The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You

Misconceptions about refugees plague the West, especially in the wake of nationalists like Donald Trump and the United Kingdom Independent Party. To them, refugees are opportunists who flood into the country, bring their homeland’s problems with them, and threaten to reshape their host nation. Nayeri writes The Ungrateful Refugee to combat this xenophobic fervor, but refugees face prejudices that run deeper than the book’s contemporary political climate.

Many accusations about refugees are misleading. While Western media uses alarmist rhetoric about refugees invading Europe, the number of those immigrants is miniscule to those who stay in the Middle East. Nayeri’s family, and those she interviews, leave comfortable lives because of imminent fatal threats. In the case of Darius and Taraa’s family, those threats entail gruesome assaults that leave life-changing injuries. Nayeri also sympathizes with young men, whom even other refugees see as troublemaking opportunists even though these young men are escaping a life of poverty and restricted gender roles.

At the same time as it spreads misinformation about refugees, the media rarely questions nationalist rhetoric or punitive polices. Instead, it places the burden of proof on refugees who are already thoroughly traumatized. Their futures depend on interviews with bureaucrats “paid to create mazes that will destroy your soul” (338). Such bureaucrats’ goal is identifying contradictions, memory lapses, and other excuses to deny the application. They then either encourage refugees to return to the country from which they need refuge, or let them fall into an exploitative black market. These agonizing, protracted obstacles tear at refugees’ souls, most tragically in the case of Kambiz Roustayi.

Even with asylum, refugees find that Western life falls short of that seen in movies and television. Western nations give new residents only a few weeks to find a home and job before cutting benefits, and racism is ubiquitous. Maman’s doctoral education is useless in the States, and she toils in companies that insult her accent and intelligence. Already overcontrolling, her host family then abandons her entirely for marrying another Iranian. In England and Oklahoma, Nayeri’s classmates physically and emotionally assault her; they hurl racist slurs and stereotypes (taught by their parents), and they beat and permanently injure her. Nayeri believes Ivy League schools would be enlightened, but the same prejudices lurk in those halls. As she grows older, Nayeri recognizes that the fear of betrayal and deportation persist, and in her work with Minoo, she finds that the English housing authority delays and exploits her husband’s illness to deny her a new home.

Even friendly nationals assume that refugees should somehow acknowledge their indebtedness for being rescued. The United States and other nations like to take credit for successful refugees while othering those who fail to make the grade. At LV Village, Nayeri tells a refugee not to cut himself because it would make him an unappealing candidate. Westerners expect rapid adoption of Western values, and in exchange will deign approval of refugees’ cultural delicacies like food. The ideas that Western education drives achievement and that immigrants make a country better are both remnants of colonialist ideology. Refugees also internalize their host nation’s prejudice towards other refugees; Maman questions the faithfulness of Christian refugees and Maman Moti recommends that Minoo’s family abandon Iranian culture. Even Nayeri, an advocate for open borders, finds herself deriding Baba’s attempt to bring her half-sister into England.

Citizens are making some attempts at systemic reform. LV Village attempts to give refuges some control and dignity through individual Isobox homes and a donation store with a set currency. Some reforms limit the asylum interviewers’ invasive questions about a person’s sexuality—though some officials ignore these protocols. The International Women’s Day protest is the result of advocacy efforts helping exploited women recognize their political power. Still, progress is slow and uncertain. Conflicts, such as the collapse of the US-backed Afghanistan government, will ensure the continued asylum services’ necessity and the continued bureaucracy, housing shortages, and discrimination. (Narea, Nicole. “The Affordable Housing Shortage Is Hurting Afghan Refugees.” Vox, 9 Sept. 2021, www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22661140/afghan-refugees-affordable-housing-resettlement.)

Feminism is an ideal Nayeri spends her life pursuing. Whether it’s Iran, the United States, or Europe, Nayeri finds that each culture polices women’s rights both formally and informally. In Iran, all women must wear the hijab and cover their bodies to their ankles regardless of their religion. Families can marry women off at a young age with all rights regarding property, sex, and divorce belonging to the husband. One in three Iranian women hold bachelor’s degrees with a curriculum more rigorous than Western standards, but their unemployment rate is much higher than men’s due to travel restrictions hindering their employability. Women can hold elected office, and there is an ongoing nonviolent reform movement, but the government imprisons and executes feminists and other advocates. (Mahmoudi, Hoda. “Freedom and the Iranian Women’s Movement.” American Sociological Society, 29 July 2019, journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1536504219864953.) These restrictions also affect men who defy gender norms; for example, Kambiz’s mother looks down on him for his interest in cooking.

As a child, Nayeri resents Iran’s patriarchal society. She considers the possible transformative moments in her life: the rough school hijab, the moral police who harass her mother when her brother runs away, and the way her teacher loses her youth when she puts her hijab. Maman’s conversion to Christianity may be a rebellion against a restrictive society and abusive marriage. A young Nayeri considers Christianity as good and feminist, but over the years she reevaluates her view of Islam and becomes an atheist as she “shed every institution and doctrine that failed to live up to” feminism (37). When she first meets her Iranian friends, she brags about her divorce knowing that it is a taboo to them.

However, gender relations are more nuanced in Iran than at first glance. Maman has a doctorate, and educated women generally have more freedom in their career and marriage. Baba encourages Nayeri’s studies, tells her not to let men push her around, and stands up for her against her teacher. He arranges for Maman and the children to flee the country when he could have sold them out to the Sepâh. At the same time, Baba is abusive and quickly remarries after their departure. The teachers, while strict and punishing, warn Nayeri that a woman’s life in Iran is infinitely harder than a man’s, and they tell her to defend other women. Considering that Nayeri did not hide her Christian beliefs, it’s possible that the teachers were protecting her from punishment according to Iran’s tradition of unspoken favors.

The family’s stay in Dubai contrasts with life in Isfahan as the hijab is not required for any resident, and orthodox Muslims comingle with more liberally dressed women. Mr. Jahangir’s daughter dresses and acts like a Westerner even to the point of looking down at Nayeri the way a Westerner would. Still, the family faces patriarchal attitudes, such as the Iranian prince who planned to marry off Maman and Nayeri. Nayeri is especially outraged that this would impact her education goals. At Hotel Barba, Nayeri sides with most of the hostel’s residents against the Romanian woman who flees from her hardworking husband. As Nayeri grows older, however, she sympathizes with her desire for escape from an unhappy marriage.

Maman tells Nayeri that the West is free of gender restrictions, but her experience in Oklahoma contradicts this. Men discourage women from academics and steer them towards supportive activities like cheerleading. She witnesses groping at the swim exercise that prompts her to outlast everyone in an endurance test, and she notes that her women’s’ Tae Kwon Do medal uses male images. She internalizes misogynistic attitudes herself and criticizes Maman for remarrying and her career struggles.

Nayeri’s experiences as a mother and her encounters with refugees solidify her feminist views. She shares the story of Farzaneh, who takes her child back from Turkish officials and uses one hand to climb onto a boat in rough waters. Ahmed Pouri shares the story of a survivor of sexual assault, a crime that officers only consider in specific cases, who cried after obtaining asylum. Nayeri also highlights Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu’s intersectional feminism courses for women in exploitative careers as caregivers and sex workers who receive threats of deportation. For them, classes that help them recognize their own rights are more important than those for employment skills. Nayeri sees her mother’s own teachings in these efforts: that “these labors men want to extract from us are female joys belonging only to us” and are not the entirety of their worth (306).