Safdar Ahmed depicts the ever so common lives of refugees residing in United States Detention Camps. He uniquely tells the story of some refugees using art and comic strip style writing. The hardships that refugees face in their homelands and at the camp are expressed through testimonials and anecdotes. Ahmed’s main point is to show how destructive and deteriorating these refugee camps are to the well-being of people seeking asylum. One refugee proclaimed that the victims of the system are “in detention to be punished… not processed.” Some are inflicting harm on themselves which is represented in the drawing of an arm with cut marks on it. This art piece speaks without words by showing an illustration of the rash methods used by refugees to express their sorrow and frustration. One of the refugees who shared his story explained that, “In Sri Lanka they torture people physically but here they do it mentally.” This statement can be felt by millions of refugees who are constantly denied access to their basic rights and mentally abused in detention camps.

Danticat vividly depicts a sorrowful moment from Nadia’s life in her short story, In the Old Days. Nadia finds out that her absent father is deceased and hidden family conflicts are brought to the surface. Every character in the story has a different perspective of the Old Days. Nadia reflects back on her life and feels robbed of a relationship with her father. Her mother hesitates to ponder on the old days and refuses to be completely truthful with her daughter. The second wife of Nadia’s father sees the glory and joy of the past and wishes she could turn back time. 

Although people might share bits and pieces of the past, their futures are uniquely influenced by those shared experiences. Also, everyone has a different view of the past which helps put the puzzle together. Nadia can’t finish her puzzle because some pieces are missing. She states on page 15: 

“How would I describe this to my own child if I ever had one? How would I tell it to my mother, who thought that nothing having to do with my father was in the present, that everything involving him was in the past, in the old days? My father’s wife had her own version of the old days…Looking down at my father’s dead face, in which I saw no trace of my own, I wanted to grab him and shake him, force him to wake up and explain to me his version of the old days.”

Nadia will never have the opportunity to ask her father the questions about the old days that she’s been formulating all her life. 

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid is a short nonfiction book that portrays Kincaid’s disdain with the tourism industry, her disapproval of the treatment of Antigua, and her hatred of the British. Kincaid uses various literary devices and styles to describe her perspectives and establish her agenda. She often includes long sentences along with parenthesized notes. Within these long sentences Kincaid describes the mindset of tourists and Antiguans, the dynamics between races in Antigua, and her interpretations of them. As the reader navigates the text, they might feel emotional and attacked by Kincaid’s wordy daggers.  Kincaid states on page 19 that, “They (Antiguans) are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the place you, the tourist, want to go–so when the natives see you, the tourist… they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.” As a potential tourist you might feel uncomfortable reading this statement, because there’s a possibility that Kincaid’s argument is justified. These feelings invoked by Kincaid can serve as a motivation for the reader to repent from possibly their selfish mindset and condescending views of post-colonial societies.

The novel Open City by Teju Cole focuses on the similar experiences that immigrants and those of mixed ethnicity have. Julius, the main character, often feels lonely and isolated from other people. He tends to detach himself from any form of emotional connection. In chapter 17, Julius saves the life of a boy who is drowning, but doesn’t feel fulfilled. He says that, “But almost all that day’s details was soon lost to me, and what remained most strongly was the sensation of being all alone in the water, that feeling of genuine isolation, as though I had been cast without preparation into some immense, and not unpleasant, blue chamber, far from humanity. (Cole, 177-178).” Julius quickly forgets the details of that heroic day and even the boy’s identity, except that the boy is mixed. Julius removes any emotional connection from that event and instead believes that he was thrown– without prior knowledge into a sea of loneliness and isolation. He compares the sea to a “blue chamber, far from humanity” because he feels trapped in a closed location away from people. Although Julius discusses this topic of loneliness often in the Open City, he’s not completely against it. He says that the immense blue chamber is “not unpleasant.” He believes that it’s tolerable, but strange. 

