TITLE: Kiss the Dust: Teaching About the Refugee Experience

Author: John Brierley

Author Info: Venice High School, Foreign Language/International Studies Magnet, 13000 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066

Kiss the Dust , a book by Elizabeth Laird (1992), is a useful source for teaching about refugees from Kurdistan/Iraq. The following teaching guide is designed for four class periods in a 10th grade World history and geography course and in an English class shared by the students. It is written so it can stand alone in a World history and geography course.

Background Information:

Refugee : Anyone who "owing to a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unwilling or unable to avail himself of the protection of that country." (United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951.)

Overview: During this four-day unit, you will be examining:
1. What a refugee is.
2. How people become refugees.
3. Their movements and the reasons for those choices.
4. Solutions to the refugee problems of our world.

Materials:
1. UN definition of refugee (printed above in Background Information)
2. Book: Kiss the Dust , one per student
3. Pens and pencils (or pens of two different colors)
4. Map which includes Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria
5. Writing paper
6. Blank paper with some of heavier stock

Activities:

Day One:
1. Place the United Nations definition of a refugee on the board or overhead projector and have students copy it down, skipping lines. After it is copied, ask the students to "translate" the document into their own contemporary (informal) language in the spaces between the lines, using a different color than the formal definition. Usually, students need help with these terms: persecution, country of nationality, protection of that country.
2. Have students form groups and discuss their definitions and these additional prompts (questions) you will write on the board or overhead:
a. When is a fear of persecution well-founded?
b. Why are people persecuted due to their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion? Give examples.
c. Why would a person decide that they should leave the protection of their own country? Give examples.
3. As a class, have students share their contemporary translations of the refugee definition and their responses to the questions.
4. Show Iraq, Turkey and Syria on a map. Discuss Kurdistan and show approximate boundaries. This is a good time to discuss the terms, nation and nation state. Distribute the book, Kiss the Dust.
5. Hand out the following assignment:

Assignment: Read the eight pages of Chapter one. Complete responses to the following items:

A. What does the first line, "It was just an ordinary day like any other," suggest is going to happen in the story? (presage or foreboding)

B. On pages four and five, four boys are reading a paper when two Iraqi Army jeeps come to a stop in front of a mosque. The officer in charge orders the soldiers in the jeeps to shoot the boys because they are "Enemies of the state! Spies!" Describe the scene and state how this applies to the definition of a refugee given earlier in class.

C. On page five, the mullah is shot in front of the mosque. What is a mullah? What is a mosque? Is this a form of persecution because of religion, social group or political opinion?

D. On page six, the young boy who was tripped and captured, raises a clenched fist and states, "I die for Kurdistan!" The officer kills him and then says, "Look at this traitor! I'm warning you. Anyone who helps the Kurdish rebels will die like him. Only it will be more painful! Look at his blood! Go on! Stare at him! Don't forget, any of you!" What is happening in this scene? What processes of justice are missing? Why does the officer threaten to inflict more pain on those who help the rebels?

E. On page seven, Tara grits her teeth and thinks that her friend Leila "wasn't clever at all when it came to the big things, like the way people behaved and the reasons why they did things." What does this mean? Do you know people like Leila? What should Leila have understood about the way people were behaving and the reasons for their actions?


6. Collect the book, Kiss the Dust.
7. Introduce push and pull factors:
Push factors are those known conditions in a place where one is living that compel the individual to consider and ultimately make a move to another place.

Pull factors are those anticipated conditions about a place in which one has not lived that draw the individual to that place.

8. Give this homework assignment:
Show the push factors that are demonstrated in the reading in class today by writing about who the Kurds are, why the Iraqi soldiers are murdering them, what ordinary procedures of justice are not shown in the reading and why Tara, who is a Kurd, is presaged to become a refugee.

