In Out Of Nowhere by Maria Padian the mayor of the town issues a letter saying that even if it’s family, that the Somalis don’t bring any more people into the town, and that the capacity is maxed out. Meanwhile the main character Tom dumps his (bitchy) girlfriend for a college girl named Myla who is a volunteer at the tutoring center for the Somali kids. With Tom owing community service hours for a mistake he made earlier on, he and Myla work with a Somali girl to help a student learn the English alphabet. Also during this time a week long fast called Ramadan was happening for the Somalis which also happened to be the week that the biggest soccer game of the year was happening and the star players weren’t able to eat or drink.
Tom, Myla and Samira are at a restaurant and the cashier whispers something to Samira, it was something about going to the corner to sit.“I don’t get her! Samira. Like, it’s so obvious she’s been shoved in the back, in this dingy corner behind the cash register. It kills me, you know?”(Padian 185) This shows that even with all the Somalis in the area, they are still picked out and pushed to the corner
Kyle and his wife Isabel from Brazil walk into the BMV and “start to present documents, the first of which was her temporary green card and the moment the BMV rep saw that green card, the reaction we got was shocking. She got out of her chair, began to raise her voice in a very quick and accusatory way…” (Kyle Quinn) Kyle talks about how when he married his wife who was not American born, he ran into the people he knew and didn’t know, saying discriminatory things without thinking about it. With lots of life experiences he wants people to be cautious of what comes out of their mouth around all people, the last thing you want is to come off as a jerk when you didn’t mean to.
There is constant discrimination in these stories, What examples of discrimination do you see in your book? What can Americans do to prevent this type of discrimination?
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