Mentoring the Hmong: A Practice Outlet for Teaching Faculty and a Possible Community Development Tool

This brief article summarizes the personal experiences of a social work educator who became a mentor for an immigrant Hmong family. The Hmong family came to the United States from the Highlands of Laos and a culture that was vastly different from American culture. The mentoring experience had multiple and continuing benefits for the educator, the curriculum, the learning climate, the Hmong, and the majority community.     

Journey through the ‘Gate of Zion’: British policy,Jewish refugees and the La Spezia Affair, 1946

ABSTRACT

This article explores the case of ‘illegal’ immigration at the end of the Second World War and, specifically, the events that unfolded at the Italian port of La Spezia. In April 1946, 1014 visa-less Jewish refugees, who were attempting to reach the British Mandate of Palestine, were detained on a vessel by Italian authorities under the instruction of the British. Rather than conceding to Whitehall’s rejection of entry visas, the Spezia refugees remained defiant, threatening collective mass-suicide and staging hunger strikes until passage was finally granted. The Spezia narrative has, however, remained on the periphery of academic scholarship, with the case of the ship Exodus 1947, which set sail the following year, dominating historiographical accounts. This article demonstrates the impact of the La Spezia Affair on post-war migratory movements and, most notably, the importance of refugee agency within the context of forced migration. Analysing the events at La Spezia from the port itself recasts the narrative through a ‘local’ lens, recovering the role of the refugees which has been largely overshadowed by state-level responses. In so doing, traditional perspectives from ‘above’ are confronted with those from ‘below’, reconfiguring our historical understanding of refugees and transnational migration in the twentieth century.     

近代东北流民与农业开发

清末民初,伴随着清朝封禁东北政策的破产,关内流民大批涌向东北。流民的到来,传播了先进的农耕技术,带来了优良的农作物品种,加速了东北的土地开发与农业发展,耕地面积剧增,粮食产量迅速提高,东北商品粮基地初步形成。这一切,与广大流民含辛茹苦、披荆斩棘的创业精神是不可分的,流民堪称发展东北农业经济的主力军。     

巴勒斯坦最终地位问题前景探析

巴勒斯坦最终地位问题已逐渐被提上巴以和谈的议事日程,巴勒斯坦和以色列在领土问题、定居点问题、耶路撒冷问题、难民问题等方面的立场分歧使双方很难达成共识,而这些问题不断复杂的现状进一步增大了解决的难度,最终地位问题谈判将会异常棘手。唯有消除仇恨产生的土壤、实现内心的和解才能解决最终地位问题,实现巴以之间的和平。     

The unknown refugee crisis: expulsion of the ethnic Lhotsampa from Bhutan

Bhutan has been strained by ethnic conflict. The Lhotsampa, one of the three largest ethnic groups, have sought a system of equality under which they would be allocated what they need as an equitable share of Bhutan's polity and economy. The ruling Drukpa elites perceived the Lhotsampa as a threat to their dominance and initiated policies to oppress or force out the Lhotsampa and others through ethnic cleansing. Bhutan's ethnic conflict and the refugee crisis it has produced are the outcome of ethnonationalism clothed in the slogan of ‘One Nation, One People’, and the contrived mechanisation of the ruling elites. The policies of these elites have effectively disenfranchised people who were born in Bhutan and have lived there for generations as citizens, for no other reason than their ethnicity. This is an issue not just for the Lhotsampa of Bhutan but also for any groups at the receiving end of an ethnically repressive order. The Lhotsampa case illustrates some characteristics of human‐rights violations in situations of ethnic strife.     

Migrating rituals: negotiations of belonging and otherness among Tamils in Norway

ABSTRACT

By examining a funeral ritual devised by Tamil refugees living north of the Arctic Circle in Norway, I argue that the study of migrant rituals offers new insights into migrants’ senses of belonging, identity and wellbeing. Within a context of the exclusion and inclusion of cultural minorities, I describe the process of creating a funeral ritual that involves encounters between local Norwegians and Tamil refugees. The funeral followed the sudden death of a Tamil worker at the local fish plant as a result of a freak accident. The article focuses on how the Tamils’ work of devising and performing the funeral speaks to local migrant experiences of living on the boundaries between the Tamil and Norwegian life-worlds. A centrepiece of the case study involves a young widow, thus the analysis includes social and cultural dimensions of widow- and womanhood, while also highlighting issues of migration and the shared human condition. In conclusion, I underscore the way in which the migrant ritual, embodiment and (Othering) discourse cohere together to form a temporal phenomenon that responds to the present-ism of human life.     

Dual/duel identities: Jordanian perceptions of academic equity

This study aimed to address how the sociopolitical climate in Jordan facilitates, perpetuates, and/or alleviates negative or positive views of Palestinians from the perspective of Jordanian university graduates. The qualitative study looked specifically at how education and the ‘hidden curriculum’ addresses coexistence.     

Isolation and Insecurity: Resettlement Issues Among Muslim Refugee Women in Perth,Western Australia

Refugee Muslim women face a number of formidable obstacles in the resettlement process within Australia. As Muslims, they are a religious minority that has come under considerable racial attack in recent years in the wake of international terrorism. As refugees, they are struggling to put past traumas behind them and find ‘security’ in a strange land with different customs. As women, they are trying to find a voice for themselves amidst ethnic traditions that limit their range of expression and an Australian society that aspires to, but has not yet achieved, equality for women. Our qualitative study, upon which this paper is based, explored resettlement issues of Muslim refugee women during their first five years of arrival in Perth, Australia. It is based on focus groups and semi‐structured interviews with 80 Muslim refugee women: 35 Iraqi, 34 Sudanese and 11 Afghan. Our study re‐affirms that well‐documented issues of resettlement continue to be poor English language competency, securing employment and accommodation and gender‐specific problems. In addition, however, our study highlights a new and emerging issue, which is that of personal, psychological and cultural insecurity, heightened by the current political climate and exacerbated by their religious background. This leads to problematic ‘intersections’ with an Australian society that is far more complex and more difficult to cope with than is portrayed in popular discourse and political rhetoric of the easy‐going ‘lucky country’.