By Sabrina Guo, 12 Until reading the recent news headlines, you may have had the impression that the refugee crisis that occurred from 2015 to 2016 was over. However, as we are quickly learning, the refugee crisis is ongoing, and not just in the United States. There has been a sharp rise in the number of people going to Europe to claim asylum, and governments within the European Union (EU) have been trying to stop any movement of undocumented migrants with their countries. The EU has done many things to stop asylum seekers, such as closing legal routes, which leads refugees to take more dangerous routes with a higher level of dependence on people smugglers. This leads states to try to crack down on refugees even harder, and the cycle is exacerbated. Also, many refugees are stuck in refugee camps, while others struggle to start a new life in places they’ve already settled in. Even though many different countries have tried to stem the flow of refugees to their countries, there are still more and more people who are trying to flee persecution in their home countries by seeking asylum in European countries and the United States. Which leads me to my next point! Did you know that there are more than 65 million people in the world who have been forcibly displaced from their home countries? And that nearly half of all refugees are children? Almost half! So when we read about refugees, we’re often reading about kids our age or the age of our siblings, cousins, and friends. This got me thinking: what are some things that a refugee child might experience when trying to migrate to our country? Sometimes, on the news, it can sound like it’s a simple, fast process to immigrate to the United States. But as I read up on the issue, I found out that it’s far from easy or quick. For example, I read this article on the International Rescue Committee website (link below) that described—in easy to understand graphics—what one family had to go through to come to the U.S. from Syria. This family lived in a conflict zone, and after the father in the family was hit in the stomach by a stray bullet, the family registered their request to leave Syria with the UN. And then they waited for three years before they heard anything back. Three years! Can you imagine waiting to hear back about whether you could leave for three years? I think about the kids in that family. The article says the parents were very scared for their children’s lives in Syria. But on a more minor level—can you imagine living your life in limbo for that long? For example, these children must not have known they would stay in the same country as the friends they were making at school. After waiting for three years, the family finally heard back from the UN, and from there, it took about eight months of interviews and processing before they were vetted and could leave Syria for America. The whole process took nearly four years! The length and difficulty of the process really struck me. And then when once a refugee family or child gets to the U.S., there’s still the process of assimilation to go through, not to mention the pain of leaving other family members, friends, and an entire way of life behind in their home country. Once in their new country, refugees often face discrimination at school or in public. For example, many people across the globe think that Syrian people are terrorists, which is not true. Syrians are against ISIS, and they do not support them. ISIS is a criminal organization, and Syrian citizens are the ones that are truly paying the price. Many refugee children need psychological support because of having suffered through terrible circumstances in their home countries, including being separated from their parents and family because of conflict, having to travel hundreds and thousands of miles in unfamiliar surroundings without the protection of their guardians. Without any support, they are in danger of being abused, treated poorly, or physically harmed. These are just some of the ways that refugee children may experience trauma. Luckily, some schools in the US have already started some programs that will help create more friendly interactions between children with different backgrounds, and help them learn about each other’s cultures. There are also many other organizations, psychologists, and artists who are working with refugee children to help them make sense of their experiences and circumstances. Certain organizations, like Another Kind of Girl Collective, hold workshops for the children in refugee camps, helping them to express themselves and their experiences through art. Other organizations, like War Child, provide education and psychological care for children in conflict zones around the world. And there also plenty of organizations and opportunities to help with the current refugee crisis in the United States. I’m including a list of links below for any readers who would like to become involved and help kids our age. If I could say anything to the children coming over to the US, I may not fully understand your struggles, but I am trying to comprehend the many hardships you may face each day. I welcome you to America, and I hope that you will enjoy settling in here. I hope you find an America that is warm and supportive of you, and I hope you will like your new home with us. The process of coming to America (with easy to understand graphics): https://www.rescue.org/article/coming-america-reality-resettlement The vetting process to come to the US: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/29/us/refugee-vetting-process.html A UNICEF study showed that half of all refugees are children: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/sep/07/nearly-half-of-all-refugees-are-children-unicef-report-migrants-united-nations