed everything. When Luma Mufleh—a Muslim, gay, refugee woman from hyper-conservative Jordan—stumbled upon a pick-up game of soccer in Clarkston, Georgia, something compelled her to join. The players, 11- and 12-year-olds from Liberia, Afghanistan, and Sudan, soon welcomed her as coach of their ragtag but fiercely competitive group. Drawn into their lives, Mufleh learned that few of her players, all local public school students, could read a single word. She asks, “Where was the America that took me in? That protected me? How can I get these kids to that America?”
This powerful memoir, Learning America, traces the story of how Mufleh grew a group of kids into a soccer team and then into a nationally acclaimed network of schools for refugee children. The journey is inspiring and hard-won: Fugees schools accept only those most in need; no student passes a grade without earning it; the failure of any student is the responsibility of all. Soccer as a part of every school day is a powerful catalyst to heal trauma, create belonging, and accelerate learning. Finally, this gifted storyteller delivers provocative, indelible portraits of student after student making leaps in learning that aren’t supposed to be possible for children born into trauma—stories that shine powerful light on the path to educational justice and illuminate the modern immigrant experience for all of America’s most left-behind.
A Fight for Educational Justice: Discover the hard-won journey of creating the Fugees, a nationally acclaimed network of schools that holds itself responsible for the failure and success of every refugee student.Healing Childhood Trauma: Learn how soccer becomes a powerful catalyst to heal trauma, create a sense of belonging, and accelerate learning for children who have survived the unimaginable.An Unforgettable Refugee Story: Follow Luma Mufleh—a gay, Muslim, refugee woman from Jordan—as a wrong turn in Clarkston, Georgia leads her to find her life’s purpose and challenge the American education system.A Powerful Social Justice Read: An impassioned and penetrating critique of a system that fails its most left-behind students, offering an inspiring model for progress that will spark conversation for any book club.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mufleh—founder of Fugees Family, a network of schools devoted to educating refugees—chronicles in this magnificent debut how a pickup soccer game transformed her life. When, in 2004, a "wrong turn" brought the then-soccer coach to a Georgia refugee settlement community where six boys were kicking around a ball, Mufleh was immediately reminded of her childhood in Jordan. "To me," she writes, "there was nothing strange about... asking to join their game." What unfolds is an incredible story that follows Mufleh as she ushers these boys into YMCA leagues and works to establish a national network of schools for refugee communities, one far better than the schools they had to navigate—"systems that ha no idea what to do with them." Mufleh also nimbly tells the "redemption story" she struggled to fashion after coming out to her family while attending college in the U.S. in the '90s and applying for asylum—"as a gay woman, it would have been dangerous... for me to return to Jordan." Most inspiring, though, is the powerful conviction with which Mufleh writes about supporting those, who, like her, are still fighting for their American dream: "As we continue to turn a blind eye to the huddled masses at our door, it's not their humanity we're betraying, it's our own." Readers will be stunned.
