Lesson 2: Refugees: The Historical Context
IN THIS LESSON YOU WILL:
Examine the root causes of 5 modern refugee crises
Consider the responses of the country or countries in question to its refugee crisis
Evaluate the response of the global community to each refugee crisis
Compare and contrast the similarities and differences between each case study
Directions:
View and read through Refugees: The Historical Context Part III at your own pace or watch and listen to a recorded version of the presentation.
After viewing, answer the following question either on your own or in the course reflection journal.
In Part III: Post World War II to the Present, you learned about 5 more modern refugee crises. What were the root causes of each crisis? What was the response to each crisis both by the country or countries in question and the world as a whole? In what ways and to what extent do you see commonalities amongst the case studies? What differences do you see?
-
1. United Nations and Decolonization
This is an interactive timeline detailing the United Nations' work in decolonization.
2. The Brutal 'Great Migration' That Followed India's Independence and Partition
This is a photo essay detailing the scale of human migration following the partition of India and Pakistan.
3. Partition 70 Years On: The Turmoil, The Trauma, and The Legacy
This article from the BBC discusses the history of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, including the ongoing modern conflict over Kashmir.
4. Haunted By Unification: A Bangladeshi View of Partition
The author of this article intersperses historical information as well as the personal experiences of his family as he shares the Bangladeshi's perspective of the partition of India and Pakistan and the 1971 war that led to the independence of Bangladesh.
5. Vietnamese Boat People in Hong Kong
A collection of images and oral histories from Vietnamese refugees who arrived in Hong Kong. The website was created by a PhD candidate.
6. Resettling Vietnamese Refugees in the United States
This lesson from National Geographic Education contains a 4 minute video that features the story of one Vietnamese refugee and a historian's perspective of President Gerald Ford's response to the Vietnamese refugee crisis.
This is an article summarizing the waves of immigration from Cuba to the US following the Cuban Revolution. The article accompanies PBS's American Experience documentary on Fidel Castro.
8. "A Makeshift Raft Speaks to the Risks Cubans Took to Escape from Their Homeland"
This article from the Smithsonian Museum discusses a makeshift boat that 2 men used in the 1990s to escape from Cuba. The boat is part of the collection at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum.
9. 20 Years After the 1994 Cuban Raft Exodus
This photo essay, published in The Atlantic in 2014, commemorates the exodus itself and features photos and brief stories of people who arrived in the US via those rafts.
10. Cuban Immigration After the Revolution, 1959-1973
This is a collection of primary source documents related to Cuban immigration from the Digital Public Library of America.
11. BBC Sudan Profile - Timeline
A brief timeline of events in Sudan from 1881 to 2019.
12. The Sudan Crisis Explained
This article, published by the UNHCR, explains what has happened in Sudan since 2019.
The Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a variety of resources linked on this page that explain the history of the crisis in Sudan and that explain the present crisis.
14. Palestine and Israel: Mapping an Annexation
Aljazeera explains the shifting boundary lines between Palestine and Israel in a series of maps. These maps help to explain the historical context of the current crisis in Gaza.
15. Israel Gaza War Explained: History of the Conflict Explained
The BBC gives an overview of the context of the current crisis in Gaza.