Types of trauma refugee children can undergo: https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/refugee-trauma The number of refugees there in the world: https://www.worldvision.org/refugees-news-stories/forced-to-flee-how-many-refugees-in-the-world Common myths about refugees: https://www.rescue.org/article/seven-common-myths-about-refugee-resettlement-united-states https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/05/five-myths-about-the-refugee-crisis https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-refugee-experience/201701/5-myths-about-refugees Ways you can help with the current refugee crisis in the US: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/18/heres-list-organizations-are-mobilizing-help-separated-immigrant-child/?utm_source=All+Volunteers&utm_campaign=0a7bde8aa8-Annual_Report_2016_General_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cf7b4c1f47-0a7bde8aa8-197492957 https://www.theyoungcenter.org/volunteer-at-the-young-center/?utm_source=All+Volunteers&utm_campaign=0a7bde8aa8-Annual_Report_2016_General_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cf7b4c1f47-0a7bde8aa8-197492957 A list of organizations that work directly with refugees: Mercy Corps:
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Saturday Newsletter: July 7, 2018
I glided up the side of the bowl to show Tim how well I could do a hard flip ‘I glided up the side of the bowl to show Tim how well I could do a hard flip’ Illustrator Alicia Betancourt, 12 for Skate Disaster by Alex Chan-Kai, 11. Published July/August 2001. A note from Emma Wood We have been working our way through the many excellent submissions we received for the short, short fiction contest and are planning to announce the results shortly—thank you to all who shared their work! For this week, though, we are excited to announce our next contest: concrete poetry. A concrete poem is simply a piece of art in which both the visual and written element are essential. That means, if you just see the image, without the words, you lose something. That also means, if you just hear the poem, without seeing its layout on the page, you lose something, too. A concrete poem is one you need to see, not just hear! ‘Swan and Shadow’ by John Hollander (1969) A concrete poem can be a poem that takes the shape of its subject Many readers might understand a concrete poem to be a poem that takes the shape of its subject—a poem about a swan in the shape of a swan, for instance. You can see in this in the poem, “Swan and Shadow,” by John Hollander. ‘A Sonnet in Motion’ by Paula Claire A concrete poem can also be a piece of abstract visual art Though I encourage you to experiment with this first kind of concrete poem, and to submit them to our contest, I also hope you will experiment with another type of concrete poem—one with a different relationship to space and shape. In the examples below, the words and letters do not take a recognizable shape. But the piece is visually interesting, and the relationship between the words, letters, and the layout creates a piece of art. The deadline for this contest is August 15, 11:59pm. You can read the full details on the Contests section of our blog (from tomorrow), and read further details and submit as usual via Submittable, here. Until next week More great writing at stonesoup.com Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at stonesoup.com! Antara’s 10 Fun Things To Do This Summer Nina Vigil’s book review of Evangeline of the Bayou by Jan Eldregde Abhi Sukhdial’s book review of The Crossover by Kwame Alexander Plus, if you missed Editor Emma’s interview talking about what makes a great submission, you can also check that out at our blog. As I continued to stare out onto the empty street, I noticed something very strange From Stone Soup July/August 2001 Skate Disaster By Alex Chan-Kai, 11 Illustrated by Alicia Betancourt, 12 I woke up as a small gap of light beamed into my eyes from a hole in the curtain. I opened my bedroom window to see what kind of a day it was. The sun was radiating on my face, but the only thing I could feel was the heat. There was not even the slightest breeze in the air; it gave me a strange feeling. My house is near the ocean, so I was accustomed to early morning breezes. But today the air was as still as a stagnant pond. I continued to look out my bedroom window, and I was pleased to see that there was not a cloud in the sky. I knew that it would be a perfect day for skateboarding. Even though the day was nice and sunny, something tugged at my mind, but I could not put my finger on it. I had an uneasy feeling that seemed to consume my thoughts. As I continued to stare out onto the empty street, I noticed something very strange. Usually on a Saturday morning, all the dogs on the street are barking, wandering around, or even terrorizing a few cats. Today, not a bark could be heard, or a single dog could be seen. I could not imagine where all the dogs could be hiding. It was almost like something was going to happen, but I could not figure out what. Despite my uneasy feelings, I was determined to have a good day. I jumped into my favorite pair of cargo pants, threw on my blue Tech Deck shirt, and slipped into a comfortable pair of black Emericas. I tossed the cat over my shoulder, and we both bounced down the stairs to get a bite to eat. As I was shoving a bacon-and-cheese breakfast sandwich into my mouth, I flipped on my favorite television show, “Junkyard Wars.” I was just getting settled into my chair when a news flash rudely interrupted my program. A reporter appeared and announced that several small earthquakes had rattled a town, just twenty-seven miles away. He said that these quakes measured 4.1 on the Richter scale…/more Stone Soup’s Advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