This short story highlights the differences between the social and racial classes during and after the Apartheid period. Grace, the seventy year old black housemaid, is constantly being interrupted by Fiona, a white Scottish woman, to have small talk. Although small talk is not usually a nuisance, to Grace it’s unfamiliar and inconvenient. Grace comes from a community of oppressed colored people who most likely didn’t have the pleasure to indulge in small talk because they lacked the time and the luxurious lifestyles that their white counterparts enjoyed. Fiona struggles with understanding the grave and distinct comparisons between them. She is oblivious to the daily hardships that colored folks are forced to experience in South Africa. Grace, who’s old and has a body that’s rocking with pain, is eager to end the conversation with Fiona, but can’t find an escape route. This relates to the relationships between whites and blacks during the apartheid period and after. White people lived lavishly compared to colored people and were saturated with white privilege in every aspect of their lives. Colored people were burdened with menial jobs and overwhelming responsibilities for their families. It was and still is a challenge for these two groups to connect and understand each other’s experiences and lifestyles. 

Kerry: Oh, I see. Who was being so brave a moment ago and asking me to accept my history. How about you trying just a wee little bit to accept some of your history. Why don’t you seize the

opportunity with both hands. Grasp at the chance.

As though her legs fail her, she sits heavily on the couch.

Woman: It’s all lies! You’re a damned liar, Dan Kerry! (Page 22)

Nkosi’s play highlights the relationship between whites and blacks in South Africa during Apartheid and after it ended. In that period tensions between those races were extremely high. Both sides had an intertwined past that they didn’t want to fully acknowledge or accept. In the play, Gloria consistently tries to persuade Kerry to address and accept his past. Kerry finds a rebuttal for all of Gloria’s statements. For most of the play he refuses to discuss his traumatic past and desires to live only in the present. Eventually Kerry agrees to disclose information on his family’s history of oppression. Additionally, he emphasizes that Gloria’s past is not perfect, but is tainted and dirty. Gloria refuses to accept the facts about her father’s evil acts and his motives as seen in the quote above. I believe Nkosi emphasizes this point to give a message to South Africans during that time. Nkosi most likely wants his people to acknowledge the past and its resulting damage in order for South Africa to move in.

Kapil writes to release herself from suppressed generational trauma… to free herself from this long line of pain. She incorporates the stories of her family members who experienced Partition and its effects. This personalizes the poem and creates vivid imagiries of the events in the reader’s mind. The quotes make the poem more intimate–they evoke a myriad of emotions. 

Kapil’s mother states that, “I saw women, tied to the trees, their stomachs cut out” when she peeped “through a hole in the cart’s soft wall.” When reading this line, I felt disgusted, appalled, and uneasy. I can clearly imagine this atrocious site and it makes my stomach churn. Also, this gruesome sight Kapil’s mother beheld led to her developing severe trauma that couldn’t be contained within one generation. It spread from generations to generations like wildfire. This is the same trauma that Kapil confronts in her writing and leads her to these questions: did such trauma eventually engrave itself into a part of the identity of Kapil’s family? Is it a line that can be reversed with a spell? 

“Attack… fire… escape… railway station… night… Sakina. He rose abruptly and began searching through the milling crowd in the refugee camp.”

These two lines above express some of the memories, concerns, and motives of Sirajuddin after he regains consciousness. He is bombarded with traumatic images of the recent events that have separated him from his family. Yet, he has trouble recalling the vital details of the past few hours. This prevents him from completing the puzzle in his mind and finding his daughter. In the first line Manto, the writer, describes the main events using only seven words. There was an attack, fire spread, Sirajuddin escaped, he arrived at a railway station, and something happened to his daughter that night. The ellipses in between each word represent the foggy memories of Sirajuddin and the uncertainty he experiences. His wife is not mentioned in this brief muddled memory recall. He is fully aware that she’s dead. Manto explains that, “Sakina’s mother was dead. That much was certain. She had died in front of his eyes.” Also, Sirajuddin recalls “the dead body of his wife, her stomach ripped open” and that “she had died in front of his eyes.” Sakina’s mother could’ve been the person murdered in “Sorry” and Sirajuddin could be the man who ripped her stomach apart.