City of Refugees

The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town

By: Susan Hartman

Narrated by: Samara Naeymi

Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

For fans of Caste, this intimate portrait of newcomers revitalizing a fading industrial town illuminates the larger canvas of refugee life in 21st century America

Many Americans imagine refugees as threatening outsiders who will steal jobs or be a drain on the economy. But across the country, refugees are rebuilding and maintaining the American Dream. In City of Refugees, journalist Susan Hartman shows how an influx of refugees helped revive Utica, New York, an old upstate manufacturing town that was nearly destroyed by depopulation and arson.

Hartman follows 3 of these newcomers over the course of 8 years as they and their families adjust to new lives in America. There’s Sadia, a bright, spirited Somali Bantu teenager who rebels against her formidable mother; Ali, an Iraqi translator who creates a home with a divorced American woman but is still traumatized by war; and Mersiha, a hard-working and ebullient Bosnian who dreams of opening a café.

They are part of an extraordinary migration of refugees from Vietnam, Bosnia, Burma, Somalia, Iraq, and elsewhere, who have transformed Utica over the past four decades—opening small businesses, fixing up abandoned houses, and adding a spark of vitality to forlorn city streets.

Other Rust Belt cities have also welcomed refugees, hoping to jump-start their economies and attract a younger population. City of Refugees is a complex and poignant story of a small city but also of America—a country whose promise of safe harbor and opportunity is knotty and incomplete, but undeniably alive.

©2022 Susan Hartman (P)2022 Beacon Press

Critic reviews

"Insightful and fascinating . . . will hone and reshape the reader's understanding of the impact of refugees on American society."—Booklist

"Hartman draws an intimate and captivating portrait of the struggle to build new lives while holding on to old values. Readers will gain vital insight into the immigrant experience in America."—Publishers Weekly

"Susan Hartman illuminates the humanity of these outsiders while demonstrating the crucial role immigrants play in the economy—and the soul—of the nation."—Stuart Miller, Los Angeles Times

Vivid portrait of three refugee families

Wonderfully vivid and intimate portrait of the Rust Belt city of Utica, New York, which had lost large percentages of its population, not to mention its vitality and hope for the future, until it began to welcome refugees. Hartman takes us deeply into the lives of three refugees—from Somalia, Iraq, and Bosnia—and their families, their struggles, their joys, and their immense creativity and industriousness as they come to terms with the traumas they’ve endured and make a new life for themselves in America. Samara Naeymi's narration was excellent.