Category: Inside Out and Back Again

Refugees around the world face a myriad of problems. These problems are quite severe considering the fact that they are fleeing their homes. If everything was ok in your home-country/town, you wouldn’t be fleeing, you’d be staying. However people around the world aren’t as fortunate as others and they do live in a more rough environment than others. Some reasons for refugees leaving home are things such as war, government issues, lack of job opportunities, poverty, and much more. The novel Inside Out and Back Again by Thannha Lai is about a girl named Ha and her family’s troubles while fleeing Vietnam and trying to find a better life in America, just like refugees.

Refugees’ lives can be turned inside out when having to adjust to the new culture and still being able to celebrate their culture. Refugees who can’t adjust to the culture of their place of refuge will have a hard time fitting in with locals and peers from school. “Perhaps the greatest threat to these children is not the stress of belonging to two cultures but the stress of belonging to none.” (Fantino and Colak, 9 ). Once refugees are in a new country, they have to learn the ways of the country. They can’t do what they’ve been accustomed to, they need to learn the ways of the new country. This is challenging for refugees because if they don’t learn the culture of their new country, they won’t be able to fit in. Ha going to school in America is a great example as to why it’d be hard to fit in if they (the refugees) didn’t understand the culture of that place. Ha was the only Vietnamese person in her school, “I’m the only straight black hair on olive skin.” (Lai, 142). Being so, it is hard to fit in with her classmates and she tends to have trouble finding a place to sit during lunch. Situations like this make refugees feel as their lives are being turned ‘Inside Out’ because everything is different, it doesn’t make sense. It makes them want to go back to their home country where everything made sense and where they felt like they could fit in. If you were having trouble in school, you’d look up to your parents for tips on how to overcome the troubles of school, however, Ha’s mother lacks education just like Ha and can not help her with her problems, on that note Ha’s father is missing because of war, they don’t know whether or not he’s safe or even alive which brings us to the next reason of how refugees lives turn ‘Inside Out’.

The loss of family members has a great impact on a refugees new life in their new country. Without someone from your family, it feels like your world is gone, you have no one to go to for comfort. This makes you feel helpless, especially if you’re just a kid/teen who deals with the loss of family members. This has a great impact on younger people because they had to deal with death at a younger age and may not be able to “get over it” as easily as an adult might be able to. “Before the war I really enjoyed life. But after I found out about my father’s death, everything seemed so useless I couldn’t see any future for myself.” (Brice, 26). Finding out about the death loss of someone you loved, looked up to and depended on detriments your life.

At the beginning of the book “Inside Out and back again”, there is a war tearing Vietnamese apart, a war of two different ideologies crashing down on each other. This war was between North and South Vietnam. Ha, a child living in South Vietnam’s capital, Saigon, is a very dependent person, she is very close to her mother, and has lost her father. She is a very mischevious character, and almost always angry. When the war comes too close to home, she and her family are forced to leave Saigon and all of South Vietnam along with it. When she arrives in America after much struggle, she must adjust to her new life, learn a new language, and make new friends Refugees have much of the same fate, where they are forced to flee to outside their country, maybe never coming back to their home again, they are forced to live their new lives and adjust to it. Many problems arise from not only leaving their homeland and trying to come here but also from those same people trying to get used to their new lives.

One of the many obstacles refugees have to get used to is fleeing their homeland. Many refugees are forced to flee their homeland because of persecution, religion, and many other reasons. One such incident “The Serbians, who were predominantly Christian, decided that Muslims should not be allowed to live in their new country. They began an “ethnic cleansing” campaign, which killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children, and forced hundreds of thousands of people to seek refuge in neighboring countries” (EL Education 54). This is a huge fear of refugees who don’t want to leave but have to due to the circumstances at that given time. Their lives are turned “Inside Out”. Ha experiences a similar fate “You deserve to grow up where you don’t worry about saving half a bite of sweet potato.” (Lai 93). Ha’s mother has to deal with not enough food or money, and when the war comes in the favor of the communists, life will be even harder.

