Customer Reviews

The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town

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Mary Pipher's "The Middle of Everywhere" is a marvelously wise book that encompasses the tales of people of many lands who come to Lincoln, Nebraska, and her personal story as a "cultural broker" who appreciates and respects them. The world has come to my town, also. Pipher writes, "Most of my friends were of European background. As I've made friends with people of Mideastern, Latino, African, and Southeast Asia backgrounds, I've changed a great deal. I've stopped seeing myself as a member of a majority culture. Instead, I see myself as a member of a world culture that flourishes in my hometown." That has been my experience exactly.

Especially interesting is her chapter on how American-style psychotherapy is not the method many of the refugee peoples use to heal from past traumas. She quotes a saying of her mother's: "There are three cures for all human pain and all involve salt--the salt of tears, the salt of sweat from hard work, and the salt of the great open seas." (She points out that, while once she interpreted the "seas" as an escape from family or memory, now she sees it as the beauty of the natural world.)

Pipher believes that young people adjusting to the American lifestyle should carefully choose to incorporate the best of their cultural heritage with the best of what America offers. (The pervasive media advertising and marketing, and all types of sleaze, for example, should be rejected. Family and community, shared meals, fun, love and laughter, should be cherished.) She celebrates the energy and the optimism of these newest Americans.

In a carefully reasoned discussion, she upholds the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and firmly maintains we are not practicing cultural bias when we seek to implant these basic rights all over the world.

Hats off to Mary Pipher, one of our own culture's wise women, a down-to-earth midwesterner who eats a lot of pie, and a world citizen whose heart is open to all. This book may stir you to become a cultural broker yourself, and you'll find your life enriched beyond measure. This book deserves the highest recommendation.

This carefully researched and beautifully written account of Pipher's experiences getting to know and understand the diverse refugee community in Lincoln, Nebraska is both heartbreaking and inspiring. The stories of poverty, loss and resilience she shares help to personalize the people and places most of us think of as not really pertaining to us. Because Pipher is not just an observer, but an active participant in the process of helping her town's refugees, her book and its practical suggestions carry much weight. I highly recommend it, particularly to anyone in reasonable health, living above the poverty level, who has a complaint of any kind about the quality of their life.

This terrific book seeks to convey the life experiences of a multitude of refugees, from a variety of countries, who somehow found their way to Lincoln, Nebraska. It helps us understand how truly gigantic culture shock can be, and how unbelievably lucky we all are to live in this protected Disneyland that we call America.

Most of these amazing people have lived through things that would make other Americans ashamed, to complain of the things in our lives that we consider "major problems." One African refugee describes how his father was literally forced to applaud, while 14 year old "soldiers" killed some of his own children right in front of him. Others are fleeing starvation so terrible that they were forced to eat grass, dogs, or worse. Yet here these people are, smiling hopefully at their new neighbors, hoping to start a better life as fellow Americans.

What is the internet? They don't know. What is an "atom bomb"? Many people around the world are apparently unaware that it exists. What is money? Refugees from primitive tribes don't really "get" the concept. Will voting for a certain political candidate endanger their children's lives, if the opponent wins? Their lives have led them to think so.

You have to root for these incredible people. It makes you want to go out and meet some refugees, and talk to them for yourself. One might suspect that some of them are fearful of what is happening in our country right now (lawful FBI surveillance, etc.) but the fact is, people from cultures with different alphabets literally can't even spell ACLU, FBI, CNN, or even ABC. They're so lost it boggles the mind. They need friends to help them understand. They need you.

Mary Pipher has divided her inspiring testament into three parts. The first part, "Hidden in Plain Sight," deals with the initial arrival of refugees, and their efforts to make sense of America. The second part, "Refugees across the Life Cycle," walks us through a collection of vignettes based upon the experiences, respectively, of children, teens, young adults, and parents in refugee families. The third part, "The Alchemy of Healing -- Turning Pain into Meaning," helps us see how incredibly strong these people are, and how their strength, compassion, and wisdom are guided and tempered by their experiences. Finally, there are three VERY helpful little appendices, giving specific, detailed advice about real ways that readers can get involved, and make a difference, in our own hometowns.

Would you like to get a quick visual sense of just how "white bread" the Lincoln, Nebraska area is, to understand the preposterous homogeneity in which these lost, bewildered, global refugees must find a place? If so, I'd like to recommend that you see the 1999 Reese Witherspoon/Matthew Broderick film "Election." It was filmed just a few miles down route 80 from Lincoln, and not only is every single face visible in the film of European extraction -- I think they are literally ALL of NORTHERN European extraction. I'm serious. Don't get me wrong -- they're perfectly nice people (often incredibly nice, actually, as Mary Pipher makes clear), but not necessarily too well-prepared for diversity in their community. That's what these refugees need to face.

If you enjoy this book, I would like to recommend that you seek out "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," by Anne Fadiman, which is about Laotian refugees in Massachusetts. Also, look online for the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) website, which has a lot of nice features to keep you informed about refugees worldwide.

