A few words on the term "refugee"

[Mercy!]

I'm a dust bowl refugee,

Just a dust bowl refugee,

From that dust bowl to the peach bowl,

Now that peach fuzz is a-killin' me.

'Cross the mountains to the sea,

Come the wife and kids and me.

It's a hot old dusty highway

For a dust bowl refugee.

 

Hard, it's always been that way

, Here today and on our way

Down that mountain, 'cross the desert,

Just a dust bowl refugee.

 

We are ramblers, so they say,

We are only here today,

Then we travel with the seasons,

We're the dust bowl refugees.

From the south land and the drought land,

Come the wife and kids and me,

And this old world is a hard world

For a dust bowl refugee.

 

Yes, we ramble and we roam

And the highway that's our home,

It's a never-ending highway

For a dust bowl refugee.

 

Yes, we wander and we work

In your crops and in your fruit,

Like the whirlwinds on the desert

That's the dust bowl refugees.

 

I'm a dust bowl refugee,

I'm a dust bowl refugee,

And I wonder will I always

Be a dust bowl refugee?

 

-Woody Guthrie (1938)

[SpringfieldFan]

For what its worth, we had a young Mississippi lady who fled Katrina talk to us at a church meeting. She had nothing but what she was wearing and her 3 year old son and was grateful for her life and the spirit she saw in the victims and help that came together throughout the ordeal. Anyway, she addressed this issue. She said she hated the term refugee (for reasons similar to those voiced here). In fact, the didn't like the term "evacuees" because that implied they had a place to go back to, when in many cases they simply didn't. The term she thought was most accurate was "displaced" because that is simply what happened to all these people.

 

SFF

[Heads22]

I got an idea............go to this website........

www.redcross.org

.........and donate money or find something useful to do to help this situation rather than squabble on a message board about the defenition of a f***ing word.

/rant over.

[LosMediasBlancas]

I got an idea............go to this website........

www.redcross.org

.........and donate money or find something useful to do to help this situation rather than squabble on a message board about the defenition of a f***ing word.

/rant over.

 

 

LMAO.

[maggliopipe]

Per Dictionary.com:

 

an individual seeking refuge or asylum; especially : an individual who has left his or her native country and is unwilling or unable to return to it because of persecution or fear of persecution (as because of race, religion, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion)

 

 

 

Was this an authorized reproduction of their copyrighted material?

[Mercy!]

Ah, DP’s! That term has its own historical baggage, too, doesn’t it?

 

Thanks for a more personal take on this issue. Springfield. I’ve been a little surprised to hear reports that some victims didn’t appreciate being called refugees. I still suspect most care more about the quality of the nation’s response to this crisis than what name gets hung on them.

 

In general, I believe that words DO matter and that people should be able to name themselves. Whenever something like this arises, it always seems to be those who are not in the group under discussion who are the most vociferous in discussing the “proper” terminology.

 

In this case, however, (and more in response to the thread-starter) I don’t see some big media conspiracy. I still haven’t been able to get my mind totally around the scope of this disaster, but when I first started hearing the term “refugee,” I began to understand better what was unfolding in our country.