A Diasporic Analysis of “We are Displaced” by Malala Yousafzai

Abstract

The study investigates the book “We are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World” (2019) by Malala Yousafzai in the milieu of refugees around the world. It qualitatively reconnoiters the text for the representation of the exiles: the treatment of the diaspora by the host country and their traumatic condition. The book is analyzed based on diaspora, a theoretical model given by William Safran in “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return” (1991). This research discovers the journey of refugee girls, who migrate from their land, have no education, no home, and no country to call their own. This research is to explore the particular text from a diasporic perspective to unveil the hidden realities regarding political and social discussion of ethnic communities, immigrants, and exiles. In most treatments of the relationship between minorities and majorities, little attention has been devoted to the diaspora. The researcher found the impression of diaspora theory on Malala’s “We are Displaced,” the effect of dispersion on people’s lives; they lost their families, relatives, and communities, even their own identification. Many people displaced by violence have no safe place to live; among them were doctors, journalists, lawyers, teachers, poets, priests, and children. Many people have to rebuild their lives in foreign places and have lost so much, even their loved ones, just for learning a new language, a new culture, and a new way of being.