Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference

“‘For the majority of the time she coached me, I hated her,’ Luma said. ‘But she had our respect. She didn’t ask us to do anything she wouldn’t do.’”

This passage indicates the book’s interest in the importance of emotional connection in coaching. Luma’s relationship with Coach Brown has a significant influence on her own coaching philosophy as an adult.

“This history of persecution and wandering had torn at the social fabric of the Somali Bantu and left them, on the whole, poor, deeply traumatized, and far removed from the trappings of the modern world.”

This passage is characteristic of St. John’s attitude toward the refugees his book describes. Although careful to acknowledge the history of oppression that has displaced the Somali Bantu and led to their collective trauma, St. John nevertheless reiterates the stereotypes used by anti-refugee advocates in Clarkston and beyond.

“On the sideline, he unzipped his backpack carefully, as though it contained a fragile and precious artifact, which in a way it did: a single black oversized sneaker. Jeremiah took off his flip flops and slipped the shoe on his right foot, leaving his left foot bare, and took the field.”

Many of the players on the Fugees live below the poverty line; in this instance, Jeremiah only has one shoe with which to play soccer. The players’ dedication to the sport despite their socioeconomic disadvantages is a central focus of the book, underscoring The Value of Organized Sports for Young People.

“Lumumba, after turning to the Soviet Union for backing, was tortured and killed by a commander named Joseph Desire Mobutu, an act done with the blessing, if not the outright aid, of the CIA.”

A central theme of the book is the interconnectedness of political conflicts across the globe. This passage highlights The Influence of American Politics on International Conflicts—specifically American and Russian involvement in Central Africa. St. John spends the rest of the chapter demonstrating the deadly consequences of this involvement.

“She forbade boys like Grace and Bien from speaking to each other in Swahili and required them instead to speak English—the team’s lingua franca. She found she had to keep a constant lookout for emerging cliques, especially among players who were inclined to stick with their own kind.”

Central to Luma’s coaching philosophy is the idea that the team should be greater than its individual components and that the team is more important than the individual. This belief is literalized in her insistence that the team communicate in a single language—English.

“Jordan had been fired from another police force in the area for excessive use of force, and was found ‘unfit’ to serve as a police office in a psychological review, in part, the therapist wrote, because of his volatile temper. Jordan said he informed Chief Nelson about his past but was hired anyway.”

Throughout the book, St. John demonstrates The Systemic Obstacles Facing refugees in the United States that prevent them from achieving full integration into American society. This excerpt suggests that local police forces allowed dangerous officers on patrol despite knowledge of former disciplinary action, exhibiting an indifference to violence by law enforcement disproportionately leveled against people of color, refugees, and immigrants.

“In recent years, disputes over soccer in public parks were occurring more frequently around fast-growing cities like Atlanta, due largely to the influx of immigrants—particularly Latinos—from soccer-playing cultures around the world.”

This passage demonstrates the book’s thematic interest in the politicization of soccer and the tendency of white, political conservatives in the United States to see soccer as a foreign game. In this instance, the perceived threat causes local governments to exclude soccer from public spaces.

“A group of refugee boys who had survived the unimaginable, strangers now in an unfamiliar land, playing the game with a passion, focus, and grace that seemed, for a brief moment anyway, to nullify the effects of whatever misfortune they had experienced in the past.”

This passage indicates the book’s thematic interest in The Value of Organized Sports for Young People. St. John argues that the experience of playing soccer helps the Fugees to momentarily escape their trauma, find community among their peers, and receive mentorship and support.

“She felt he was hanging out with the wrong crowd. She didn’t like the way those boys dressed—the ghetto look with those low-hanging pants, untucked T-shirts—or their braids.”

Many of the refugees depicted in this book face discrimination from Clarkston locals. However, this passage suggests that refugees can also practice discrimination and perpetuate prejudicial assumptions about race and class they encounter in America—in this case, specifically, anti-Blackness.

“The only way they could lose, her argument suggested, was by adopting the ordinary ways of their mostly American opponents. It was as close as Luma ever came to pointing out to her players that as refugees, they had not just a connection to one another, but a special quality that set them apart.”

Throughout the book, St. John demonstrates the specific qualities—such as fortitude and selflessness—that the Fugees athletes bring to their team. This passage suggests that the team’s coach, Luma, recognizes but does not explicitly acknowledge their refugee experience as a source of strength for the athletes.

“It was Luma’s firmly held belief that the YMCA would never simply forget to send a bus to take home the well-to-do American kids in its other athletic programs.”

This passage demonstrates the systemic inequalities in Clarkston that make it difficult for the Fugees to succeed. Although the YMCA provides funds for the team, routine “mistakes” like the one described above suggest that the institution privileges its wealthy white athletes above its refugee teams.

