Burmese Refugees: Letters from the Thai-Burma Border

This book is a collection of moving essays written for English class by refugees in camps on the Thai border. The introduction and explanatory material provide a concise explanation of Burma’s political evolution since independence.
The book is divided into three sections. The first section contains essays from refugees of the 8888 uprising – August 8, 1988, It is a telling fact that these people are still refugees. The essays in the second section are by refugees from the 2007 uprising – the Saffron Revolution. The essays in these two sections were written by ethnic Burmese.
The third section consists of writings by refugees of other ethnic groups: Karen, Chin, Mon, Arakanese, and Shan. (There were no Kachin present in the camps show more where the author worked.) The difference in view and experience of these people, many Christian or Muslim, illuminates the complexities of Burmese society. Each group has its unique problems.
For example, since the Shan have traditionally worked on both sides of the border, the Thai government often deports them as economic migrants without giving them the opportunity to establish that they are political refugees. Burmese and other ethnic groups are assumed to be political refugees; hence, Shan political refugees must often lie about their ethnicity to receive asylum.
The book covers the period through the elections of 2010. I had thought that the current developments in Burma might have made this book dated, but instead it serves as a good introduction to a complex situation. And many of the authors of these essays are still refugees in these camps, still living the lives that they describe. show less

This was one of those books that was hard to put down and hard to pick up. The reality of the refugees and the experiences they were forced to live through were riveting ... but not in a good way. Human nature is at its root is not good, if you need to see that in real tangible lives and stories ... read this book.

http://thebrunettebibliophile.blogspot.com/2011/09/review-burmese-refugees-lette...

When I received this ebook in my inbox last week, I did something I never do: I paused my reading of a Jonathan Franzen novel. For those who know me well, my love for Franzen is not far behind my love for the late David Foster Wallace, and said love and absolute admiration runs deep. I was that excited for this piece.

According to T F Rhoden, this collection of personal essays started as an assignment where the refugee students in his English enhancement class were asked to write three paragraphs about their past. He was moved by what his class produced and felt compelled to do more to understand their experiences. What the Rhoden brothers propose to do show more with this collection is, by bringing to light the conditions (both past and present) faced by the Burmese refugees waiting for resettlement, rally others to their cause and affect positive change on their behalf. I can absolutely get behind that.

In terms of content, the stories from the refugees themselves are incredibly moving and inspiring on several levels. I used to teach ESL students myself, and have experienced how challenging writing honestly and accurately can be in a language that's not your first. Kudos to the essayists for bravely taking on that challenge. I would venture to guess that if I attempted the same assignment in, say, French, the result would not be nearly as successful. Though their narratives can be at times choppy and awkward, what shines through in many is remarkable: the will not just to stay alive, but to live life fully. A theme that repeated itself in several of the essays was the desire of the authors to eventually, after resettlement, return to Burma and/or to affect change for the people in their community from abroad. The passionate, determined voices of the refugees are absolutely the book's strength. Reading their accounts, I was seething thinking about all of the injustices, major and minor, the authors had been subjected to living under an oppressive military junta. And if you can get past my criticism below, the book is worth picking up just to read their stories.

Unfortunately, there's a lot to sift through to get to these potent firsthand accounts. In fact, I only got through about half of the book before I got so fed up with T F Rhoden I had to stop reading. In the interest of brevity, here are my two biggest problems with the text:

1) Basic spelling, grammar, usage and structural errors: the text is positively rife with them. T F Rhoden's introduction alone is grammatically abominable. In affecting a "writerly" voice, he constructs some of the most awkward, roundabout sentences I've ever read. T F Rhoden seems to have no clue who is audience is, and though he apes a scholarly tone at times, this book is clearly not research-based enough for academia. In fact, I can't imagine the brothers hired a fact checker if they clearly didn't bother to hire a copy editor, or even pass the manuscript off to a friend to proof read for that matter. In addition, content wise, there are multiple superfluous details throughout the introduction that any editor worth their salt would have cut in favor of flow. T L S Rhoden fares far better in his introduction, which is much more concise and clear, though he confuses "affect" and "effect." All in all, these sloppy, easily correctable mistakes are incredibly disruptive to the reader and ultimately distract attention from the important part of the book: the Burmese people and their stories.

