Outcasts United: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Jeremiah Ziaty is overjoyed to hear about the creation of a free soccer program. He loves soccer, and since arriving in America, Beatrice has kept him, Mandela, and Darlington inside their apartment all day. When he asks his mother if he can try out, she stands her ground and says he can’t be on the team.

Tryouts are held on the field of the Clarkston Community Center, an old building run by an energetic man named Chris Holliday, who focuses on programs for refugees. The refugees really embrace the center, in turn signing up for English and computer classes there. When Luma starts her program, parents sign their kids up in droves.

Not everyone in Clarkston is as welcoming to refugees as Holliday. A few Clarkston residents who serve on the board are “suspicious” of the soccer program and express their dissatisfaction with so many refugees hanging around the center. But they accept the program because the center relies on grant funds, and refugee programs help to secure grant money.

In June of 2004, Luma arrives at the center for tryouts, and so does Jeremiah Ziaty—defying Beatrice and sneaking out while she is at work. He takes the field along with the other boys who have shown up to try out, but they are confused to see Luma coaching. As Luma starts a shooting drill, one boy says, “She’s a girl […] She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Luma orders him to stand in goal and blasts a shot directly at him. He dives out of the way and she scores. No one else questions her.

After tryouts, Jeremiah makes the team. But when Beatrice finds out about the soccer team, she scolds him, worrying that something bad could happen to him while she isn’t around. Jeremiah begs her to play, but she is skeptical and asks to meet with Luma. Jeremiah asks Luma to meet his mother, and Luma assures Beatrice that she will “treat him like he is [her] own kid.” She promises to pick him up before practice and drop him off afterward so he won’t have to walk alone. Beatrice agrees.

During the early practices, the boys slowly tell Luma more and more about their pasts. Luma discovers that Jeremiah watched his father be beaten to death; another kid was forced by soldiers to shoot a close friend. Luma doesn’t know how to deal with such intense trauma.

Luma also notes that many of the refugees were in limbo for a long time prior to arriving in the U.S., and had little in the way of basic education or English skills. She decides to start a tutoring program for the boys on her team, getting help from volunteers and educators before practices and requiring her players to attend or lose their spots on the team. Slowly, the team feels more and more like a community, and eventually gets a name: the Fugees.

The first season, the Fugees play in a recreational league. Luma teaches them the basics of organized games. When she starts to run drills, she notes that the boys divide according to ethnic backgrounds or common languages. She remarks that there is “a lot of underlying racism and a lot of baggage” in how they treat each other.

Luma starts to get to know the boys’ parents, most of whom are single mothers. She helps them translate documents into Arabic and French. Teachers learn to call her when they can’t reach her players’ parents, and the families show their gratitude by inviting Luma to tea and dinner. As she devotes more and more time to the Fugees, she starts to realize that Ashton’s is losing money fast. She can’t keep the place open much longer.

One afternoon, when Luma is driving Jeremiah home, he admits that he’s hungry, but it’s “that time of the month”— the time of the month when the family’s food stamps run out. Luma is stunned, and immediately buys groceries for the family. This causes a realization: it is time to close Ashton’s and focus on more important things. She wants to start a business to employ women like Beatrice and other refugee mothers. She also decides to stop coaching the girls’ team at the YMCA, knowing that the Fugees need all the help she can give them.