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University of California Press

Accidental Sisters

Refugee Women Struggling Together for a New American Dream
by Kimberly Meyer (Author), Alia Altikrity (Author), Ilhan Omar (Foreword by)
Hardcover eBook
Price: $26.95 / £23.00
Publication Date: Mar 2024
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9780520384675
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 15 b/w illustrations
Endowments:
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About the Book

With a foreword by Ilhan Omar, this breathtaking work of literary nonfiction reveals the power of solidarity for women facing the inadequacies of the US immigration system.
 
Accidental Sisters follows five refugee women in Houston, Texas, as they navigate a program for single mothers overseen by Alia Altikrity, a former refugee from Iraq. Grounded in the words of these women—Mina from Iraq, Mendy from Sudan, Sara and Zara from Syria, and Elikya from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—this book recounts their lives in their mother countries, how they were forced to flee, and their struggles to find belonging in an epicenter of refugee resettlement.
 
Readers join author Kimberly Meyer on a journey with each woman as they experience Alia's guiding philosophy: that small, direct, meaningful acts of mutual care are the foundation for a flourishing community. While celebrating the sanctuary the women eventually find, the book critiques the US refugee resettlement program for its insistence on rapid self-sufficiency and offers an alternative American Dream rooted in sisterhood and solidarity. Immersive and intimate, Accidental Sisters inspires hope for a way forward in the face of pandemics, political inaction, and climate change.

About the Author

Kimberly Meyer is the author of The Book of Wanderings: A Mother-Daughter Pilgrimage and other works of long-form nonfiction. In collaboration with a collective of refugee and immigrant women and other local Houstonians, she helped found Shamba Ya Amani, the Farm of Peace.

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Reviews

“Despite the horrors they’ve endured and the losses they’ve faced, the women about whom Meyer writes are lucky. They faced starvation, kidnapping, torture, rape, and the murder of their relatives, but in the end they were offered a fresh start in a new country, a chance to find not only safety but also prosperity.”
— Los Angeles Review of Books
"We know that our humanity is tied to one another, and that we need policies that extend humanity and compassion to immigrants and newly arrived refugees. . . This book is a starting place for that understanding."—US Representative Ilhan Omar, from the foreword

"Kimberly Meyer has written a beautiful book about refugees and resettlement, offering truth and empathy in place of propaganda as she tells the story of the mass migrations that will soon affect us all."—Mimi Swartz, Executive Editor, Texas Monthly

"In Accidental Sisters, award-winning writer Kimberly Meyer traces the journeys of six refugee women—all single mothers—who support one another as they make their way from their home countries and navigate resettlement in Houston. Meyer's novelistic sensibilities and exquisite eye for detail enable readers to bear witness to her subjects' experiences of love, loss, betrayal, and longing for home. Accidental Sisters is at once a riveting tribute to the power of sisterhood and an indictment of the many ways our nation's refugee resettlement process falls far short of its promise. This searing exploration of the human side of the refugee experience will reverberate in readers' minds for years to come."—Jessica Wilbanks, author of When I Spoke in Tongues

"Accidental Sisters is a deeply compassionate, life-affirming gem. Meyer's empathy shines through in the stories of these six women and the uncertain ground on which they find themselves once they flee the radiating aftershocks of war and reach American soil. Together these women define America's easily forgotten immigrant heritage, revealing a second front line far from any conventional battlefield: that of resettlement."—Kenneth R. Rosen, recipient of the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for War Correspondents

"I opened Accidental Sisters with a vague idea that refugee women lived difficult lives in the United States. I had no clue. By blending beautiful storytelling with a deconstruction of flawed policies, Meyer shows us the depths of real people's struggles and how the remedy for injustice starts with acknowledgment and compassion."—Ricardo Nuila, author of The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine