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My Refugee
September 21, 2005    File under: America

My brother, who lives in Oxford, Mississippi, calls me today. Near the end of our conversation he tells me to hang on for a minute, then I hear him yelling at someone. I can't make out the words he's yelling so loud. Then he comes back on and I ask, What was that? And he says Oh, that's my refugee.

At first this is just another of my brother's quasi-intentional witticisms, but when he explains that he now has a friend, who'd evacuated from New Orleans, living with him, and when he explains that this sort of arrangement is fairly common now in Oxford, the phrase my refugee begins to resonate more strongly and more widely. Because it's not only an index of how large and how personal Katrina's effects are but, more importantly, a statement about refuge. My brother's not saying that he owns this person, but that she stays in his refuge. My refuge-e.

I don't know how common this is in the hurricane diaspora, but I'm interested. Everywhere new language must be arriving as the refugees (or evacuees) arrive.

That's my brother, my refuger. My friend. My refugee.




Update

In response to Kevin's comment:

I wasn't much of a fan of the word "refugee" either before today for just the reasons you name. I agree that the word implies persecution and it points to a rather difficult and painful fact in American culture: it reminds us that racial and economic discrimination are systemic and not as far away as we might like.

But today I heard the word "refuge" in "refugee" and I started thinking that, felicitously, perhaps, as we're all trying to donate and care for those who have been displaced, evacuated, moved on, that though tragedy — though tragedies — have brought us here, if we can become that refuge those people need, we'll be better people. Ours will be a better country.

Some won't become. Some won't provide. But this seems to me the point where we do begin. Our emerging language has a residue in it, which we use to tell ourselves what we weren't ready to hear.

Posted by Jake Adam York at September 21, 2005 7:03 PM



COMMENTS

Interesting.

Personally, I've not been a fan of the term when referring to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The term is only half, at most, true. As I currently understand it, a refugee is someone who flees a country to avoid danger or persecution. Only the danger part applies in this situation (well, I could argue that there is indirect persecution going on, but that's another story). I just can't see these people as refugees. They are American citizans, our own people.

You, however, bring to light a different way of looking at the language. I have more thinking to do now. That's good. Not enough people call me on my shit.

With Rita about to make itself felt, I feel that a lot of new language is about to emerge--language that I wish didn't have to emerge, but alas must.

Posted by: Kevin Andre Elliott at September 21, 2005 7:55 PM




Kevin,

I wasn't much of a fan of the word "refugee" either before today for just the reasons you name. I agree that the word implies persecution and it points to a rather difficult and painful fact in American culture: it reminds us that racial and economic discrimination are systemic and not as far away as we might like.

But today I heard the word "refuge" in "refugee" and I started thinking that, felicitously, perhaps, as we're all trying to donate and care for those who have been displaced, evacuated, moved on, that though tragedy — though tragedies — have brought us here, if we can become that refuge those people need, we'll be better people. Ours will be a better country.

Some won't become. Some won't provide. But this seems to me the point where we do begin. Our emerging language has a residue in it, which we use to tell ourselves what we weren't ready to hear.

Posted by: Jake at September 21, 2005 8:49 PM