After a few weeks, months, or even years, A refugee starts to make their new life a new “home”. This is when their life comes back to normal, and they have adjusted with society. “Since World War II, millions of refugees have been successfully resettled in ten established resettlement countries, including Canada and the United States” (EL Education 54). Millions of refugees around the world have found their new home and some even returned to their old ones. Ha’s experience is a little different, she learns to find a new home, however, she does not go back to her old one: “Not the same, but not bad at all.” (Lai 234). Ha tries to find home, knowing things won’t be the exact same, but that doesn’t mean that it is bad.

All Refugees go through a hard struggle fleeing home and trying to find a safe haven to live in and go through even more struggle trying to fit in the new community they have to become apart of. Eventually, those same people who have had immense struggle will finally find their new home, even if it isn’t in the same place as their old one. With all the tensions in the world, new refugees are created every day, and without support, they will fail to find another place to call “home”.

Refugee and the character Ha from Thanhha Lai Inside Out And Back Again of how they turn inside out and back again. Before Ha flees her home she never got bullied, people didn’t throw rocks at her window. Ha’s life has turned inside out.

Refugee face discrimination in a new home, frustration learning a new culture and doubting one’s ability, loss of confidence. Refugee lives turn inside out by having to struggle learning new languages and culture. They also have to face racism and discrimination. The evidence I’m using is from Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out And Back Again the poem “Feel Dumb” it says ”So this is what dumb feels like, I hate it I hate it I hate it. This shows how Ha is being discriminated, they think she doesn’t know anything and she hates the fact that they think she’s dumb”. My next evidence is the poem ”Neighbors” it says ”A brick shatters the front window landing on our dinner table along with a note Brother Quang refuses to translate”. This also shows how Ha and her family is being discriminated the neighbors are throwing bricks at their window this shows they are not wanted, the neighbors are trying to get rid of them. The last poem is “More Is Not Better” in the poem it says ”When they make fun of my name saying Ha Ha Ha, when they ask if I eat dog meat barking and chewing and falling down laughing, when they wonder if I lived in the jungle with tigers, growling and stalking on all fours”. This shows how people are being racist to Ha,saying something like she eats dogs. To support those claims I will be using the following articles “Ana Marie Fantino and Alice Colak Refugee and Immigrant children”it says”Both refugee and immigrant children may encounter society discrimination and racism and both have to accomplish the central task of childhood and adolescence ”My second evidence is from the article “Refugee Children Who Where and Why”. It says”Today more than 14 million men, women, and children have been forced to flee their homes. This shows how refugees are being discriminated in their own home.

The lives of Refugees and Ha from Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out And Back Again turn back by not getting bullied and learning how to fit in with other kids. Also how she learns the language. The claims that I will be making is,confident in learning the language and in learning the culture. These claims tell me how refugees are not scared no more. To support these claims I will be using Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out And Back Again the poem “New word a day”it says” She makes me learn rules I never noticed like, a, an, and, the. ”This shoes the confidence in her learning the language. The next poem is “HA LE LU DA” it says”our cowboy and his smiling wife. Her lips curl up even more” this tells us how Ha is accepted because of changing her religion. I will be using the following articles as evidence “Tilgarams Speech” it says “Refugee Transactions is filling a real need in our community.”

This was about how refugees turn inside out and back again. The points I made included how refugees and how Ha have to struggle learning a new culture and language,debating one’s ability loss of confidence and how they turn back by learning the culture and the language. This shows their confidence and adapting to the culture.

