Review: Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team That Changed a Town by Warren St. John

Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team That Changed a Town by Warren St. John
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I learned quite a bit from this book, and I'm glad I read it.  This isn't something I would have normally picked up, but thanks to the reading challenge I'm doing and a prompt to read a book about an immigrant or refugee I choose this.  I found it at the library by doing a key word search for refugee and this came up.  I played soccer and this sounded perfect. I have to admit that I'm not very educated on refugee's coming to the US from other places and the struggles they face. This book gave me some perspective.  I have a much better understanding and much more empathy for those who have been uprooted, many in a pretty violent way, and left to figure out this new land on their own without much support to learn English, find work, support their families, learn job skills, and other things I kind of just take for granted.

This book tells the story of Luma, a young woman from Jordan. She came from a relatively wealthy family and came to the US to go to college. She's been well educated and taken care of most of her life. She wants to be independent, which her father does not really appreciate. When Luma decides to stay in the US, she is cut off from her family's financial assistance. Luma struggled to make ends meet, but found ways to support herself. She found her calling helping young refugees from various countries that had been relocated outside of Atlanta. She brought the young boys together by coaching soccer. Her role as coach was more than just just coaching the team, she was translator, tutor as many of the boys didn't speak english, mentor, 2nd mother, among other things. Luma helped the parents as much as she could as many of the families were poor and the parents found work where they could at low paying jobs. The kids were unsupervised much of the time because the parents worked shifts just to buy the necessities. The soccer teams kept the young boys out of trouble as Luma had very high standards, it was her way or the highway.

Luma had her own struggles, the community wasn't able to provide her with a safe or suitable field for the team to practice or play on. The kids didn't have gear, and by gear I mean shoes and appropriate clothes. Luma had fight gang presence to keep the boys out of trouble as the gangs seemed to promise more protection and a better life than what the boys were living.

This book is pretty eye opening, not only to the changes that the community around Atlanta saw with the relocation of the refugees to area, but the struggles that the people being relocated face once they get here. It is the story of one woman's fight to bring together people from a bunch of different places and teach them life skills, the game of soccer, how to survive, and that there are people out there who care. Luma's efforts are to be commended, and her work continues as she was able to turn her volunteer work into something amazing and sustainable.

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