Refugee

You can live as a ghost, waiting for death to come, or you can dance.

All my life, I kept waiting for things to get better. For the bright promise of mañana. But a funny thing happened while I was waiting for the world to change, Chabele: It didn't. Because I didn't change it.

If no one saw them, no one could help them. And maybe the world needed to see what was really happening here.

Head down, hoodie up, eyes on the ground. Be unimportant. Blend in. Disappear. That was how you avoided the bullies.

And that was the real truth of it, wasn't it? Whether you were visible or invisible, it was all about how other people reacted to you. Good and bad things happened either way. If you were invisible, bad people couldn't hurt you, that was true. But the good people couldn't help you, either. If you stayed invisible here, did everything you were supposed to and never made waves, you would disappear from the eyes and minds of all the good people out there who could help you get your life back. It was better to be visible. To stand up. To stand out.

They only see us when we do something they don't want us to do, Mahmoud realized. The thought hit him like a lightning bolt. When they stayed where they were supposed to be - in the ruins of Aleppo or behind the fences of a refugee camp - people could forget about them. But when refugees did something they didn't want them to do - when they tried to cross the border into their country, or slept on the front stoops of their shops, or jumped in front of their cars, or prayed on the decks of their ferries - that's when people couldn't ignore them any longer. Mahmoud's first instinct was to disappear below decks. To be invisible. Being invisible in Syria had kept him alive. But now Mahmoud began to wonder if being invisible in Europe might be the death of him and his family. If no one saw them, no one could help them. And maybe the world needed to see what was really happening here.

But as she watched Lito and Papi lift up Ivan's body, the empty place inside got bigger and bigger, until she was more empty than full.

Fight against the impossible and win,

Josef followed the small group of kids through the raised doorway onto the bridge of the St. Louis. The bridge was a narrow, curving room that stretched from one side of the ship to the other. Bright sunlight streamed in through two dozen windows, offering a panoramic view of the vast blue-green Atlantic and wispy white clouds. Throughout the wood-decked room were metal benches with maps and rulers on them, and the walls were dotted with mysterious gauges and meters made of shining brass.

Whether you were visible or invisible, it was all about how other people reacted to you. Good and bad things happened either way. If you were invisible, the bad people couldn’t hurt you, that was true. But the good people couldn’t help you, either. If you stayed invisible here, did everything you were supposed to and never made waves, you would disappear from the eyes and minds of all the good people out there who could help you get your life back. It was better to be visible. To stand up. To stand out.

No. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning,” Lito said, looking up into the red-tinged clouds. “A storm is coming.

I see it now, Chabela. All of it. The past, the present, the future. All my life, I kept waiting for things to get better. For the bright promise of mañana. But a funny thing happened while I was waiting for the world to change, Chabela: It didn’t. Because I didn’t change it.

After a moment, there was a quiet splash, and the mourners said together, “Remember, God, that we are of dust.” One by one they stepped to the rail, where they released handfuls of sand—the sand Josef’s father had told him to take from the sandbox. Josef joined his father at the rail, and they scattered their sand in the sea.

They only see us when we do something they don’t want us to do,

On January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13769, indefinitely suspending the entry of all Syrian refugees into the United States. The Executive Order was titled, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” despite a report by the Cato Institute that says that no person accepted to the United States as a refugee, Syrian or otherwise, has been implicated in a major fatal terrorist attack since the Refugee Act of 1980 established the current system for accepting refugees into the United States.

Josef threw his pipe to the ground and left without the other men. They were going back to Europe, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Just a moment’s kindness from each of them might mean the difference between death and survival for her mother and everyone else on the little raft.

Do you know what the greatest achievements of the Cuban Revolution are?” Isabel’s father asked. “Education