{"id":19096,"date":"2021-01-17T14:34:41","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T19:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=19096"},"modified":"2021-01-17T14:34:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T19:34:41","slug":"in-welcome-to-the-new-world-syrian-refugees-land-in-trumps-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2021\/01\/17\/in-welcome-to-the-new-world-syrian-refugees-land-in-trumps-america\/","title":{"rendered":"In ‘Welcome To The New World,’ Syrian Refugees Land In Trump’s America"},"content":{"rendered":"

A family of refugees from the Syrian war makes their harrowing escape to New Haven, Connecticut, in the non-fiction comic \u201cWelcome to the New World,\u201d<\/a> with words by Jake Halpern and pictures by Michael Sloan (Metropolitan Books). Rushing to get into the United States before Trump is elected and locks the door to Muslims, they make a heartbreaking decision to leave family members behind in Jordan. The family lands at New York\u2019s JFK airport on Election Day, Nov. 8, 2016.<\/p>\n

Halpern spent nearly a year following Ibrahim Aldabaan and his family. The resulting book is an amazing feat of reporting\u2014including recounting the outbreak of violence in Syria, the dad\u2019s arrest, and how the mom negotiates the dictator\u2019s menacing bureaucracy to win her husband\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

In America, the story turns to job-training programs, English classes, house-hunting, high school, tensions between parents and children, then a telephoned death threat: \u201cI\u2019m going to chop your fucking head off \u2026 and I\u2019ll kill your whole fucking family. I am giving you 24 hours to leave America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""Welcome<\/a>
“Welcome to the New World” by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan. (Metropolitan Books)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The book debuted in 2017 as a 20-part New York Times series<\/a>, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. Reading the book, I kept wondering if the author and illustrator simplified the story\u2014for younger readers or perhaps because they mistakenly fear comics can\u2019t handle more complexity. And their ending of the family\u2019s ongoing true story kind of just trails off.<\/p>\n

But \u201cWelcome to the New World\u201d is a powerful, moving and informative window into the lives of refugees in the United States, rich with insights from the adults and children in the family, as well as the volunteers, social workers and educators who try to help them along the way.<\/p>\n

\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, (hopefully) weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2020 or the respective creators.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Jake<\/a>
Jake Halpern (left, photo by Kasia Lipsia) and Michael Sloan (photo by Leslie Stone).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Welcome<\/a>
“Welcome to the New World” by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan, page 22. (Metropolitan Books)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Welcome<\/a>
“Welcome to the New World” by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan, page 23. (Metropolitan Books)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Welcome<\/a>
“Welcome to the New World” by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan, page 24. (Metropolitan Books)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A family of refugees from the Syrian war makes their harrowing escape to New Haven, Connecticut, in the non-fiction comic \u201cWelcome to the New World,\u201d with words by Jake Halpern and pictures by Michael Sloan (Metropolitan Books). Rushing to get into the United States before Trump is elected and locks the door to Muslims, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,107],"tags":[191,69,422,838,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19096"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19112,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19096\/revisions\/19112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}