Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Over 169,000 people were granted asylum status in the United States between 2012 and 2021. What is the difference between a “refugee” and an “asylum seeker”? How are both terms different and/or related to “migrant”?

Teaching Suggestion: This prompt will give students a shared understanding of the terms “refugee,” “asylum seeker,” and “migrant,” which will further help them grasp the core themes in the memoir around Life as a Refugee. Underscore for students that, while there are important distinctions among the three terms, the need for these each arises from a shared core fact: That every single day, people around the world must make the—usually difficult—decision to abandon their homes and homelands in search of a better, safer life.

• Amnesty International’s “Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants” gives preliminary definitions of each term.
• Pew Research Center’s “Key Facts about Refugees to the U.S.” is a rundown of statistics related to refugees in the United States, as of 2019.

2. By 1914, the vast majority of the world’s nations had been colonized by Europeans at some point, especially numerous countries in Africa.