Refugees are regular people who were forced to leave their homes because of safety reasons and problems going on in their countries. While fleeing their homes their lives turned inside out because they had problems finding a place to go, they were separated from family. Also, they had trouble finding safe solutions to be in. Soon their lives turned back again, this happened when they were able to adapt to these different environments. Also by having help from different sources, and lastly they had refugee camps to keep them safe. In the book ‘Inside Out and Back Again’ the main character Ha, faces similar challenges that the refugees faced. Ha is a ten-year-old who lives in South/Saigon Vietnam. She lives there with her mom and her two brothers. Her dad was captured by communists so he is currently not in her life. Despite all of this Ha is a very outgoing individual and well-curious and has good intentions in all of her decisions. Ha’s, life turns inside out when the Vietnam War approaches and she is forced to leave her home when communists take over Saigon in South Vietnam. When leaves she has no choice but to leave things behind that are dear to her such as her papaya tree, her father, and her friends. The most important thing is her papaya tree because Ha watched the papaya grow as a mother does with their child. Her life turns back again when she goes to Alabama where there is safety but it’s not like home. Also at the end of this historical fiction, Ha hears back from her father and he is doing well and fine. In conclusion, no matter who refugees are, where they are from, or why they flee, They can all experience frightening situations that can sometimes define their place in life, which causes their lives to turn inside out. But in the end, no matter if they found safety, they return home, or to a new home, their lives can turn back again!

The lives of refugees turn ‘inside out’ because of danger, homelessness from fleeing, and loss of family. In the book ‘ inside out and back again” a quote that supports them being in danger is on page 12 when it says ‘ He was captured on Route 1 an hour south of the city by moped.’ This quote talks about how His father was captured and that that is the loss in her family. A quote from the informational text ”Children of War ‘ says, ” Their father, an economics professor, was kidnapped and killed by Serb forces in 1992. ‘ This is dangerous because this can happen to them as well and that’s not a safe environment for these children. Another quote I wrote was that they faced homelessness. In the informational text, ‘Refugees, Who, Where, Why’, it says ‘ Refugees share small huts that are made of tree branches, mud, and plastic sheeting.’ This meant that they were homeless and they had to use resources to keep in a shelter/camp. The lives of refugees turn ‘inside out’ because they have time to adapt to the environment. Ha relates to this because she had a hard time learning English in Alabama. In the book, on page 177, it says, ‘ Whoever invented English should have learned to spell.’ This quote shows the thoughts she had while learning the language. This relates to the universal theme because Ha is having a hard time adapting to her new environment just like the refugees. Ha and refugees face the same challenges because their lives turn inside out. Also, they have to learn and adjust because their new home is their new place. They have to get very used to it.

The lives of refugees turn ‘back again’ when finding a home because they can adapt to new environments, they can make friends and they can learn more about their new homes. A quote from Ha’s experiences in the book ‘Inside out and Back Again’ is on page 166 when it talks about how excited Ha was when she learned English. ‘ My vocabulary grows! She makes me learn rules’ This quote shows how proud Ha was when she learned this new language and how much she improved. The informational text ‘Children of War ” it talks about how they had to adapt. ‘because that was the only place where you were safe from bullets. I learned to live for the moment. They can learn to adapt to these new environments. Another Informational text that shows how they learned in these new environments is the informational text ‘Refugees: Who, Where, Why’. It talks about the schooling that was provided for children of refugees. ‘Schooling is provided for children, but classes are very overcrowded.’ This quote shows that children had learning resources but not because of conditions. When refugees finally find a home their life is different, but still hard to adjust to because they still miss home. Also, some of these conditions can be overwhelming. Like Ha first felt in ‘Inside out and back again. Or how children felt in the overcrowded schools in ‘Refugees: Who, Where, Why’. Refugees’ lives can turn back again but it will always be hard to adapt to these new environments they live in.

On the journey fleeing home refugees experience safety problems, trouble finding a new home, and adapting to different environments. These challenges impacted their lives because they have to adjust to a whole new lifestyle. This can be very scary for the refugees. On the journey to finding a home, refugees experience danger, homelessness from fleeing, and loss of family. This is very hard for them because refugees go through a lot as it is but then adding more of these challenges is very difficult for them. Although many encounters change their lives forever, their lives eventually begin to turn back again. When the lives of refugees turn back again they begin to learn to love their new environments. This happens when they make new friends, learn a new language, and leave the past behind and enjoy their new lives. The solutions help refugees because it helps them forget about the past and love their new lives. In conclusion, refugees’ lives turn inside out when they have to flee their homes and their lives turn back again when they find new homes and their lives are complete again.