"Refugee Hotel is a groundbreaking collection of photography
and interviews that documents the arrival of refugees in the United
States. Evocative images are coupled with moving testimonies from
people describing their first days in the U.S., the lives they’ve left
behind, and the new communities they’ve since created. Among the
narrators:
PSAW WAH BAW, who was forced to flee her village in Burma amidst
armed conflict. She describes how her family left their village with
just five cups of rice, beginning an arduous journey toward
resettlement that would take them through Bangkok, Tokyo, Illinois, and
Texas.
PASTOR NOEL, who fled the civil war in Burundi in 1972 for a refugee
camp in Congo. When war erupted in Congo in 1996, Noel was once again
forced from his home. He now lives in Mobile, Alabama, and is a central
figure in the African refugee community.
FELIX, a South Sudanese man who joined the rebel army as a teenager
but eventually fled to a refugee camp in Kenya. Felix now lives in
Erie, Pennsylvania, where he works with Habitat for Humanity to assist
African refugees in purchasing their own homes."