2) T F Rhoden's ego: I felt two kinds of anger as I read. The first was on behalf of the many essayists for the oppression they faced. The other was directed toward T F Rhoden, who inserts himself into this text far too much. At the end of each essay, T F Rhoden adds several paragraphs of what he views as exposition, which he claims are there to help provide context. And the fact-based parts of said paragraphs are, actually, very helpful. Unfortunately, Rhoden then proceeds to give us his characterization of many of the essayists and comes off as incredibly condescending. For example, one of the essays was penned by a math teacher who described her background and role in the 8/8/88 protests. When sharing his impression of her, T F Rhoden writes:

"She reminded me, if anything, of just your normal modern woman; or, I suppose, that is what she would be if she had grown up in a prosperous civil society."

What lies underneath statements such as these (and there are many), the implication that because the essayist didn't have a Western upbringing she can't be considered modern, is downright insulting. T F Rhoden is so entrenched in (and potentially unconscious of) his white male Western worldview that many of his musings on his former students smack of condescension stemming from an inherently imperialist mindset. The essayist was a woman who graduated high school with distinctions, held a BS in mathematics, a MS, and started her own tutoring company. Yet T F Rhoden was pleasantly surprised to find her "modern" and "normal." His statement implies that her cultural difference makes her backward and somehow less than, and through his backhanded praise, are we then supposed to laud him for seeing her in such a favorable, benevolent light?

As T F Rhoden spent time in the Peace Corps, I was a corps member with Teach For America, and have worked in low income communities throughout NYC for the past 6 years. One of the things Teach For America at least tries to do is, through continuous coursework, start a discussion around white privilege, issues of cultural bias, kind-hearted prejudice, inherent and unconscious Western mindsets, etc and we spend a lot of time thinking about how our views of race, culture and class, etc were shaped, how they shape us, and how they might impact how we affect change in our classrooms. I'm not by any means stating we all walk out of these courses freed of all of our failings, but at least questions have been asked and a dialogue has been started and many corps members are thinking about race, culture and privilege in ways they might not have before. I can't imagine that the Peace Corps doesn't have similar coursework or readings to prepare its volunteers to enter diverse communities across the globe. What boggles my mind is how out of touch T F Rhoden's comments (such as the one I quoted) are, and how they reek of an assumed inherent superiority. The impression I was left with of T F Rhoden is that what he really wants out of this book, whether consciously or not, is for the reader to see him as a benevolent, altruistic presence...and what comes across loud and clear is that he values been seen this way far more than he values the people whose cause he's purportedly attempting to advance.

I would love to be proved wrong in my assumptions about T F Rhoden. My advice (as a writer, an educator, and someone who works at a multicultural publisher specifically with social justice themed books everyday): If Rhoden really wants this book to serve as a platform for the Burmese refugees, he needs to take himself out of it. He needs to come to terms with the fact that the book isn't about him. If he wants to write a memoir about his experiences and impressions of the people he met, that's a different book. If he really is aiming to act as a loudspeaker for the voices of those he met, he needs to

1) hire a GOOD copy editor

2) hire a fact checker or a research intern, do some additional research, re-interview the essayists if necessary, and cite all sources; tons of statistics are quoted with absolutely no back matter/footnotes/etc to support any of it beyond his own experience.

3) think more like a journalist than a diarist, and revise the expository paragraphs at the end of each essay to be just that: expository as opposed to editorial. Include facts that answer the following types of questions only: Where is the essayist now? What/how are they doing? What other challenges/obstacles did they face that they didn't include in their essay? Objective observation is fine. Subjective assumption is not; that's the stuff of memoir. There are examples of paragraphs where he does just this and they work. As the reader, I don't want the editor to opine on what types of people he gather the essayists to be (regardless of whether I find those opinions offensive or not). I want to hear it from the writers.

Rubric rating: 2. Reads like a first draft of a manuscript and not as a published piece, and absolutely does not do justice to the voices of those it alleges to advocate for. show less

I had less trouble with this book than most. I found the author to be informative and caring. The refugees themselves seemed a little lackluster, probably from having to go through so much. I don'y know that I would have as much hope as they did despite their numbness. It's sad to think that what we take for granted, others desire so much.

