The Happiest Refugee” is a great story of courage in the face of huge problems, so is “Home to Mother“. Anh Do’s story is one of escaping, at the age of two and a half, with his family to a better life. Molly’s story was escaping a harsh new life to return to the safety and comfort of her family. Anh Do tells his families’ true story while Molly’s story is written by her daughter Doris Pilkington Garimara who retells the events her mother experienced at age 14. “The Happiest Refugee” describes events that happened in the 1970’s, just after the Vietnam War ended, and tells about the flight to freedom of one refugee family. The events in “Home to Mother” happened much earlier in Australia’s history, during the winter of 1931 when Aboriginal children who had white fathers were automatically taken away from their families by the authorities to be ‘educated’ in Native Settlements. Molly leads her sister and cousin on an amazingly difficult and dangerous journery to find the ‘rabbit-proof fence’ that will guide them 2,500 kilometres home.

I wonder…
What incidents in each of these ture stories captured your imagination and gave you a new understanding of refugees/stolen generation?
What issues and challenges were faced by Anh, Molly and the family members who were with them on their dangerous journeys?
What similarities and differences can be seen in the two stories?
Which text “The Happiest Refugee“, or “Home to Mother” influenced you the most and why?

Refugees.

Year 5/6T have been learning about the challenges that refugee and asylum seekers face in their bid to come to Australia.  We have been reading from Anh Do’s book The Happiest Refugee. When we read that the boat Anh left Vietnam in was just 9 by 2.5 metres we drew a boat shape the same size on the path outside our room and tried to fit our class of 26 students inside the outline. It wasn’t really a fair comparison because we would have had to ask another class to join us to get the same number of people as was on Ahn’s refugee boat.

Today two Customs Officers come to speak to us about their work with refugee and asylum seekers. We learnt why people risk their lives to reach another country, where they come from and we viewed images of some very small boats that some people had set to sea in.

As our studies progress we will share what we learn in our comments.