On page 61, Luiselli mentions that for refugee kids to gain recognition of U.S. immigration structures, they need to provide the “right” answers. But what are the “right” answers? Working within an immigration system preying on your trauma and waiting for you to fail cannot bring about the “right” answers. By the time refugee children arrive at the U.S. border, the weight of the journey, leaving what they have always known, their language and the warmth of a culture that they might not even return to, can be a lot to process. In contrast with the literal coldness of ICE, which puts kids in cages of never-ending violence. The paradox of claiming asylum in the U.S. is that the process often brings about more violence. What is supposed to be the place that will provide freedom from the danger you supposedly left behind will make you relive the trauma. Asylum should be a means of escape. Yet, the way U.S. immigration is structured forces kids to re-immerse themselves in what they are trying to forget. The immediately and forcefully demanded “right” answers dehumanize children. Early on, U.S. officials teach them that suffering is the only way to earn a place in U.S. society.
Ultimately, what is most cruel about demanding “right” answers, other than the traumatic responses being weaponized against as the value assigned upon children, is that U.S. officials are complicit in creating the situation which leads to the “right” answers. They know what the kids are fleeing from, they have encouraged the violence and have profited from it too. Yet, U.S. officials still make the kids narrate their trauma as an ultimate assertion of power relations they cannot escape.
Yeah, I think the idea that there is a right and wrong answer to these questions is incredibly troubling and upsetting, and it is only exacerbated by the fact that the right answer are experiences of trauma. Trauma becomes something that has value, and in a sick way, it becomes desirable. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes by Ursula Le Guin in her short story, “The Ones That Walk Away From Omelas,”the treason of the artist [is] a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain” (Le Guin). However, it is not just the artist that wants to deliver a story of pain and suffering, it is that the audience (in this case the US immigration system) that wants a story about children traumatized. The children’s trauma are served up to the courts so the US can inflate themselves, so they are say, look how good our country is, in comparison.
Hi Andrea, reading about this was definitely disconcerting; the idea that child migrants must rely on their trauma to improve their chances of being granted admission to the US is horrific. Not only have they probably escaped from a place of high crime, violence, and exploitation, but their immigration journey will have been exhausting and dangerous to say the least. In the luckiest circumstances their case will be heard, yet if they can’t give the “right” answers, they will be deported and forced to endure the same experiences they were trying to circumvent. What’s worse is that even if they are granted asylum, they’re likely to continue struggling: at best they will have difficulty adjusting to a new culture, at worst they will encounter violence, whether it comes from local gangs like in Manu’s case, or from within the family as we saw in “Fiesta, 1980”.