Safety became a major issue. Discrimination against the international community was prevalent, even from the government and the police force. The land of freedom and peace that many refugees had dreamed of was a far cry from what they found in their new home in Georgia. In the midst of this, for Luma to start a refugee soccer team might seem risky or even dangerous.
But, she saw that the young refugee boys needed community, care, and safety. She saw their common humanity and their passion for soccer. She saw that bringing them together on the soccer pitch could change their lives and their prospects for the future. So, she held try-outs. The boys who she welcomed onto her team that day had diverse backgrounds and stories.
For example, there is the story of Bienvenue, Alex, and Ive, brothers from Burundi. The family had been singled out for their fair skin and labeled Tutsi during the killings by Hutu rebels. They fled to Mozambique, where they were separated into two camps for four years.
They were finally granted resettlement by the United Nations, and landed exhausted in a small, empty apartment in Clarkson. On the first day that Bienvenue wandered out of the apartment, he was astounded to find a fellow young boy in the parking lot who could also speak Kiswahili. Without soccer, life was boring. The Fugees were a welcome outlet for Bien, Alex, and Ive. They endured years of fighting, siege, famine, and disease. In Georgia, the family moved into a dingy apartment and Beatrice found work an hour away as a maid in a hotel.
Jeremiah tried out for the team wearing one shoe, because that was all he had. So, Luma and other volunteers started a tutoring service for the boys. Eventually, she started a cleaning business to employ refugee mothers. But, what Luma really wanted to do for these families was coach soccer. The Fugees were growing in players; she now had three teams for Us, Us, and Us. But the teams faced turmoil, both internal and external. Internally, the Fugees had to figure out how to come together as a team, despite ethnic and language barriers.
Initially, whenever Luma would ask the boys to break up into groups, they would self-divide based on ethnic backgrounds or common languages. Luma began to divide them up herself, putting Afghanis, Sudanese, and Iraqi players together in one group. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account? Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better.
Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Edition on Outcasts United can help. Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive.
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Outcasts United , which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. On September 26, , Bienvenue Ntwari wakes up after his first night in the U. Two days before, he, his mother Generose , his older brother Alex , and his younger brother Ive , left a refugee camp in Mozambique.
Driving home from the Atlanta airport, he was amazed by the smooth streets and strange advertisements. Active Themes. One of the most revelatory sections of the book was chapter 19, titled "Getting Over It. John features a few people and groups who rose to the challenge of Clarkston's demographic change by innovating -- a church, a grocery store called Thriftown, and the police force. I especially enjoyed the ecclesiastical example, since religious institutions are so often portrayed in our culture as barriers to change: As refugees moved to Clarkson in the s, many members of the church's white congregation became so uncomfortable with their changing surroundings that they decided to move away Membership in the church plummeted from around seven hundred to just over a hundred A group of church elders met to discuss the congregation's future.
They looked to the Bible for guidance, and read a passage in which Jesus described heaven as a place for people of all nations Pews in the sanctuary, once nearly empty on Sunday mornings, are now near capacity, and membership has grown to over five hundred. The Thriftown Grocery and the Clarkston police force were also willing to take risks for the right reasons in response to changes they couldn't control.
Are we? Lesson from Luma: Leave your bleeding heart at home. Steven Roberts, in his Washington Post review of the book , notes that tender-hearted readers may not like Luma Mufleh's coaching style: In truth, she can overdo the "tough" part of "tough love. She requires them to participate in after-school tutoring at least twice a week. If the boys miss tutoring, they miss playing in their game that week. As I read the book, my bleeding heart went out to one boy after another, but one of my favorites had to be Kanue Biah.
This fifteen-year-old dedicated player originally from Liberia was heartbroken after Coach canceled the unders' season due to the absences of his teammates -- one of her harshest decrees.
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