Entry 2 ︎︎︎ Luma Mufleh, Learning America
Written by Isabel Romero
“Although we often pass around the old cliché about walking in someone else’s shoes, we usually can't. Our imagination will always be limited by our own assumptions, politics, and cultural blind spots, not to mention our built-in instinct to avoid things that upset us or make us feel guilt” (Mufleh, Page 61).
Despite this disclaimer, Luma Mufleh captures a vulnerable and authentic journey of the individual’s desire to care for the marginalized in a new way in the book, Learning America. As the readers, we can feel, cry, and laugh with her as she vividly captures the wonderful highs and devastating lows of her refugee experience in the United States. But the story does not stop there.
In 2006, Mufleh founded the precedent school system specifically tailored to refugee and immigrant children. Fugees Family is a brilliant initiative to holistically tend to a broken system of acclimation and resettlement in the United States immigration process. This 501(c)(3) was formed in a parking lot pitch, 40 minutes outside of Atlanta, Georgia, with a group of 12-year-old boys each carrying their unique adolescent weight. The success that the organization has produced in pulling in children who lack structure and community to bringing them into a holistic and open community that is intentional with respect, diversity, and excellence leaves one to believe that Mufleh had a glorious and structured program from the beginning.
This could not be farther from the truth. Instead, what occurred was a woman who saw herself in a group of boys who were desperate for something to ground their experience in a new world. Boys who found themselves all bringing a different citizenship, a different cultural barrier, a different pain, a different familial responsibility, and different isolation within their schooling found unity while playing soccer. Mufleh saw an opportunity to build, not just physical healing, but educational and emotional healing. But the route to that goal was not linear, but rather an organic journey of needs needing to be met and one individual saying “yes.” To the call from the principal’s office to come to pick up Amadou because his family could not be reached or the call from Saif from the emergency room where his mother lay unresponsive, Luma Mufleh was not just a coach or an emergency contact to these boys, she was hope embodied.
“Community begets community. Show kids what it looks like to love and trust one another, and not only will they feel supported, they will also know how to support others.” (Mufleh, Page 154). This is not just a sentiment to Mufleh, but something that deeply guides her solutions to immensely adverse and nuanced problems. Learning America is rich with story after story of a community being valued and championed. About how one individual’s success is tied to those around them and their failure is everyone’s responsibility to carry and lift.
Despite this disclaimer, Luma Mufleh captures a vulnerable and authentic journey of the individual’s desire to care for the marginalized in a new way in the book, Learning America. As the readers, we can feel, cry, and laugh with her as she vividly captures the wonderful highs and devastating lows of her refugee experience in the United States. But the story does not stop there.
In 2006, Mufleh founded the precedent school system specifically tailored to refugee and immigrant children. Fugees Family is a brilliant initiative to holistically tend to a broken system of acclimation and resettlement in the United States immigration process. This 501(c)(3) was formed in a parking lot pitch, 40 minutes outside of Atlanta, Georgia, with a group of 12-year-old boys each carrying their unique adolescent weight. The success that the organization has produced in pulling in children who lack structure and community to bringing them into a holistic and open community that is intentional with respect, diversity, and excellence leaves one to believe that Mufleh had a glorious and structured program from the beginning.
This could not be farther from the truth. Instead, what occurred was a woman who saw herself in a group of boys who were desperate for something to ground their experience in a new world. Boys who found themselves all bringing a different citizenship, a different cultural barrier, a different pain, a different familial responsibility, and different isolation within their schooling found unity while playing soccer. Mufleh saw an opportunity to build, not just physical healing, but educational and emotional healing. But the route to that goal was not linear, but rather an organic journey of needs needing to be met and one individual saying “yes.” To the call from the principal’s office to come to pick up Amadou because his family could not be reached or the call from Saif from the emergency room where his mother lay unresponsive, Luma Mufleh was not just a coach or an emergency contact to these boys, she was hope embodied.
