Voices of Refugee Women: Adaptation and Identification

ABSTRACT

Refugees and other displaced people have been the object of much research related to how people are adapting. Few have focused specifically on women even though women and children are by far the majority of refugees in general and especially in Utah. One of the few focused on narratives of newly arrived women refugees. Narratives are an important method for hearing authentic lived experiences versus assuming researchers can know the answers. However, questions arose about how those narratives might change after being in the U.S. for a longer period of time. Eleven refugee women who had been in the U.S. longer than 10 years were interviewed for this study.

Narratives allowed us to present this scholarship in a way that is accessible to anyone. Five themes were found: language, education, family, assistance, and transition. These themes demonstrate both the resilience of the women and the difficulty and complexity of long-term adaptation.