{"id":1194,"date":"2018-12-31T16:09:53","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1194"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:09:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:09:53","slug":"texas-reads-archiveglenn-dromgoole-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1194","title":{"rendered":"Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

1.21.2018\u00a0\u00a0 Author compiles stories of refugees in Texas<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Dr. Daina Jurika-Owen has published an impressive book,<\/span> Ten Cultures, Twenty Lives: Refugee Life Stories<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Amaya Books, $16.89 paperback), consisting of first person stories of refugees who made a new life for themselves in Abilene, Texas.<\/p>\n

Jurika-Owen, who is from Latvia in Eastern Europe, worked for nine years with a refugee resettlement agency in Abilene, so she got to know hundreds of refugees on a personal level. As she helped them get settled and find jobs, she listened to their stories and decided they needed to be compiled in a book.<\/p>\n

The book includes stories by refugees from several African countries as well as Iraq, Cuba, and Nepal. African cultures represented in the book include Liberia, Rwanda, the Big Congo, and Burundi.\u00a0 Their stories seem especially relevant given the recent developments in U.S. immigration policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cRefugees and their stories are close to my heart,\u201d Jurika-Owen writes. \u201cWhile each story is unique, it also shares many traits with other refugee stories, such as a happy childhood, a good life before the conflict or war, flight and loss, life in a refugee camp or asylum country, the resettlement process, coming to the U.S., and the new life in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Dime Box?<\/span> Actor Tom Hanks<\/span> makes an obscure reference to tiny Dime Box, Texas, in his new collection of short fiction, Uncommon Type: Some Stories<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Knopf, $26.95 hardcover).<\/p>\n

In a story about a father and son going surfing at Mars Beach (\u201cWelcome to Mars\u201d), the father says to his son, \u201cYou ever been to the upper floors of the Chrysler Building?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn New York City?\u201d the son asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d the father replies sarcastically, \u201cDime Box, Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wonder how Tom Hanks knows of Dime Box. I e-mailed the publisher, and received a reply from the publicist that she didn\u2019t know and Hanks was too busy with the opening of his new movie, The Post,<\/span> to answer e-mails.<\/p>\n

Hanks spoke at the Texas Book Festival in November and took some questions from the crowd. I watched a video, but if anyone asked about the Dime Box connection, it wasn\u2019t on the segment I saw. However, I did see Hanks help a man in the audience pop the question to his girlfriend on stage. That was quite a memorable marriage proposal.<\/p>\n

Hanks\u2019s stories, by the way, have a common link. They all mention a typewriter in one way or another, and pictures of Hanks\u2019s own manual typewriters (he collects them) are interspersed throughout the book.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> has been writing his Texas Reads column since 2002, focusing on Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 1.21.2018\u00a0\u00a0 Author compiles stories of refugees in Texas Dr. Daina Jurika-Owen has published an impressive book, Ten Cultures, Twenty Lives: Refugee Life Stories (Amaya Books, $16.89 paperback), consisting of first person stories of refugees who made a new life for themselves in Abilene, Texas. Jurika-Owen, who is from Latvia in Eastern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}