I have had experience with a nonprofit church-based organization helping to resettle refugees in North Carolina. I see several errors in your review of Ms. Pipher's book. You say she does not mention English as a Second Language classes--she does only here it is called English as a Taught Language. She says some landlords in Lincoln neglect their properties--this is not unique to Lincoln by any means. Refugees are expected to become financially self-sufficient within about four months and there are many places where their incomes will not stretch to pay for an apartment or home in a good neighborhood so they are likely to live, at least temporarily, in a downtrodden neighborhood. Ms. Pipher describes a variety of refugees--some have intelligence and skills to do well in a new setting; others struggle in low-income jobs due to health problems, depression, lack of skills, lack of language facility, etc. Even though the refugees arrive with an assigned sponsor, the sponsors themselves vary in their familiarity with help available, their own financial ability to aid a refugee family, their degree of continuing involvement in the life of the refugees. I know of one sponsor who seemed to expect to be paid for driving a refugee to the doctor or other services. I think the struggles of new refugees may be much more common than you would have us believe, whether in Lincoln or elsewhere.

I can authenticate the author's perceptions in two areas. Lincoln, Nebraska is my hometown also and her description of its strenghs and failings rings true. I have less experience working with refugees than Ms. Pipher, but I have observed some of the same obstacles, emotions, and challenges working with a single refugee family as she describes in working with a number of diverse refugees in Lincoln.
If you imagine that you have problems in life, read about the experiences of some of the refugees in Middle of Everywhere--you will come away thanking God or fate that you are not in their shoes (now that they may actually have shoes). Hopefully, you will also be encouraged to do something for the refugees in your town or at least to be more helpful, cordial, and understanding in your encounters with refugees. Maybe you too will be angry that our Government makes refugees repay the expense of their airfares to the United States! I am angry.
Despite the horrors recounted in this book (in a matter-of-fact style), the overall tone is upbeat and optimistic. For the more resilient refugees, America is still a land of dreams and Ms. Pipher has a psychologist's sense of what traits contribute to the resilience needed.

At first I was apprehensive about reading this book. It was a required reading for a class. Once I started, I realized how wrong I was!!!

This is a great book. It brought to light how hard it is for refugees in America. I was also intrigued by the fact that Lincoln, NE is a major refugee hub.

I am a teacher, and I come into contact with Hmong students all of the time. This book remided me that they are not like us and everything I need to be aware of.

I have recommeded this book to everyone!!! I could not put it down!!!

Mary Pipher's book is a compelling story about the diversity of people who immigrate to the United States , how great their needs are as they enter a new culture, how little understanding and wisdom they bring for handling the complexities of western life, and how little Americans are doing to help them. It also explores the concept of globalization, a trend which was explained with a quote from Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree: "There are two ways to make a person homeless - destroy his home or make his home look like everyone else's." With increased technology and travel, American cities are becoming more ethnically diverse, yet our culture permeates other cultures in unexpected ways. I too have spied the smiling colonel of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in Denpasar, Bali, and in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Although Mary's story takes place in Lincoln, Nebraska, which some would call "the middle of nowhere", as refugees from all over the globe are relocated to this town, it becomes "the middle of everywhere".

In her attempt to see how globalization has affected our choices, our interpersonal relationships, our allegiances, our mental and social health, our sense of home, and our individual identities, the author finds that looking at our American home through the eyes of the immigrant has given her a fresh, clear view of who we really are. She notes that most Americans are identified with placing a high value on freedom, personal space, and time constraints. But as she reveals all the people she has met and experiences she has heard through them, it is amazing to me that her faith in humankind has not deserted her completely. Her philosophy of life is persistently interwoven into every story and every page. Being a writer, she doesn't say it this bluntly, but her purpose is to encourage native-born Americans to stop being so irresponsible, spoiled and self-centered, to look outside themselves at people with real needs and be willing to give of their time and talents to be of help. She reveals many refugee families and individuals to the reader on a personal level, so that we must be aware that they are indeed just like us in all the ways that truly matter.

The author demonstrates how ignorant most educated Americans are about the needs of immigrants and refugees in our country. We see them but they are invisible to us. Our culture esteems independence of thought and action, which is easy when you can speak, read, and write the language. For others it is an incredible hardship. If we have business to take care of, we just look up the phone number, make an appointment, then drive our car to the location at the correct time. If you don't have the skills to accomplish this, don't even have a phone, a car, or a watch, you desperately need someone on the inside to help you out. Learning about this situation is like discovering another life form on the planet that you never knew was coexisting with yours. They are all around us, but we are so immersed in our own lives, we are clueless. Our culture encourages this separation. We value freedom of thought, but only express our individual opinions to those in our living room, around the water cooler at work, or perhaps over the internet. We value freedom of speech, but only listen to opinions on the television at home, the radio in our cars, or by reading the daily newspaper. We overvalue freedom of personal space and privacy, so we don't know our own neighbors, much less the refugees living on the far side of town. We don't have any idea who in our building, or on our street, who is having a family crisis, who is experiencing financial woes, or who is desperately lonely for company.

Mary Pipher is honest and straightforward in addressing these problems, yet she does so in such a palatable way. She recognizes that no one culture is right or wrong, but that it is important to choose what is best from each. She identifies the ideal culture as one that would "have exactly the right number of choices to maximize freedom and control in every domain." She accurately defines what all of us need to survive in this new globalized world: the ability to adapt, resiliency, families who love us and help us, rituals and traditions, contact with the natural world and with our history, communities of friends, livable wages, decent schools and health care, safe streets, and opportunities to get ahead. How can you argue with someone who quotes Aristotle, the Dalai Lama, Thomas Paine, Descartes, and Willa Cather?

I am enjoying this book very much, but it is riddled with typos, some of which make it hard to understand a particular sentence. How does this happen? Are the typos in the printed version too?

This book was in mint condition. Thanks so much for living up to your words of quality. This is an enjoyable read.

This was a book for an intercultural class but is a great one for anyone to read! The book was in great condition and shipped quickly.