Community and Teamwork vs. Division Theme Analysis

Due to the myriad cultural backgrounds of the Fugees, Luma recognizes how, even at a young age, boys will intentionally divide based on groupings like race, nationality, or religion. At first, the boys are somewhat distrustful of each other and have a difficult time playing as a team. But over time, and with Luma’s serious efforts, they gradually are able to look past their different cultures to find success together. By showing the team’s arc, St. John illustrates that soccer is not only a productive activity for the boys, but also a means of creating a community.

St. John, in displaying the early dynamics of the team, acknowledges that there is comfort in finding people who share one’s values and background. Luma only becomes aware of the refugee community in Clarkston because the town is home to a Middle Eastern market called Talars, which sells her favorite foods from her own culture. Thus, she too recognizes the comfort that comes with familiarity. When many of the boys first arrive in America, they are heartened to find people who speak their language and share their background. When Bien arrives in America from Burundi, he meets Grace, a boy from Congo. Bien is relieved to hear him speak Swahili, and Grace invites him to try out for the Fugees. Commonalities, therefore, can help to initiate communities. During the Fugees’ first season, Luma tells the boys to divide into groups for drills. She begins to see that they split up according to common ethnic backgrounds or languages. “The Afghan and Iraqi kids would look down on the African kids,” Luma said. “And kids from northern Africa would look down on kids from other parts of Africa. There was a lot of underlying racism and a lot of baggage they brought with them.” Thus, despite the comfort in finding a sense of belonging, Luma also sees the harm in factions.

After recognizing the divisions within her team, Luma initially works hard to make everyone feel welcome and encourages the boys to find unity across races and nationalities. Luma understands early the necessity of combatting the divisions of language. When she puts up flyers advertising tryouts, she makes flyers in English, Vietnamese, Arabic, and French in the hopes of being inclusive. Then, once they start playing on the team, she makes everyone speak English so that the boys won’t only speak to the teammates who speak their native language. Luma even follows this rule as well, despite the fact that sometimes it makes communication slightly more difficult. She refuses to speak Arabic with the Iraqi or Sudanese kids, so that other boys don’t feel left out—her ability to speak Arabic with some boys and not others had made them competitive with each other. When the boys do try to divide during their drills, she forces them to mix with kids with whom they do not normally interact. She describes how if she asked for groups of four, “every single time people would group up with people from their own country.” So, she explains, “I started saying to myself, I need a Liberian there, with a Congolese, an Afghan, and an Iraqi.”

Soccer, in general, also encourages this unity and teamwork. The more the boys are able to work together, the more fun they have and the more effectively they play. Darlington Ziaty and Peshawa Hamid are two of the most talented players on the oldest Fugees team (the Under Seventeens). They initially had this cultural competitiveness, but once they are able to work together to score, their team goes undefeated in the next season. Kanue Biah is on the middle Fugees team, the Under Fifteens, and begins “to view the team as his family,” calling the boys he plays with his “brothers.” But when the Under Fifteens team is cancelled because some members are not respectful to Luma, he is devastated and sets out to rebuild the team with some new members. Luma agrees to let the team play with these new members, even though they are going against teams that have been playing together for years. When they are able to win the first match, Luma smiles to see that “her players, some of them still strangers to each other, [are] high fiving and shouting joyfully at the sky.” Their desire to win overcomes their foreignness to each other. Qendrim, a player in the Under Thirteens, likewise begins to feel that his teammates are like brothers, viewing it as entirely normal to have friends from all over the world. The Under Thirteens, despite being from thirteen different countries and a wide array of ethnicities, religions, and languages, begin to create their own inside jokes. They even pray together before a game—Grace gives a Christian prayer in Swahili and Eldin gives a Muslim prayer in Bosnian, first and foremost for their safety, and then, for a victory.

Luma’s deep love for the Fugees and her passion in coaching the boys is not only due to the fact that she loves the game of soccer. It is also because she recognizes that soccer can help build a community. For boys who are, as the title suggests, “outcasts,” the Fugees are an important support system and a means for them to find brothers in a place where they never thought they would truly belong.