American Refuge: True Stories of the Refugee Experience Audiobook

A provocative, conversation-sparking exploration of refugee experiences told in their own words, for readers of Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s The Undocumented Americans and Viet Thanh Nguyen

“A moving and timely book that strips away misleading politics to reveal the complexities of real human lives." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Forced to leave their homes, they came to America...

In this intimate and eye-opening book, Diya Abdo--daughter of refugees, U.S. immigrant, English professor, and activist—shares the stories of seven refugees. Coming from around the world, they’re welcomed by Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), an organization Diya founded to leverage existing resources at colleges to provide temporary shelter to refugee families.

Bookended by Diya’s powerful essay "Radical Hospitality" and the inspiring coda “Names and Numbers,” each chapter weaves the individual stories into a powerful journey along a common theme:

•   Life Before (“The Body Leaves its Soul Behind”)

• The Moment of Rupture (“Proof and Persecution”)

• The Journey (“Right Next Door”)

• Arrival/Resettlement (“Back to the Margins”)

• A Few Years Later (“From Camp to Campus”)

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""Deepest respect for Diya Abdo's magnificent, utterly necessary book American Refuge. Abdo, a devoted educator and true on-the-ground human hero for founding the Every Campus A Refuge initiative, is also a profoundly gifted interviewer and lyrical writer. This threaded tapestry of rich stories, including her own family's, illuminates many reasons why people leave their home places, finding themselves at-sea, at-large, in an often-not-welcoming world. And follows what happens when they arrive somewhere. It's an inspiring compendium of thoughtfulness, discovery, and enlarged understanding, and could not have been written without Abdo's great gift for listening and learning. Though the daughter of a refugee myself, I had never before considered the inequities implicit in the use of 'expatriate' (white bodies moving into brown and black spaces) vs. immigrant, and learned so much on every page, as well as from the fascinating definitions included at the end.  Bravo! This book needs to land on every reading list."

— Naomi Shihab Nye, Young People's Poet Laureate (The Poetry Foundation, 2019-2021) and author of Everything Comes Together"Diya Abdo’s American Refuge is thunderous, unforgettable testimony to the power of 'radical hospitality.' Never has a book been so timely, nor the voice of an author – and the unimaginably heroic voices of the refugees whose stories Abdo renders so brilliantly within these pages – resounded so plaintively, so fiercely, so poetically in praise of peace and shared humanity. The work Abdo has forged on the campus of Guilford College through her initiative, Every Campus a Refuge, is nothing short of miraculous. American Refuge is a primer on how to implement The Beatitudes.