“He’d catch hell from the old Clarkston residents, especially those who lived around Milam Park, if he gave a group of refugees free run of the place.”

This passage, which comes at the end of a chapter describing Luma’s strict coaching strategies, demonstrates the outsized place refugees hold in the imagination of white Clarkston residents. The fear of refugees taking “free run” of a public park does not align with St. John’s description of the Fugees’ practices.

“Just as poor whites in the South had felt threatened by the prospect of fair competition from blacks in the years leading up to the civil rights struggle, poor blacks in Clarkston—who made up the majority of the American residents of those apartment complexes where the refugees lived—saw the newcomers as rivals.”

In this passage, St. John contextualizes violence against refugees in Clarkston as one of many historical cycles of violence against marginalized populations. The implication is that poor Black Southerners are repeating the violence and prejudice they themselves faced.

“On Sundays, separate congregations of Liberians, Ethiopians, French-speaking West Africans, and Sudanese meet at various times throughout the day to worship in their native styles, and a bigger, come-one, come-all service takes place in the main sanctuary in English.”

St. John uses the Clarkston International Bible Church as an example of an institution adapting positively to cultural diversity. The arrangement includes both segregated services and a unified service, allowing Clarkston residents to practice as they wish.

“A theme was emerging in the matters the people were bringing before the council: those who governed Clarkston had a tendency to overreach their authority, at least until called to account by the citizens.”

In the second section of the book, St. John offers explicit criticism of the political institutions of Clarkston, such as the police department, city council, and mayor’s office. The city council session suggests that the town itself would be similarly resistant to change without outside pressure, pointing to The Systemic Obstacles Facing Refugees in the United States.

“Tipped off by that vocal parent, Blue Springs defenders now covered up Bien, who was being set upon each time he touched the ball.”

The Fugees often play without family and spectators because many of their parents and guardians work demanding jobs with long, difficult hours. This passage demonstrates the benefit of an invested, attentive audience, as a parent on the opposing teams identifies and helps thwart Luma’s coaching strategies.

“The Fugees played better soccer in the second half, even with one of their most talented players sitting on the bench. They spread the ball around and managed to attack a few times and eventually, late in the game, to score.”

This passage reflects the book’s thematic interest in The Value of Organized Sports for Young People. The fact that the team plays better without their moody star player demonstrates the teamwork skills the Fugees have developed under Coach Luma.

“They worked hard, and fearful of getting detained or sent back to their native countries […] they were more compliant than American workers, less likely to file workers’ compensation claims or to support union organizing drives.”

Throughout the book, St. John suggests that there are systemic barriers in place preventing refugee families from becoming full participants in American society. This passage implies that corporations exploit refugees’ lack of facility with English and unfamiliarity with American culture in order to pay low wages and fail to address dangerous conditions.

“They saw the strange events unfolding through the windshield in a menacing light. Several had seen or heard of family members getting carted off by authorities—or worse—for the pettiest of offenses.”

This passage demonstrates the trauma that many of the Fugees carry from their experiences in their countries of origin and journeys to America. While the sight of a coach being arrested is universally upsetting, these players have personal experiences that trigger their past trauma, making them extra fearful.

“But this tableau was what many of the refugees who arrived here had imagined—and hoped—America might be like: a land of plenty, where each family had a home and a car, where parents could let their kids play in the streets without worrying about their safety.”

Luma organizes a trick-or-treat outing for the Fugees on Halloween in order to lift their spirits. This passage suggests that while the Fugees enjoy Luma’s outing, it also has the opposite effect—offering an upsetting reminder of the challenges and dangers of their own neighborhoods and the disconnect between the fantasy of life in America and its reality.

“The Fugees rode together on the bus or, when the bus was full, in the cars of volunteers, and the trips were a kind of sacred time for talk about life outside of soccer.”

The community Luma creates among the Fugees forms an important support system for players and their families—in this instance, providing a safe space in which the boys are able to talk about and share their trauma.

“There was no lengthy discussion of the matter, no self-congratulatory commentary on togetherness or the need to respect each other’s views—just a simple, practical ordering of business so that everyone felt included.”

Throughout the book, St. John suggests that top-down efforts at diversity are unlikely to succeed and that diverse groups must emerge organically. However, his distaste for long commentaries on unity and the importance of community conflicts with the book’s obvious interest in diversity and his other arguments about the value of diverse communities, especially the importance of actively pushing back against systemic efforts to prevent growing diversity in American communities.

“‘You had ‘em,’ Luma told the boys after the game. ‘You had ‘em at two to one, and you wouldn’t finish it. You deserved to lose […] You didn’t play your best.’”

One of Luma Mufleh’s defining characteristics is her tendency to lash out in anger at her players, some of whom are as young as nine. This instance reads particularly harsh, as the under-13 Fugees didn’t actually lose but fell out of the tournament following a tie.