Excluding the refugees' letters, which were understandably left “as is,” typos, incorrect grammar/spelling, and lack of proper punctuation (most noticeably in the first section) interrupt the flow, making the text choppy and sometimes difficult to read.

Grammar distractions aside, this book offers both factual and personal insights into the turbulent times in Burma, from the 1988 uprising to the present. The first part of each section of the book gives a basic overview of the political situation during the various protests and uprisings, but does not delve deeply into the overall history of Burma. The book's main focus, the letters from Burmese refugees living in the refugee camps, gives one a touching glimpse into the difficult show more lives of those who had to flee their homes, families, and native land in order to not be imprisoned or killed by the reigning regime. Although the conditions for refugees in the camps are difficult (e.g., new refugees are not even given basic food rations, housing, or a registration number for months or even years due to bureaucratic red-tape and its subsequent delays, the drinking water is full of bacteria, the cold, wet weather is the opposite of what most refugees are used to, there isn't any work or anything useful to do, etc.); the refugees are all full of confidence, hope, and dreams for the future, a future where they can live in freedom and peace, either in a Western country or in a democratic Burma. After each letter, the author comments on that refugee's current situation, and adds his personal insights into the refugee's life and character. The only thing lacking in these narratives are photos of the country, its people, and the refugee camps. This would have added much interest to the stories.

Overall, this book is quite interesting. After reading it, I feel that I have gained some understanding of the past and current lives of Burmese refugees and of the conditions in their country and in the refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border, and of their potential futures after resettlement in a third country. show less

To begin with, I wouldn't call this a novel, it's more of a documentary of the human fallout from the military rule in Burma. Two "editors" have worked as English teachers in Burma and have collected assigned essays from their students describing why they fled Burma for a difficult refugee camp on the Burma-Thailand border run by the Thais. The essays are in uncorrected English, for which I must give credit. The stories are heart-breaking and the way out of the camp is long and difficult. There is some description at the end of various Burmese ethnic groups. There is no story and no plot and no universal solution. The main value is to raise awareness of the dehumanizing conditions forced upon Burmese nationals by the ruling military, show more and it accomplishes that task quite well.

I read this as a free eBook in exchange for an honest review. show less

The editor of this book of letters, T.F. Rhoden was teaching English in the Burmese refugee camps along the Thailand and Burma border. He gave a simple assignment to the students, to write three paragraphs about about their past. A boy approached him with finished assignment and Mr. Rhoden got the idea of getting the letters of the refugees published in order to increase awareness of their situation.

Burmese Refugees, Letters from the Thai-Burmese Border is a record of the refugees' lives written by themselves.

The author divided this book into three parts:
1) 8888 in reference to the date of the first wave (08/08/1888. These refuguees were mainly students from the university and high schools who had participated in protest against the show more government or just relatives of the political activitists. Aung San Suu Kyi is a well know leader of opposition group againstthe Burmese government.

2) Saffron Revolution or second wave. Saffron referss to the color of the robes worn by the monks. There had been
protests by monks in Yangon and Mandalay calling for economic changes and many reforms like the ceasing of the recruitment of children as soldiers and as well as many other crucial changes.

3) Ethnic Strife. Burma has similar ethnic minorities and some of the minoriteis and even divided into more types. People from some of the persecuted ethnit groups as escaped to the refugee camps.

So you can see the refugees all have different reasons for being there.

The author gives a capsule of Burmese history from 1948 when it gained its independence from the U.K. to today.
The letters were interesting glimpses of the reasons of why the refugees came, their problems with the camp and their hopes and dreams. There seemed to be a flatness to the narration that I think could be due to the over emotional events in their lives. So there letters mostly are not very dramatic but seem mostly numb to me.

The letters only hint at the conditions of living in the camps like the lack of warmth for the cold weather and having no way to dry their damp clothes and also the very long wait for qualifying for refugee status so they could get rations. They were grateful to be able to learn English as it can only help if they can ev entually go to United States or Australia. But boredom is problem that seems to eat away at them. I would have liked a description by the author about his opinion of the living situation in the camps.

The author adds his impressions of each writer and where they are now if that information was available.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in modern day refugees and wanting to know how they can help. There is a lot of information in this little book. I think the rating should actually be 3.5.

I received this book from the Library Thing Member, directly from the author but that did not influence my thoughts in this review. show less