Not by Choice

A collection of stories about refugees.

A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. Often leaving much of their lives behind, including friends, family, and much of what they owned… refugees start lives anew in a foreign country. But it’s not easy to find a country with open arms, and it’s getting harder by the day. From the Third Coast library, stories of those who made it, and others who didn’t.

The Lemon Tree

Bashir was six during the height of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when his family was forced to flee his stone home in old Palestine and live as refugees in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

And I Walked...Stories From the Border

Much of the Sonoran desert between Tucson and Mexico is a haunting wasteland of discarded shoes, shirts, and empty plastic water jugs, discarded by desparate illegal immigrants who risk their lives as they cross the desert from Mexico into the United States in search of better-paying jobs.