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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Outcasts United, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Refugees, Discrimination, and Resilience
Community and Teamwork vs. Division
Leadership and Respect
Discipline, Dedication, and Success
Summary
Analysis
Bienvenue lives with his brothers, Alex and Ive, his baby sister Alyah, and his mother, Generose. Their apartment looks almost exactly the same as it did when they arrived a year and a half earlier—filled with old furniture that had been donated to the family by a local church. The first time St. John visits, he is invited to a large meal heaped with Burundian dishes.
While earlier chapters that focus on the Fugees’ families begin with their journey to the U.S., this chapter does not. Instead, it focuses more on the challenges that Bien’s family faces specifically in America.
Themes
Generose knows Swahili, French, and Kirundi, but only a few words of English. Alex is fifteen and understands English, but he is shy about his thick Burundian accent. Bien, at thirteen, picked up the language more quickly, and speaks with less of an accent. Ive, at seven, speaks fluent English without an accent. He often has to speak with Americans, like the landlord or billing agents.
St. John explores how even the simple fact of language can be a real challenge for refugees, which often leaves the youngest members of the household with enormous responsibility. This is demonstrated by the fact that Ive has to take on the mature role of talking with American adults who are significantly older than he is.
Themes
Alyah had been born six months earlier, and since then Generose had been unemployed. Alyah’s father is in Canada but has no immigration papers to get into the U.S. and sends money as often as he can. An Atlanta woman who often gives money to refugee families helps Generose buy groceries and make ends meet, but she knows she needs to find a job.
America also places Generose in the difficult position of choosing between work and taking care of her infant daughter, particularly because she is doing it alone. St. John shows the inherent disadvantages that refugee families, particularly those headed by single parents face, and the immense responsibility that it requires from their children.
Themes
Generose is open to a job at night, so that the boys could babysit Alyah when they returned from school. She worries about this situation, however: in Mozambique, Generose had lost a daughter when she accidentally knocked over a pot of boiling potatoes and Generose couldn’t afford a ride to the hospital. She worries about leaving her children alone but has to find a way to provide for them, as well. Whereas before she thought that America might be a paradise, she now understands the difficult choices she faces.
The fact that Generose (despite the tragedy she had endured in Burundi with her daughter’s death) is still willing to have her sons take care of her six-month-old demonstrates two things. First, it shows her desperation in knowing that she has to work, but also her immense resilience in overcoming this fear of leaving her daughter at home so that she can provide for her children.
Themes
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