Using Graphic Novels to Explore the Experiences of Immigrants and Displaced People

by Karen W. Gavigan and Kasey Garrison, January 2021

What do Officer Sulu from the USS Enterprise, a father of five in Pennsylvania, Syrians living in Greece, and an Asian American who works in the New York fashion industry have in common? All of these people created graphic novels based on their experiences as displaced persons, whether through forced immigration, living in a refugee camp, fleeing from their native country as a consequence of war, or being forced to live in an internment camp solely because of their race.

The global refugee crisis is a humanitarian issue affecting today's youth and they need to be informed about it (Aziz 2019, p. 224). The 2019 Global Trends by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported 79.5 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide due to violence, persecution, and other events (UNHCR 2020). While many displaced people have resettled in the United States (Budiman 2020), there are also many immigrant detention centers (Global Detention Project 2020) with recent reports documenting their poor conditions (American Civil Liberties Union 2020).

Graphic novels are powerful tools for informing students about these and other social justice issues. Educators can use graphic novels to engage students in critical conversations around the experiences of displaced people. The combination of text and images in graphic novels can serve as visual bridges to challenging concepts such as immigration and what life is like in refugee and internment camps. Reading these titles can help students better understand the changes and upheaval that people who have left their homelands are experiencing and how it has impacted their lives. As Peter Kindersley wrote, "Through the picture I see reality and through the word I understand it" ("A Conversation" 1997).

The stories illustrated in the following graphic novels bring to life the emotions and experiences of displaced characters:

• Almost American Girl: An Illustrated Memoir by Robin Ha (Balzer + Bray/Harper Alley, 2020)
• They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steve Scott, and Harmony Becker (Top Shelf Productions, 2020)
• The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees by Don Brown (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018)
• When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson, Omar Mohamed, and Iman Geddy (Faber & Faber, 2020).

Almost American Girl

Imagine going with your mother on vacation to another country and, after arriving, you discover that the move is permanent—you can't return to your country, family, and friends. That is what happens to fourteen-year-old Robin when she leaves Seoul, Korea, for Huntsville, Alabama. When her mother gets married, Robin's life changes overnight. In her new school, Robin doesn't understand English, and she struggles to keep up. She is furious with her mother, and she doesn't get along with her new step family. Then, her mother takes her to a comic drawing class, which changes her life forever.

They Called Us Enemy

In They Called Us Enemy, actor and activist George Takei shares his family's experience in Japanese American internment camps during World War II and how this affected his childhood and view of what it means to be American. Takei goes on to describe what this experience taught him about racism and discrimination and how democracy allows us to protest the social injustices. He also puts his own internment into a modern context connecting it to the immigrant detention centers operating in the United States today.

The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees

The Syrian people represent the largest group of refugees globally (UNHCR 2020). Recent graphic novels sharing the experiences of Syrian refugees include Escape from Syria, Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters with Syrian Refugees, and The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees. Each of these novels is told from the perspective of the Syrians. Their stories of pain, loss, and hope help communicate to young readers the plight of living in refugee camps and doing anything to earn an income and get passage to a safer country. These graphic novels make useful complements to each other when studying the Syrian civil war, immigration, and the experiences of refugees.

There are also some excellent graphic novels about the experience of Vietnamese people fleeing their country during the political unrest and violence of the mid-20th Century. Thi Bui tells her family's story of immigrating to the United States during this time in The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir (Abrams Comicarts, 2018) while Nam Le shares similar short stories in his novel The Boat. The latter was made into an interactive online graphic novel by Matt Huynh and is a powerful resource to use supporting this topic (http://www.sbs.com.au/theboat/).

When Stars Are Scattered

When Stars Are Scattered is a graphic novel based on co-author, Omar Mohamed's life growing up in the Dadaad refugee camp in Kenya. After being forced to flee Somalia, Omar and his nonverbal brother Hassan face heartbreak, hunger, and a lack of education. When Omar has the opportunity to go to school, he realizes it could significantly change their future, but he is torn because it means leaving Hassan every day. Omar's courage and perseverance eventually lead the brothers to resettle in Tucson, Arizona, where Omar obtains a college degree and a career that enables him to serve as a liaison between refugees and the systems they have to navigate in order to survive. Jamieson's compelling illustrations, in tandem with Mohamed's powerful story, provide a unique window on the world of refugee life. It enables readers to see how Omar responded to the challenges in his life and offers a message of hope for those who are struggling with challenges of their own.

Resources

Lesson plans and other resources for educators are provided in the "Suggested Resources" section that accompanies this article. In addition, educators can visit our project website, Social Justice in Young Adult Graphic Novels: A Global Perspective (http://sjgn.uofsccreate.org/), which contains an online bibliography of graphic novels for young adults addressing social justice issues. The website is updated frequently and contains resources for educators and librarians working with youth.

Conclusion

There are numerous examples of graphic memoirs with one or more of the creators telling their personal story like these displaced people. Having this insider perspective is invaluable to the authenticity of the graphic novel and to understanding more intimately the kinds of things these people experienced during their displacement or, as in the case of many Syrian people, what they are still experiencing. As Robin Ha stated about writing Almost American Girl, "Writing a memoir is like wearing your heart on your sleeve for the whole world to see" (2020).

Works Cited and Further Reading

Aziz, Seemi. "Middle Eastern Conflict in Graphic Novels: Immigrants Memoirs as Reflections and Time and Place." In Critical Content Analysis of Visual Images in Books for Young People: Reading Images, edited by Holly Johnson, Janelle Mathis, and Kathy Short. Routledge, 2019.

Budiman, Abby. "Key Findings about U.S. Immigrants." Pew Research Center (August 20, 2020). https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants.

"A Conversation with Dorling Kindersley's Peter Kindersley." Children's Software Revue (November-December 1997) http://www.childrenssoftware.com/kindersley.html.

UNHCR. "Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019." United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2020. https://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2019/.

"Justice-Free Zones: U.S. Immigration Detention under the Trump Administration." American Civil Liberties Union. Accessed 6 November 2020. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/supporting_resources/justice_free_zones_immigrant_detention.pdf.'

"United States Overview." Global Detention Project. https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/americas/united-states. Accessed November 6, 2020.

Yang, Gene L, and Lark Pien. American Born Chinese: [vol.01]. First Second, 2007.