For World Refugee Day, we share the words of the refugee women featured in Accidental Sisters: Refugee Women Struggling Together for a New American Dream. 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. With a foreword by Ilhan Omar, this breathtaking work of literary nonfiction by writer Kimberly Meyer reveals the power of solidarity for women facing the inadequacies of the US immigration system.
“This book gives us, up close, some of those human stories of struggle and hope, through the journeys of six women, almost all Muslim, all black and brown, all single mother refugees, several from so-called shithole countries—the multiply marginalized. But one marginalized voice represents many marginalized voices. When one of us speaks, all of us are speaking. It’s important that this country hears them.”
—US Representative Ilhan Omar, from the foreword