Day Two:
1. Review homework. Ask: Who are the Kurds? Why do Iraqi soldiers and other officials consider them to be "enemies of the state"? What actions, not in the story, have happened to the Kurds? (Helicopter gunship attacks on Kurd villages, army attacks on villages, reports of chemical weapons being used against villages.) What standards, if any, are usual before a person can be deprived of life, liberty or property? For what you see in Chapter one, is this true in Kurdistan? Based on your reading, if you were Tara, would you leave Iraq and become a refugee?
2. Distribute the book, Kiss the Dust.
3. Divide the class into cooperative learning groups, with each group taking a chapter from Chapter two to eleven. Each group is to read and report their responses to the following questions to the class: a. What are the major elements of the story in your assigned chapter? Who are the characters? What is the setting? What actions take place? Quote lines that are used to develop the story. b. How does the chapter demonstrate events and thoughts that are pushing Tara and her family out of Iraq? c. How is the stress of persecution shown by the actions of the family members?
4. Collect the book, Kiss the Dust.
5. Explain: At this point you have read of Tara as an internally displaced person. She has remained in Iraq. She has not crossed an international border, therefore, she is not a refugee. Yet she has had to pack her treasured possessions and alter her lifestyle greatly.
6. Ask: What would you pack? List what you would pack, remembering what Granny states on page 52: "You can't take all this with you...You can take as much as you can load in one taxi..." "If you'll take my advice," said Granny firmly, "you'll leave as soon as possible. Tomorrow." (Urge students to think especially of documents, family heritage treasures and other things not easily bought.)

Day Three:
1. Collect yesterday's lists of items students would pack.
2. Ask: What items might your parents, grandparents, or siblings list as treasured belongings?
3. Have students share their responses with the class.
4. Distribute materials: Books (Kiss the Dust), colored pencils, pens or other art supplies. Provide two pieces of blank paper (8 1/2" X 14") for each set of partners. (One sheet should be of heavier stock for the final map.)
5. Introduction: Tara and part of her family decide to leave Iraq and become refugees. They leave without permission of their government. Their normal lives are left behind until such time as they feel that they may voluntarily repatriate (return) with some guarantee of safety. If they never feel that they can return to Iraq, they will have to become citizens of some other nation state or be stateless individuals.
6. Give students the following assignment:

Read Chapter thirteen and fourteen that describe a fictional journey from Northern Iraq into Iran. As you are reading, draw a map of the route and add sketches of the major crises. Draw your sketches (pictures) either above or to the side of the places on the route map.

For example: On pages 130-131, the author describes a bat frightening the horse as the family crossed a bridge and Tara was plunged into the freezing river. On the route map, you could draw a bridge symbol. Then, to the side of that location, you could add a sketch drawing showing Tara falling into the cold river.

Work with a partner and share the duties of reading, mapping and sketching. You may want to do a rough map and the sketches as you read. Then, after reading, create your final product which is to be posted on the bulletin board.

7. Collect the book, Kiss the Dust.

Day Four:
1. Introduction: When a refugee settles in a host nation, there are many necessary adjustments, including learning new languages, cultural patterns and social relationships. This process of learning is often made more difficult because of a lack of access to funds in their home nation. It is also difficult for those who fled with few possessions to find similar goods and services in their new nation state. At the beginning of Chapter 27, Tara states:

"It was funny," she [Tara] thought, "how your ideas about money changed when you didn't have much." At home in Iraq there'd always been plenty, and she'd spent it for fun, on extra clothes, or sweets or drinks. But now, when they had so little to live on, every coin was hoarded, and money wasn't for having fun anymore. It was for protection against hunger, and cold, and having to walk home for miles and miles instead of getting the bus.

2. Distribute the book, Kiss the Dust.
3. Give students the following assignment:

Assignment: Read Chapter 15 and answer these questions:

A. Why did Tara and her family leave Iraq? Where did they stop before they arrived in Iraq? What things were done to them that might be considered persecution? What dangerous things happened as they illegally left their own nation state?

B. What sorts of things stand out as Tara and her family moved from the border to the refugee camp?

C. What evidence was given that language (Persian and Kurdish) was a problem for both the family and the Iranian government officials?

D. Describe the treatment that the government officials gave the family when they are asking them questions.


4. Collect the book, Kiss the Dust.


Evaluation:
Ask students:
1. To use several of the vocabulary terms that they had the most difficulty with at the beginning of this unit.
2. To describe the refugee experience of Tara and her family.
3. To analyze Tara's reactions to many of the parts of her journey.
4. To write a prediction of what the rest of Tara's life will be like.
5. To discuss how refugees are and could be treated when new to a host nation school.
6. To consider how this specific fictional story could reflect the lives of refugees in many actual places in the world where refugee issues are critical. (That might include Zaire, Afghanistan, Mozambique and the former Yugoslavia.)
7. To share what they learned about the refugee problem.

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