The Ungrateful Refugee by Diana Nayeri: A Review

Diana Nayeri

I began reading THE UNGRATEFUL REFUGEE while spending five hours in the emergency room of a veterinary hospital with my cat Buddy. Nonetheless, Diana Nayeri's story kept me riveted to the page.

THE UNGRATEFUL REFUGEE is a telling of Nayeri's experience as an immigrant, intertwined with a more objective look at this extremely complex subject.

At its best Nayeri captures the unique aroma of her family's escape from Iran and her fraught relationship with her father and mother. At its not-so-best Nayeri tends to reexplain the heart of the matter, diluting its powerful truth.

At times Nayeri's brilliance comes through when she seems to break free of the past, and of a writing style that can inhibit the flow of her natural ability to tell a story.

Towards the very end, Nayeri's analytical abilities and sheer intelligence radiate.

Take for example this snippet: "Originality is the privilege of the educated. And yet, when the refugee refuses to be original or specific, her story fails; she is sent away. If, in her terror and her shame, her memory alters or embellishes, collapsing ten years of suffering into a year, or changing a lost hand to a lot arm, it is because she knows that if you were transported to her home, you'd see hangings, shootings, beheadings. You'd say: 'Get the hell out.'"

Nayeri has harsh words for reporters and news pundits covering immigration. "Here is the biggest lie in the refugee crisis. It isn't the faulty individual stories. It is the language of disaster often used to describe incoming refugees - deluge or flood or swarm. These words are lies."

She calls out news outlets who "report total asylum requests as a proxy for asylum seekers," noting this doesn't account for second requests.

She accurately reports the historic scope of the situation, however, citing United Nations High Commission for Refugee data from 2017 - 68 million people displaced worldwide, 40 million of these individuals internally displaced, 25 million being refugees, and three million asylum seekers. 2018 data from UNHCR reports 70.8 million individuals being forcibly displaced worldwide due to persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations. The highest displacement figure on record. Of these individuals 25.9 million are refugees, 41.3 million are internally displaced and 3.5 million are asylum seekers.

Despite these historic levels, Nayeri points out that most refugees go to neighboring countries "Only a few million try for Europe, and yet, everyone thinks that Syria and Afghanistan and Iraq are emptying into the West."

Nayeri says that "Our shame [on the part of immigrants] has helped create a cynical, sedated world wherein being a fully realized human is the privilege of whites, Christians, and the native-born."

"Nativist fury, not an exile's pleas for rescue, is the irrational spectacle, the unearned reaction, in today's refugee narrative."