The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town - Hardcover

Pipher, Mary Bray

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151006008 ISBN 13: 9780151006007

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002

Synopsis

Over the past decade, Mary Pipher has helped us understand our family members. Reviving Ophelia did for our teenage daughters what Another Country did for our aging parents. Now, Pipher connects us with our greater family--the human family.
In cities and towns all over the country, refugees arrive daily. Lost Boys from Sudan, survivors from Kosovo, families fleeing Afghanistan and Vietnam: they come with nothing but the desire to experience the American dream. Their endurance in the face of tragedy and their ability to hold on to the essential virtues of family, love, and joy are a tonic for Americans who are now facing crises at home. Their stories will make you laugh and weep--and give you a deeper understanding of the wider world in which we live.
The Middle of Everywhere moves beyond the headlines, into the hearts and homes of refugees from around the world. Her stories bring to us the complexity of cultures we must come to understand in these times.

Harcourt is donating a portion of the proceeds from this book to the Pipher Refugee Relief Fund of the Lincoln Action Project.

About this title

Review

Though Lincoln, Nebraska, seems a strange gathering place for refugees from all corners of the globe, it is the setting for Mary Pipher's The Middle of Everywhere, an ardent, anecdotal, and at times moving study of some new arrivals to the United States. Pipher emphasizes the resiliency of the refugees--from Laos, Bosnia, Northern Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the former Soviet Union--whose homeland tales of death, privation, torture, and multi-pronged persecution vary only in the details. In America the refugees must learn a new language and pick their way among the temptations and wonders of a complex land. Does a Publishers Clearing House notice mean one is a millionaire? What is aluminum foil? Is an overdue library book a jailable offense? Pipher visits classrooms and homes and offers extended portraits of a female family of Kurds and a bewildered clan of Sudanese, as well as snapshots of many other refugees. She is a harsh critic of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and an advocate of "cultural brokers"--the social adjustment equivalent of practical nurses. --H. O'Billovich

Book Description

Published in hardcover by Harcourt, 2001, 0-15-100600-8

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0151006008
• ISBN 13: 9780151006007
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416