I read the book, How Dare the Sun Rise, by Sandra Uwiringiyimana. This book explains Sandra’s childhood experiences with war, being a refugee, living in poverty, being an immigrant, and working to make a better world. She grew up in Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, and when she was ten years old her family was forced to go to a refugee camp in Burundi. Soon after they arrived in the refugee camp there was a massacre where her younger sister died, along with many friends and family. Sandra’s family then went to Rwanda where they lived in extreme poverty for the whole time they were there. The United Nations eventually gives them an opportunity to move to the United States, where they think they will have a much better life. They move to Rochester, New York, and although they live in a safer place than before, they have to work very hard to make money, communicate with people, and become citizens. Sandra eventually graduates high school, goes to college, and works to make a better community for people like her. However, in the end she is still haunted by memories of the massacre, refugee camp, and all of the war she lived through as a child. This book was about a person whose life was very different from mine. Sandra’s childhood was full of war and conflict. She hardly had a single year of school that wasn’t interrupted by a war, she lived in poverty for many years, and once she got to the United States she and her family were continually misunderstood. In the book she says, “People sometimes say to me, ‘Oh, you’re so lucky.’ When people say that, I kind of want to punch them in the face. Just because you resettle people doesn’t mean that their lives are suddenly perfect. I lost my little sister in a massacre, fell into the depths of poverty, and fled my homeland. All that, to get to America.” This helped me understand that you can’t just assume what someone thinks or feels about a situation. It also made me realize that immigrants don’t always have a perfect life just because they moved somewhere new. I have never experienced anything she did, or anything even close, but this book helped me to be more empathetic to people who have. Before reading this book, I didn’t have a negative opinion towards immigrants or refugees, but I also didn’t know any specific stories of real people who had those experiences. In this book, Sandra talked about not wanting to be seen as a statistic, or just part of a group of people who are only seen as refugees. Reading this book impacted how I think of refugees, because it made me see them more as people with real lives and personalities. I realized that not everyone who moves to the United States wants to, and may not even have a positive experience here. They also have an entire life that they are leaving behind in their home country, and even if it was a life of poverty or war, they still have connections to that place. I chose to read this book because I knew that I would be reading about someone whose experiences in childhood were extremely different from mine. Reading this book helped me see some of those things from a different perspective, and not just assume that everyone who is living in a poor country has a better life when they come to the United States. I think that this book helped me see the issue of immigration and refugees from a more broad point of view, and it helped me realize that it is important to think about others and realize that everyone has different opinions, and sees things differently through what they have experienced. Meredith T.
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AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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November 2022
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