The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You

Without context, the meaning of the book’s title, The Ungrateful Refugee, is ambiguous. Taken at face value, it would express prejudicial Western expectations that refugees ingratiate themselves to acknowledge their indebtedness to their host country. After the reader is acquainted with Nayeri’s perspectives, however, the title takes on a transformed, twofold meaning. The transformed title is at once an ironic critique of Western arrogance and an aspiration: Refugees ought not aim to placate Western demands but should embrace “ungratefulness” by instead focusing on their own capability and self-actualization. Through the stories of herself, her family, and others, Nayeri concludes that an ungratefulness is the ideal mentality for a refugee.

Nayeri divides the refugee experience into five stages, each with its own trials: escape from danger, waiting in camps, the asylum process, assimilation into society, and cultural repatriation. As for the escape, fleeing a home country—fleeing everything familiar—is a decision that circumstances force on refugees. Even if it was a patriarchal theocracy, Iranian life entailed many beautiful things that Nayeri finds herself missing or grieving: people, language, location, culture, food.