A Story to Save Your Life: Communication and Culture in Migrants' Search for Asylum

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Sarah Bishop

A Story to Save Your Life

Communication and Culture in Migrants' Search for Asylum

Sarah Bishop

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Paperback

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English

Columbia University Press
16 August 2022

Migration, immigration & emigration; Central government policies

A young woman flees violence in Mexico and seeks protection in the United States-only to be trafficked as a domestic worker in the Bronx. A decorated immigration judge leaves his post when the policies he proudly upheld capsize in the wake of political turmoil. A Gambian translator who was granted asylum herself talks with other African women about how immigration officers expect victims of torture to behave. A border patrol officer begins to question the training that instructs him to treat the children he finds in the Arizona desert like criminals.

Through these and other powerful firsthand accounts, A Story to Save Your Life offers new insight into the harrowing realities of seeking protection in the United States. Sarah C. Bishop argues that cultural differences in communication shape every stage of the asylum process, playing a major but unexamined role. Migrants fleeing persecution must reconstruct the details of their lives so governmental authorities can determine whether their experiences justify protection. However, Bishop shows, many factors influence whether an applicant is perceived as credible, from the effects of trauma on the ability to recount an experience chronologically to culturally rooted nonverbal behaviors and displays of emotion. For asylum seekers, harnessing the power of autobiographical storytelling can mean the difference between life and death. A Story to Save Your Life emphasizes how memory, communication, and culture intertwine in migrants' search for safety.

By: Sarah Bishop
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231204095
ISBN 10: 0231204094
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 16 August 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Note on the Cover Art 1. Halted Expectations In Their Own Words: Josh Childress, Former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent 2. Long Stories Short In Their Own Words: Alina Das, Immigration Attorney 3. Emotional Labor In Their Own Words: Ethan Taubes, Asylum Officer Trainer 4. Nonverbal Communication and Credibility In Their Own Words: Dr. Renée Sicalides, Psychologist 5. Deterring Asylum In Their Own Words: Jeffery Chase, Former Immigration Judge 6. The Return In Their Own Words: Rafael, Detained Asylum Seeker Postscript Appendix: Methods and Trauma-Informed Research Design Notes Bibliography Index

Sarah C. Bishop is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Baruch College, City University of New York. She is on the board of directors of Mixteca Organization, a nonprofit that supports immigrant communities in Brooklyn, and she serves as an expert witness in U.S. asylum hearings. She is the author of Undocumented Storytellers: Narrating the Immigrant Rights Movement (2019) and U.S. Media and Migration: Refugee Oral Histories (2016).

Reviews for A Story to Save Your Life: Communication and Culture in Migrants' Search for Asylum

Bishop highlights the problematic ways in which the legal structures for assessing asylum claims ignore, misinterpret, and otherwise skew the narratives asylum seekers must share to qualify for asylum and how this can perpetuate trauma and result in asylum denials of people who should qualify. Bishop provides a unique perspective to this vital discourse. -- Beth Caldwell, Southwestern Law School Bishop invites us into the room where asylum decisions are made. A Story to Save Your Life is a disturbing account of how everyone from asylum seekers to judges tries to communicate across cultural and bureaucratic barriers in a messy process where the consequences of misinterpretation are devastating. -- David Scott FitzGerald, author of <i>Refuge beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers</i>