Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Outcasts United, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Refugees, Discrimination, and Resilience
Community and Teamwork vs. Division
Leadership and Respect
Discipline, Dedication, and Success
Summary
Analysis
In 1997, around the same time Luma graduates from Smith College, Beatrice Ziaty struggles to survive a civil war in Monrovia, Liberia. Beatrice has a husband and four sons: Jeremiah, Mandela, Darlington, and Erich. Rival armies have destroyed the city, and civilians are often caught in the crossfire. One evening, soldiers break into their home, waving machine guns and demanding money from Beatrice’s husband.
After explaining Luma’s journey to the United States, St. John starts to go into the background of some of the boys who play on the Fugees, like the Ziaty boys. The account of how they arrived in the U.S. is a heartbreaking example of the trauma that so many of these boys have faced.
Themes
Liberia was founded in 1821 by a group of Americans as a colony for freed slaves. After 1857, the freed slaves ruled under their own authority with American backing. This rule came to an end on April 12, 1980, when Samuel Doe killed Liberian president William Tolbert and proclaimed himself its new leader. Doe was a member of the Krahn tribe, which comprised 4 percent of the population, far less than the larger Gio and Mano tribes.
It is also worth noting that each time St. John explains the background of the Fugees and their families, a familiar story is painted: war is ravaging their home country because of war between rival ethnic, religious, or national groups—divisions which are in direct contrast to the unity that the boys are able to find on the soccer field.
Themes
Soon, a Liberian named Charles Taylor began fighting against the new regime, launching a rebellion with 150 soldiers. The groups motto was “Kill the Krahn.” His army grew quickly, augmented by boys whom he armed and drugged. By 1990, Monrovia’s water supply had been cut off, there was no food or medicine, and more than 100,000 Krahn refugees flooded into Ivory Coast. More than 150,000 Liberians died.
St. John emphasizes how these divisions of race, class, ethnicity, and religion only serve to divide people and promote hatred. This again contrasts with the unity and support that the Fugees are able to find across these lines.
Themes
In 1996, Taylor makes another attack on Monrovia and the Krahn who live there, including Beatrice Ziaty and her family. They hide in their house, praying to survive. But when her husband tells the men who barge in that he has no money, they beat him to death while she flees with three of her sons: Jeremiah, Mandela, and Darlington.
The death of Beatrice’s husband and the boys’ father is a shocking introduction to some of the hardships that the refugees face—an instigating incident that leads to a far more prolonged struggle, as well.
Themes
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Beatrice, Jeremiah, Mandela, and Darlington make it out of Monrovia alive, though Beatrice is unable to find Erich. They walk east for ten days, searching for food and hitching rides when they can. They then arrive at an overflowing refugee camp and build a mud hut for shelter. She applies for resettlement by the U.N. They spend five years in the camp before, against all odds, they learn that they have been approved for resettlement in Clarkston, Georgia.
What is perhaps most remarkable about Beatrice’s story is that even amidst the trauma that she and her sons face, they are still considered lucky because they are accepted for resettlement. It prompts unanswerable questions about the fate of the other refugees who might not have been as fortunate.
Themes
Beatrice is given a $3,016 loan by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement for four one-way plane tickets, which she repays in three years. They begin their journey on September 28, 2003, and eventually land in a new home, a two-bedroom dwelling in Clarkston stocked with canned goods and old furniture. Beatrice begins her job search immediately: she only has three months of government financial assistance. She finds a job as a maid at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Atlanta, an hour’s commute by bus from Clarkston.
Here, St. John shows the immense resilience of the refugees. As soon as Beatrice is thrust into a new and completely unfamiliar environment, she works as hard as possible to start supporting her children, despite the fact that she is getting government assistance for the first few months.
Themes
The work is exhausting, and when Beatrice returns on the bus, the streets are unfamiliar. As she tries to remember her way home, a man starts to follow her. He demands she hand over her purse. She gives it up, though it contains her new driver’s license, social security card, work permit, and cash. He runs off. She doesn’t know how to call the police. Another man on the street helps her by calling the police and helping her get home, but the mugger is never found.
Even though the refugees have escaped some of the hardship of their old lives, they are not completely rid of struggle in America, either. St. John provides this and other examples to show how many people target refugees because they are already a vulnerable population.
Themes
The incident robs Beatrice “of the hope her family would be safe in her new home.” Beatrice doesn’t know who to trust, and many of her neighbors don’t speak English. She’d been told by other Liberians she’d met that the police would take her children away if she left them alone, and so she tells the boys to return home immediately after school, lock the door, and stay inside.
Beatrice, along with many other refugees, are forced to contend with new customs and new norms in America, and quickly becomes afraid of the public institutions that are meant to help her. This is why navigating a new home after a crisis is so difficult: it leaves families without any understanding of whom to trust.
Themes
