In Learning America, female, Muslim, gay refugee Luma Mufleh grapples with the systemic inequalities in the American education system.
An opportunistic interaction with a group of young refugee boys starts a chain of events that ultimately leads to Luma starting her own schools to cater for the needs of children who have experienced trauma and displacement from their home countries.
Told from a place of fierce empathy and compassion, the author describes her own, and individual children's stories to emphasise the gross inequalities in the public and private school systems, and that a one size fits all approach is rarely useful in education, let alone with the young men and women that she works with.
Themes of inequality, privelege, friendship, loyalty and hope are explored in detail, leaving the reader with both a sense of despair for the state of the educational system in the US, and inspiration at the ability of one woman to overcome her own significant trauma to provide a safe place of learning, skill building and love for those children most in need.
This book is a must read for educators, those working with marginalised and/or traumatised children, and anyone who cares about the plight of displaced people both around the world, and in their own country.
Thank you to Mariner Books for the ARC ( digital via Netgalley) in exchange for an honest review