100 Books Like Suffer the Little Children

The United States was conceived as a place of refuge, and the nation has accommodated many different types of refugees since its founding. Despite these ideological origins, a distinct and permanent track for refugee admissions within the immigration bureaucracy was not institutionalized until the Cold War. 

Bon Tempo examines the reasons why this distinct track emerged during the late 1940s, how the track evolved over the next forty years, and how the track was used to accommodate millions of people fleeing communism during the Cold War. By the end of the Cold War, US refugee policy had become intertwined with Cold War foreign policy, and the term “refugee” had become synonymous with anti-communism.

Espiritu’s book is a foundational text in critical refugee studies, an interdisciplinary field of academic inquiry that underscores the agency and resilience of refugees rather than their status as objects of rescue.

Histories of refugee policy often downplay the role resettlement nations have played in the displacement of the populations they resettle. Espiritu reminds us that US militarism in southeast Asia contributed to the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were then forced to seek refuge in the United States and its territories. Their “rescue” cannot ever legitimize or justify the militarism that produced their displacement.

Espiritu’s examination of Vietnamese displacement is especially important for its discussion of the politics of memory and the commemoration of the Vietnam War.

Laura Madokoro offers a fascinating discussion of Chinese refugees during the Cold War as they sought protection in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. These historically white settler societies had long restricted or barred Chinese migration for racist reasons, so the accommodation of Chinese refugees fleeing war and persecution was never guaranteed. Indeed, even their refugee status was questioned.

The book examines the governmental, humanitarian, and faith-based actors who shaped national responses to this migration and, ultimately, determined the fates of millions of displaced people.

Jana Lipman examines the Vietnamese refugee camps in Guam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong in the decades after the fall of Saigon. She asks us to consider how camps function as liminal social and legal spaces where refugees forfeit rights with the hope of eventually securing membership (and rights) in a resettlement society. It is in the camps that refugees try to prove their ‘worthiness’ for admission to society, and where they navigate a cumbersome—and often hostile—bureaucracy that ignores their humanity, often with dire consequences. 

The book examines the implementation of refugee policy at the local level by local actors, as well as the role of Vietnamese activism—in the camps and in the diaspora—in asserting refugee rights.

This book is a sweeping, multigenerational, cinematic memoir spanning from the Chinese silk trade to WWII Japanese-occupied Hong Kong and, finally, suburban Australia. I love true stories where we learn about history and cultures through fascinating characters. In House of Kwa, Mimi’s eccentric father, Francis, may have put the war behind him, but Mimi certainly bears his scars. 

Imagine what it’s like to receive a legal letter notifying you that your father is suing you. That’s what turned Mimi’s hair gray overnight. Francis sued his daughter over the distribution of his sister’s estate, Mimi’s doting, nurturing, globe-trotting Aunt Theresa. 

It’s remarkable how Mimi overcame her abusive childhood in 1970s Western Australia and later became a renowned journalist and TV presenter. Mimi is the hero of this story for learning how to stand up for herself and her mother, and when she is older, for helping her mother obtain a… show more.

While doing research into Ruby’s backstory, I discovered this book. It reads like a novel but tells the stories of four real women who married American servicemen and left war-torn Britain for the more lavish lifestyle available to Americans in the 50s. But the arduous journey by sea, the intrusive and humiliating health examinations waiting on the other side, and the strangeness of a strange land provided challenges and difficulties. Each woman’s experience is different, but each is determined not to give up on their dream. An epilogue tells of how their marriages and lives worked out. Fascinating. 

This is another book that addresses Europe’s 2015-2016 “refugee crisis.” While Miliband also offers some insights into the experience of refugees seeking asylum in Europe, the focus of his book is on how current European policy betrays the values at the core of Europe’s recent history and self-understanding. Miliband weaves analysis of the predicament of mostly Middle Eastern and African refugees attempting to reach Europe through irregular Mediterranean routes with reflection on his parents’ experience as Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and seeking protection in England in the 1940s. The strength of Rescue is that it provides the reader with multiple frames of reference for thinking about what ought to be Europe’s response toward contemporary refugees, a significant number of whom are Muslims from the Middle East. 

I first met Peter here in Chapel Hill, and we became fast friends. A Holocaust survivor from Prague, Peter often spoke to my classes about his experiences. What made his talks so powerful was his ability to remember what it was like to be an eight-year-old boy living in a city under Nazi occupation, and to tell a story that is humbling, moving, and real. Never have I seen a speaker connect better with young people. Peter first became inspired to begin telling his story to students and others after confronting a Holocaust denier, and his many presentations laid the foundation for this book. Part history, part memoir, A Boy’s Journey is also a story about family and the need for tolerance and empathy in our world today. 

Based on the true-life experiences of author Ruth Behar’s grandmother, the letters that Esther writes from Cuba to her beloved sister Malka back in Poland feel totally real and remind me of my mother’s connection to her cousins that were left behind when she escaped Czechoslovakia. I love how open and curious Esther is and how that helps her connect with her new Cuban neighbors despite their differences. Esther creates a strong community by sharing her Jewish traditions with people who know nothing about them. The neighbors are willing to come together at first, despite their apprehensions, because they like this sweet, smart, little girl but they soon learn that they all have more in common than they would have ever guessed. This book will strengthen your faith in humanity.

Unfortunately, the word “gulag” is all too apt for describing U.S. carceral systems.

While this book came out nearly twenty years ago, I picked it because its gut-wrenching descriptions of what goes on inside U.S. immigration facilities still reflect contemporary reality.

Journalist Mark Dow draws on interviews with detainees, guards, and immigration officials to document the atrocious material conditions, violations of human rights, and abuses routinely experienced by detainees.

He details how guards are conditioned to treat all detainees as criminals, regardless of who they are, and how using private companies helps shield facilities from scrutiny and accountability. Given the horrors revealed in this book, it is especially alarming that the detention system has more than doubled since its publication.