Drawn from historian Mayte Green-Mercado’s courses, the resources here offer contemporary chronicles of refugee stories. Green-Mercado’s goal is to provide students expanded ways to think historically and critically about issues related to migrants, refugees, and displacements in the Mediterranean. Today’s graphic texts and video games offer visually charged versions of diasporic literature centered on identity, exile, and belonging. These narratives, read and experienced alongside historical texts, can deepen student understanding and, perhaps, empathy to refugees fleeing war, violence, conflict, and persecution today.

Graphic novels and memoirs written by refugees about the refugee experience

In assigning and discussing graphic novels and memoirs, Mayte Green-Mercado leans into questions of authority and perspective, highlighting whose story is being told, and what evidence readers have for trusting a particular point of view. For instance, Green-Mercado assigns excerpts from Aivali Solúp’s A Story of Greeks and Turks in 1922, which narrates Solúp’s grandfather’s story when Orthodox Greeks became refugees from Turkey, and the narrative of “the catastrophe” unfolds from that viewpoint.

In combining art and storytelling, graphic works can create an emotional recognition of the humanity of refugees. Graphic novels and memoirs often depict politically marginalized refugee families through the eyes of children who contend with parental powerlessness, or worrisome decision-making. Students can pay new attention to depictions of everyday moments—the mundane routines of cooking, going to work, or bickering with siblings—set against horrific historical moments of violence or unsettling community fear.  

Recommended graphic novels and memoirs

Abdelrazaq, Leila. Baddawi. Washington, DC: Just World Books, 2015.

The author retells the stories of her father, a Palestinian growing up in a Lebanese refugee camp in the 1960s. His illustrated anecdotes combine playground games and adolescent crushes with military raids and acts of rebellion. The author uses Palestinian embroidery, tatreez, as a visual motif she chooses as resistance to cultural appropriation of the traditional craft.

Bui, Thi. The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir. New York, NY: Abrams Comicarts, 2017.

This graphic memoir depicts the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s as experienced by author Thi Bui’s family and their escape and migration to the US. Bui’s narrative alternates between the US-Vietnam war as experienced by her parents and her life years later. In the context of loss and displacement, Bui reflects on the impact on community and culture as well as parental sacrifice and the family histories she has inherited.

Jamieson, Victoria and Omar Mohamed. When Stars Are Scattered. Solon, OH: Findaway World, 2023.  

Omar Mohamed spent his childhood in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. In collaboration with children’s author/artist Victoria Jamieson, this graphic memoir recounts his violent displacement from home in Somalia and the loss of his family except for his brother Hassan, who is epileptic and nonverbal. In the camp there is never enough food, with no access to medical care, and the narrative focuses on the consequences of extreme poverty. The title references children in a refugee camp who are denied education and opportunities to realize their potential as human beings.  

Soloúp, Aivali. Aivali: A Story of Greeks and Turks in 1922. Trans. Tom Papademetriou. Boston, MA: Somerset Hall Press, 2019.

This graphic novel depicts Solúp’s grandfather’s experience of “the catastrophe” for Greeks: their defeat in the 1922 Greco-Turkish War and the resulting violence and displacement. In these events, Orthodox Greeks became refugees as more than a million people were displaced because of a negotiated population exchange.

Sulaiman, Hamid. Freedom Hospital: A Syrian story. Translated by Francesca Barrie. New York, NY: Interlink Publishing, 2018.

Written and illustrated by an author who escaped Syria after the Arab Spring, this graphic novel portrays a secret hospital that physicians, patients, and friends keep functioning while evading the Assad-backed army and its daily death toll. While based on true events, this work focuses on the nature of war and the consequences of cycles of suffering and retaliation.

Video games written by refugees about the refugee experience

While graphic novels and memoirs amplify refugee voices and experiences, video games written by and for refugees viscerally depict challenges and illustrate resilience. Mayte Green-Mercado encourages students to appreciate as well as interrogate how the refugee perspectives are portrayed. Green-Mercado points students to news releases and research studies that suggest the value in virtual experiences of expulsion and escape, sometimes seen to benefit refugees themselves.  

Path Out

Path Out was designed by Jack Gutmann, who was brought up in Hama, Syria. Gutmann and four brothers were raised by parents who sought to keep them safe from war by keeping them inside and gaming. His game Path Out puts students in the virtual shoes of refugees who are trying to get to safety and must make decisions to avoid hazards and stay alive.  

Salaam

Lual Mayen’s family escaped South Sudan and survived the journey to a refugee camp in Northern Uganda where they lived for 22 years. Mayen, a game designer now in Washington DC, founded Junub Games. Salaam (Arabic for “peace”) was release in 2020 and engages players in the role of refugees seeking to escape violence and capture and find food, water, medicine, and safety. Through a partnership with UNHCR, players also can contribute financial support to actual refugees in camps.

Gaming supports refugees’ wellbeing

A video game consultant and officer for digital innovation in the UNHCR lead a project where they co-create video games with refugees. They create spaces and events where diverse refugee audiences can play games and experience “digital leisure time” that enables them to recuperate from traumatic experiences and connect with distant families and home communities. The researchers intend to support refugees as game designers to encourage self-expression about their communities.

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