“Community begets community. Show kids what it looks like to love and trust one another, and not only will they feel supported, they will also know how to support others.” (Mufleh, Page 154). This is not just a sentiment to Mufleh, but something that deeply guides her solutions to immensely adverse and nuanced problems. Learning America is rich with story after story of a community being valued and championed. About how one individual’s success is tied to those around them and their failure is everyone’s responsibility to carry and lift.
The marriage of ultra-American and anti-American ideals in this book is impressively executed. Luma Mufleh, at face value, has succeeded in the “American Dream.” Born to refugee parents, excelled in international educational institutions, graduated from an American university, applied and was granted Asylum, built a business, and built a family.
However, as she conveys her story, her experience and journey towards being a credited educator were far from conventional. How Mufleh succeeded in building the first network of refugee-tailored schools came from upholding anti-American values. Chapter after chapter, students’ triumphs, and devastations are shared in a way that is not telling a story of “other,” but rather Mufleh shares these stories as if they are her own. Her own hurts, her own victories. Because she is in these children’s lives and this community binds them together. Not superficial or creepy cult-adjacent communal values, but something authentic and far from Western Individualism that prevails in the United States.
A community that is unafraid to approach leadership due to retaliation but seeks counsel even when it is not in their mother language. A community that does not just push through students for social promotion, but meets them where they are at; whether that is starting with the Kindergarten curriculum for 6th Graders because they never had the luxury of schooling in their home country. Or starting with sight words for a high schooler because they had managed to move through every grade level in public school thus far without learning to read. A real community that is not casual, but survival.
Mufleh states that it is impossible to be placed in another’s shoes, no matter how hard we wish to be. One read of an autobiographical book or one documentary on refugee camp realities will not an empathetic and motivated individual make. But wherever you find yourself, you should take the time to read one Arab-born, Gay, Muslim, Asylee’s story and the story of those brought in with her. The table is never too small or unimpressive to invite a stranger to it. And it is in this precise birthplace of community that empathic, creative solutions are born to our country’s most devastating immigration phenomena.
Resources:
Luma Mufleh. Fugees Family. (2022, February 8). https://fugeesfamily.org/about/luma-mufleh/
Mufleh, L. (2022). Learning America: One Woman's Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children. HarperCollins.
However, as she conveys her story, her experience and journey towards being a credited educator were far from conventional. How Mufleh succeeded in building the first network of refugee-tailored schools came from upholding anti-American values. Chapter after chapter, students’ triumphs, and devastations are shared in a way that is not telling a story of “other,” but rather Mufleh shares these stories as if they are her own. Her own hurts, her own victories. Because she is in these children’s lives and this community binds them together. Not superficial or creepy cult-adjacent communal values, but something authentic and far from Western Individualism that prevails in the United States.
A community that is unafraid to approach leadership due to retaliation but seeks counsel even when it is not in their mother language. A community that does not just push through students for social promotion, but meets them where they are at; whether that is starting with the Kindergarten curriculum for 6th Graders because they never had the luxury of schooling in their home country. Or starting with sight words for a high schooler because they had managed to move through every grade level in public school thus far without learning to read. A real community that is not casual, but survival.
Mufleh states that it is impossible to be placed in another’s shoes, no matter how hard we wish to be. One read of an autobiographical book or one documentary on refugee camp realities will not an empathetic and motivated individual make. But wherever you find yourself, you should take the time to read one Arab-born, Gay, Muslim, Asylee’s story and the story of those brought in with her. The table is never too small or unimpressive to invite a stranger to it. And it is in this precise birthplace of community that empathic, creative solutions are born to our country’s most devastating immigration phenomena.
Resources:
Luma Mufleh. Fugees Family. (2022, February 8). https://fugeesfamily.org/about/luma-mufleh/
Mufleh, L. (2022). Learning America: One Woman's Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children. HarperCollins.