Saturday Newsletter: June 30, 2018
Her family had done nothing wrong, why was she so angry? Illustrator Tiger Tam, 13 for The Gap and the Gift by Shannon Jin, 12. Published November/December 2011 A note from Jane Levi This week’s illustration from the archives is a fantastic snapshot of a family dinner—the different generations around the table, each person caught in a moment of action, whether eating, pouring tea, or turning their head to talk. The bold use of color and the gorgeous detail in all the elements of the picture place us firmly in the dining room with this family and tells us a clear story of a meal—from the different foods on the table to the serving dishes and utensils. The picture also starts to tell us the rest of the story about this family (immigrants to the United States from China) and the different experiences every individual has, no matter how close they are to one another. We hope seeing this image this week will whet your appetite for our December Food Issue. Last year, we devoted our winter holiday issue to food and drink, for the first time in Stone Soup’s history. And we enjoyed it so much we decided to do it again in 2018! So, to all of our readers and contributors who love to cook, eat, and write about it: please fasten your aprons, polish up your pans, stretch those typing fingers, and get cooking! You need to send us your recipes along with photographs of the results by September 15 so we can consider which ones we are going to include in this year’s food issue. Happy cooking, and bon appétit! What makes a good recipe? On the surface, the answer to that question might seem easy: a good recipe is one that (a) works and (b) tastes good! But the best cookbooks, and the best recipes that make it into Stone Soup, have an extra ingredient: a great story. Besides clear instructions on what to do, we want to know where your recipe comes from, why you care about it, and therefore why we should care about it enough to want to try it. Our blogger Sarah Cymrot did this beautifully last year in her piece about her family’s monkey bread tradition. Skylar Carriosca told us a lively tale of pie crust disaster averted with the delicious Very Berry Pie she baked with her grandma. Charlotte Weimer made her best ever brownie, free from every possible allergen, but tasting as though it had every delicious thing in the world in it. And everyone laughed along with Evelyn M. Kelly’s Disaster Raspberry Smoothieadventure. You’ll see in all these different approaches that there are many ways to express who you are, all while telling us what you love to cook. This year, we’d also like you to send us a picture of your dish (last year we only used the images from the Stone Soup test kitchen). All the details and more advice are on our Recipe submission page. Please use the summer to get cooking, and send us the results. I can’t wait to read—and taste—everything you send us! Until next week Where do you write? We’ve loved seeing some of the pictures you have sent us of where you write. We all envied Nina Vigil’s porch last week! This week, we are sharing with you an image of the place our very own Emma Wood, Editor of Stone Soup, writes (complete with her very cute dog). But hers is strictly the only adult writing space we are going to share on our Instagram feed! Like the rest of Stone Soup’s content, #whereIwrite is for those of our readers who are aged 13 and under. As an added incentive for you to send us your photos of your writing spaces, we are going to give free submissions in all categories for the rest of the summer to the first 10 writers who send us pictures of their writing spots. You can check all the details by looking at our special #whereiwrite submission category. “Dad, why did you bring me here?” From Stone Soup November/December 2011 The Gap and the Gift By Shannon Jin, 12 Illustrated by Tiger Tam, 13 Sherry had not returned to her home country in years. In a way, it was no longer her home country. What had been home is now the past. Father was the one who had insisted on the trip. She had been indifferent at first, but her father had persisted. China had changed; no longer a third-world country, it was now a Mecca of wealth. Yet once in a while, Sherry would catch a glimpse of the slums, normally overshadowed by the forever reaching skyscrapers. The day after their arrival, Sherry’s father had purchased a round-trip train ticket to his hometown. Sherry watched the city view zoom by, crushing the assumptions and conclusions Sherry had carefully welded from outdated books and movies on modern China. She closed her eyes, and a billion years seemed to float by, accompanied by the soft rumble of a train and a low patter of words she once knew. * * * * * TEN YEARS AGO A six-year-old Sherry knelt in the garden, dirt tickling her bare knees. Her grandmother knelt beside her, her fingers skillfully separating weed from vegetable. Sherry’s grandmother did not believe in planting flowers. “They only feed the eyes.” Instead, the two planted a wide array of vegetables to supply the family kitchen. So many wonders were cultivated in the garden, tomatoes for pasta, cucumbers destined to fulfill a delicious egg drop soup. Sherry relished the moment, the day was warm but not stifling; her backyard was well shaded by the great oaks behind her. Yellow orchids framed the old wooden fence wrapped around her backyard. Sherry liked spending time with her grandma; she eagerly helped with the gardening and cooking; it generated a swelling pride within Sherry. “Lai, bang wo jiu yi xia zhe ge cao,”1 her grandma spoke again, her Chinese punctured with a few heavy pants. Sherry pulled out the weed and then paused for more instruction. Sherry watched as
