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Isabel: Outside Havana, Cuba – 1994 (3)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Refugee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Coming of Age
Injustice and Cruelty vs. Empathy and Social Responsibility
Hope vs. Despair
Family, Displacement, and Culture
Invisibility and the Refugee Experience
Summary
Analysis
Youssef stops for gas a little north of Aleppo. Fatima puts on a long-sleeved dress and a headscarf, in case they run into stricter Muslims. They are particularly worried about running into Daesh—what the rest of the world called ISIS—because they believed anyone who disagreed with their ideology “should have their heads cut off.”
It is important that Gratz gives insight into Mahmoud’s thoughts on Daesh, particularly because Muslims are frequently stereotyped due to groups like it—one of the reasons that so many countries, like Hungary in this book, treat Muslim refugees as criminals or “parasites.” Mahmoud here shows how these stereotypes are misguided.
Themes
Fatima finds a route to Turkey on her iPhone. An hour later, they are stopped by four soldiers with automatic rifles. Mahmoud tries to disappear in the back of the car. Youssef tells the soldiers that he’s just trying to get his family to safety. The soldiers ask which side he supports, cocking his gun. Waleed speaks up, saying that they’re against “whoever is dropping the bombs” on them. The soldiers laugh and lower their weapons.
This incident shows another example of Mahmoud attempting to be invisible. The less noticed he can be, and the less trouble he makes, the better off he thinks he will be. But it is only through Waleed speaking up and making a joke (though he doesn’t know it) that saves the day in this instance.
Themes
The soldiers get into the car and tell Youssef to drop them south, even though the family is trying to travel north. When the soldiers see that they are attempting to go to Turkey, they tell the family that they should be standing up for their country and fighting “the tyrant Assad.” Suddenly, gunfire erupts. One of the soldiers is hit and killed. The car skids to a stop, and Youssef, Fatima (with Hana), Mahmoud, and Waleed immediately get out of the car and dive into a ditch. The soldiers run out to fight.
The fact that the soldiers tell Mahmoud’s family to fight for their country, and then immediately are attacked, only reinforces for the family that leaving Syria is their only option. Though they love their home, keeping their family together and saving their children’s lives is more important to Youssef and Fatima than trying to fight a brutal war.
Themes
Youssef waits for a pause in the gunfire, then runs back to the car. When he returns with his phone and charger, he jokes that he needs it to play Angry Birds. After another lull in the shooting, they hurry away from the car, leaving everything they owned behind.
Again, even in these moments in which the family has lost so much of what they have, Mahmoud’s father attempts to keep their spirits up, knowing that it is necessary to enable them to keep going.
Themes
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