How We Decide Who Is 'Worthy of Welcome'

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Millions of Syrians have been displaced by ongoing civil war. In her new book, Refuge, Heba Gowayed follows Syrians who have resettled in the U.S., Canada and Germany. She argues that finding their footing in their new homes is less about individual choice and more about governmental systems.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's good y'all, I'm Gene Zembe and this is Code Switch from MPR.
0:04.0	So we want to start this week's episode with the story of a man named Zoffer.
0:09.1	He's a scugarius dude in his 30s.
0:11.4	He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
0:13.5	And New Haven was the final stop for his family after this long, arduous escape from the
0:21.0	ongoing war in Syria.
0:24.0	Zoffer is one of the lucky few like very few who was given refugee status in the United
0:30.2	States.
0:31.2	The agency that was helping his family resettle in the United States actually helped him
0:34.1	find a job.
0:35.6	At like one of these cropped butcher places in Connecticut, right?
0:38.4	Think you know wax paper, etc.
0:40.6	Sort of fancy butcher place.
0:42.6	That's heba goya.
0:43.6	She spent a lot of time with Zoffer in her work as a sociologist.
0:47.7	And heba says Zoffer was a butcher back in Syria before the war.
0:51.7	So he was one of the rare resettled people working in the same field as he did in his
0:56.2	old life.
0:57.2	He and his wife had five kids.
1:00.0	And Zoffer landed this good job.
1:02.2	It paid pretty good money, better than the pay of the places most people seeking asylum
1:06.5	get.
	...

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