Week 4: What is Going On In Their Heads?

When the ideas for this blog starting going up one-by-one on the board on Tuesday, I just could not decide on what exactly I wanted to talk about until someone said something about the psychological effects on these boys and men, not only in their home country, but in America also. I became very fascinated on what exactly these men are thinking and how they feel about this excursion to the "land of the free." I was disappointed when I read on the book that Valentino was discouraged by his fellow "brothers" in America because they would tell him to go back to Africa. I think it sucks on both parts because those American-American boys were ignorant to the fact that Valentino was here running from the war in his country, not just to be here because he wanted to be here. It also sucks for Valentino because this makes him feel even less welcome than he already is in this environment. A fair amount of these "lost boys" come here already with psychological problems and some retain them when they get here. Here is a link to show some of the things that "bother" them: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC558321/
Also, what I thought was sad was that they are psychologicall effected not only by how others treat them, but how they deal with things on their own, like getting jobs and fending for themselves. For example the man in the movie that wandered off because he couldn't deal with the everyday life. This culture is very family-orientated and when one doesn't have their family or friends back in their homeland to help them get through this predicament, then I would go crazy too. Here is a link about how they obtained and kept their jobs without the help of their loved ones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3602724.stm

And I also wanted to add in another link that shows exactly how many Sudanese are in the United States. I know it's a little off my topic, but I thought it was interesting. Here is the link:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/imm_ref_fro_sud-immigration-refugees-from-sudan