![]() ![]() One day there was a beheading in front of her house and then she knew it was imperative to leave her country for the safety of her daughters. She did not want them to leave the house for fear they would be abducted, yet she feared to stay in the house in case of a bombing raid on the neighborhood. The bombing and terrorist attacks in Syria had a terrible effect on her and her daughters. She related how she lost her husband and was left with two young daughters to care for. However, listening to her story breaks open the box we may have placed her in, and she then becomes a sister to us. How easy it would be to assume that she is just taking advantage of the situation in Syria to find a new home in Australia. ![]() She was well-dressed, fluent in English and did not appear to be the typical refugee we see pictures of in the news. I recently met a Syrian woman who is trying to resettle in Australia with her two daughters. However, each person, despite the name we give them, has a story and if we take the time to hear their story, we might see that they do not fit into the box we have built for them. It is not a big step to then move to hatred.įor some people the name “refugee” means people who are taking advantage of a troubling situation to resettle in another country. Naming a very large group of people as illegal immigrants then means we begin to see every one of them as dangerous to our way of life. That is dangerous because when we name a large group of people in this way, we try to fit all of them into a specific box we have built, rather than look at each person individually.įor some, the name “illegal immigrant” means rapists, drug pushers, criminals or job-stealers. We each build boxes for these names based on our own experiences, stereotypes, prejudices or biases. The problem with names like this is that there is no broadly accepted definition of them. We give them these names so we can determine how we want to relate to them and if they will be acceptable in our community. We know people’s name: refugee, illegal alien, illegal immigrant, undocumented immigrant. ![]()
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