Refugee High - by Elly Fishman (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A year in the life of a Chicago high school that has one of the highest proportions of refugees of any school in the nation

"A wondrous tapestry of stories, of young people looking for a home. With deep, immersive reporting, Elly Fishman pulls off a triumph of empathy. Their tales and their school speak to the best of who we are as a nation--and their struggles, their joys, their journeys will stay with you." --Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here

Winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Award

For a century, Chicago's Roger C. Sullivan High School has been a home to immigrant and refugee students. In 2017, during the worst global refugee crisis in history, its immigrant population numbered close to three hundred--or nearly half the school--and many were refugees new to the country. These young people came from thirty-five different countries, speaking among themselves more than thirty-eight different languages.

For these refugee teens, life in Chicago is hardly easy. They have experienced the world at its worst and carry the trauma of the horrific violence they fled. In America, they face poverty, racism, and xenophobia, but they are still teenagers--flirting, dreaming, and working as they navigate their new life in America.

Refugee High is a riveting chronicle of the 2017-8 school year at Sullivan High, a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric was at its height in the White House. Even as we follow teachers and administrators grappling with the everyday challenges facing many urban schools, we witness the complicated circumstances and unique education needs of refugee and immigrant children: Alejandro may be deported just days before he is scheduled to graduate; Shahina narrowly escapes an arranged marriage; and Belenge encounters gang turf wars he doesn't understand.

Equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring, Refugee High raises vital questions about the priorities and values of a public school and offers an eye-opening and captivating window into the present-day American immigration and education systems.

Review Quotes

Praise for Refugee High:
"Educators and general readers alike will find this vividly intimate work insightful."
--Library Journal

"Fishman unearths the inner lives of her subjects with care and precision, and skillfully balances lighter moments (soccer games, TikTok dances) with harrowing turns of events. The result is a powerful portrait of resilience in the face of long odds."
--Publishers Weekly

"As the only refugee in an Oklahoma high school in the 1990s, I used to have fantasies like this: what if a school existed that represented the wider world, everyone displaced, everyone applying for the same papers, pockets of society not defined by ill-fitting American markers, but following the precise contours of my own continent, its many faiths and colors? Refugee High is the realization of that daydream, and a riveting real-life answer to those youthful mysteries. A deep dive into an experiment I've always wanted to witness, meticulously researched, lovingly written, and rich in revelation."
--Dina Nayeri, the author of The Ungrateful Refugee and Refuge

"Beautifully written, deeply reported, and bursting with humanity, Refugee High is a book you will read in a hurry and remember forever."
--Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A Life and Luckiest Man

"A riveting immersion into the world of Chicago's Sullivan High School, where half the students are immigrants or refugees. Through the lives of four young people from different corners of the globe, Elly Fishman vividly portrays the perils and possibilities that confront those who come to the United States in search of a better life. No reader will be able to forget these students and the almost unimaginable hurdles they struggle to surmount, and no reader will forget the teachers who dedicate themselves to preventing the American Dream from becoming a betrayal."
--Drew Faust, President Emeritus, Harvard University

"Elly Fishman's Refugee High takes readers inside one of the most remarkable schools in the country, a large Chicago public high school with hundreds of students who have recently emigrated or fled from an odyssey of different countries. Fishman brings to life the individual experiences of the school's teenagers, teachers and administrators, their struggles and joys. Through these intimate accounts, Refugee High shows the widening conflicts--of a city, a nation and world--that concern us all."
--Ben Austen, author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing

About the Author

Elly Fishman worked as a senior editor and writer at Chicago magazine. Her features have won numerous awards including a City Regional Magazine Award for her article "Welcome to Refugee High," her first report on the students and faculty at Chicago's Roger C. Sullivan High School. Refugee High: Coming of Age in America (The New Press) is based on the article, and won the prestigious Studs and Ida Terkel Prize for a first book in the public interest. A Chicago native and graduate of the University of Chicago, Fishman currently lives in Milwaukee with her husband and their dog and teaches in the Journalism Department at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.