The United States
When the refugees who settled in Clarkston arrived in the United States, they had many preconceptions about the country. While some recognized that it would be difficult to live in an English-speaking country or to find a job, there were also unforeseen and ironic problems. For example, Beatrice Ziaty left a country going through a civil war, and she hoped that her new home would provide her and her sons safety. However, after she was mugged on her first day of work, she began to fret over whether they would be safe walking the streets of their new town and whether her children would be taken from her if she left them at home alone. These fears of violence and policing meant America did not provide refugees with feelings of safety or acceptance.
Gender and Sports
Luma Mufleh decided to stay in the United States after attending university there because she felt the culture was less repressive to women than her native country of Jordan. However, this did not mean people stopped judging her for her gender, especially with regard to sports. When Luma was young, her grandmother would scold her for wanting to play soccer with men. As a soccer coach in the United States, Luma unfortunately still was asked time and again to prove herself to her players, their parents, and other coaches, who doubted her athletic ability and involvement with a group of young boys.
Supporting One's Family
There is a dark irony in the way poor parents are forced to choose how to care for their families. For example, Generose knew that to provide for her four children, she would need to make money to put food on the table. However, to do so, she knew that she would need to take a job which would cause her to be out of the house during the evening through the early morning. Because Generose needed to be at work, her children were forced to care for themselves, with the oldest boy Alex cooking food for his younger siblings and keeping an especially careful eye on his baby sister. Other Fugees players had similar arrangements with their parents or the adults in their homes, where the children cared for themselves after school or even cared for their elders in some ways, to allow the adults to care for them in others.
Bien and Grace
When Bien steps outside his new home in Clarkston for the first time, he thinks that he will not find anyone he can relate to. However, the first person he sees is Grace, who is also a young, male refugee and who even speaks Swahili fluently. This encounter was very surprising and fortuitous for Bien, who had been worrying greatly about getting used to his new surroundings.
