To Rina:
In my work I have met adolescents and adults that came to the United States as refugees, due to persecution. They had to flee and leave their homes of centuries. Having come as children they had not consented to leaving their countries nor understood why they had to.
They would express their hated of being here, of the food, of the language, the customs...They did so without rancor or disrespect. They sought to express not their resistance to becoming us. They expressed their fear of losing touch with with they had been and what they believed they had lost.
They resisted assimilating to maintain that connection with what had been lost, even if the vision of what had been lost was a fantasy. In some cases they came here from refugee camps, near genocidal conditions.
These people had their birth parents with them. Our adopted children fight harder still....because somewhere they know that their fantasies of parents and families left behind, may be just that, fantasies.
They blame us. Who else do they have to blame? They blame us because we are safe. They will not lose us, no matter what. No matter the pain, we love and pray and hope and fight for them.
