Relentless - An Immigrant Story

by Wudasie Nayzgi, Kenneth James Howe

ONE WOMAN'S DECADE-LONG FIGHT TO HEAL A FAMILY TORN APART BY WAR, LIES, AND TYRANNY

SOON AFTER RETURNING FROM EXILE to a war-torn Eritrea, a young mother receives a devastating medical diagnosis for her first-born child, and adequate treatment is unavailable inside her own country. But her desperate attempts to find help elsewhere are abruptly thwarted by a new outbreak of fighting initiated by an untested government determined to win at any cost. With her husband forced into conscription, her time and options running out, she must make a fateful decision - remain where she is and jeopardize the life of one child, or flee her beloved homeland, leaving her husband and second daughter behind... possibly forever.

Relentless is the powerful and inspiring story of an Eritrean woman who faced incredible obstacles, defied a ruthless regime, and became an American immigrant success story, all while never giving up fighting for the only thing that really ever mattered: family.

"There is a proverb in my native Tigrinya language,

both warning and admonishment.

It goes like this:

Haki tseraba mot keraba.

It means, if you speak the truth, you will gather many enemies."

The Dreams of Freedom stories One family, two powerful accounts of love, heartbreak, and determination from one of the world's most isolated and abusive governments in modern history.

It's 1991, and a bloody thirty-year conflict with Ethiopia has just ended, earning Eritrea its first taste of freedom in over a century. But peace is a delicate flower, and power is all-too easily corrupting. Soon, the small Horn-of-African nation will find itself at war once again, back in the familiar stranglehold of despotism, except this time it will be at the hands of its own beloved leader and war hero. Families are torn apart, suspicion and desperation grow. Human rights are violated. In the midst of worsening oppression, one man and one woman will risk everything to save their children from this life of violence and give them the future they once imagined for themselves..

~ Relentless - An Immigrant Story by Wudasi Nayzgi and Kenneth James Howe

~ I Will Not Grow Downward - Memoir Of An Eritrean Refugee by Yikealo Neab and Kenneth James Howe

I WILL NOT GROW DOWNWARD - MEMOIR OF AN ERITREAN REFUGEE ONE MAN'S LONG AND PERILOUS FLIGHT FROM AFRICA'S HERMIT KINGDOM

THIRTY YEARS OF BLOODY CONFLICT with a powerful enemy never broke the spirit of the Eritrean people. After winning their freedom from Ethiopia, a young man dreams of starting a new life, building a home, and teaching his children what it means to be the masters of their own fate. But all-too soon, the fighting resumes. Rounded up and forced into conscription, subjected to inhumane treatment, made to serve a despotic leader in an army fighting a war nobody wants, he will have to sacrifice much just for a chance to get back what he lost - his family, his freedom, his birthright. But will it be worth it? Or will he simply lose everything in the end?

I Will Not Grow Downward offers an exceedingly rare glimpse inside the highly secretive and brutally repressive regime known as Africa's North Korea.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

308 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2018

Reviews

[Celia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Country 114 in my World Reading Journey - Eritrea

Oh my goodness, what a story. Wudasie and her family's journey from Eritrea to the US.

Along the way I learned much about Eritrean culture and Eritrean history.

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia only to become a country of people mistreated by their own president, Isaias Afwerki.

I suffered along with the author as she told her story. Very painful and very good.

5 stars

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read Around the World: Eritrea

Wow.

If you ever are in need of a serious attitude adjustment and have become just a little too comfortable in your white privileged, read this book and it will SNAP you back to reality in a heartbeat. What Wudasie and her family has to endure to get first her daughter Titi [who has a heart condition] out of the country to get medical care, to the excruciating amount of time it took to get her second daughter to America and then her husband and the amount of money and danger that changed hands and that they faces is just incredible. Those of us who sit in our houses and comfortable lives have no idea what it is like to try and flee the country you were born in and love all because it is dangerous to live there anymore and your child could die if you stay.

I am amazed at Wudasie's resilience and commitment to her family, both when she lived in Eritrea and again when she comes to the United States - the work she committed to doing to be self-reliant for herself and her daughter and then for the rest of her family is inspiring. Would we all be like that in the face of adversity.

As someone who went through the Immigration process three times [one in going to Brazil and twice with my ex-husband coming to America and then me going to Canada], it is TOUGH coming to the US - the hoops you have to jump through and the money you have to spend is close to criminal. But I agree with the author when she said she would have spent thousands more to be able to be with the ones she loved. Would we all have someone in our lives that would love us like that.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kobo Writing Life for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know when I got this and I don't know why I bought it. I think this was an impulse buy a while ago, but it has been on my list of books to read for several reading challenges, I just never got around to it. 

In this book. Wudasie lives in Eritrea, north of Ethiopia, and the book opens just as the war between the two countries restarts. Wudasie is torn between worried for her country, her husband and her daughter, who was diagnosed with a heart condition right before the war started. The main conflict of this is Wudasie leaving her country with her eldest daughter in order for her to get the heart surgery she needed in America, while her husband and her youngest daughter remained behind in Etritrea. 

I finished this book in one sitting when I was on the train home. The writing style was easy to get through, even if the subject matter was hard to read, and I managed to finish this quickly. Despite knowing how things turned out, I was still with Wudasie as she worried about her daughters and her husband, as they were split up again and again. I felt for her decision to go to America with Titi to get the medical care she needed, care which was not available in her own country, but she had to leave her youngest daughter behind, knowing it would be months before she could see her again. We see the title come up again and again as Wudasie does not stop trying to get her family to safety and together again. Even when her husband seemed defeated and tired of the amount of bureacracy and the bribes they had to do, both in Eritrea and in America, she did not lose her determination to continue on.

Wudasie has a lot going on in her life, not just the lack of safety and security in her own country, but also her and her family's health being in danger several times. I did think this was a very well put-together memoir. We got a good sense of who Wudasie was as a person and we understood why she made some of her decisions even if we may not always agree with them.

Wudasie talked about her culture and how it differed from America and we shared her grief for the country she wanted to call home and how far away Eritrea was from being the country she and her husband had been working towards. It was very well done because Wudasie talked about how it felt to be from Eritrea and she talked a little about the history of her country, helping people like me (Westerners who don't know anything about Eritrea) to understand what they felt about their fragile peace in their country. She talked about how everything started to tighten up and the borders started to close, splitting Wudasie away from her family.

That said, this book covered nearly a decade and sometimes it was jarring, especially when Wudasie focused on certain aspects of the refugee experience, such as not seeing her children for years on end and having to deal with how they had grown up while she wasn't around, and then we skipped to a part where they had gotten past all of that. It was a lot of ground to cover in a fairly short book.

4 stars! 

[Deirdre Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if Ms. Nayzgi ever had a day where she truly believed what she faced was an impossible obstacle. I imagine if I had been in her place, there would have been many, many such days. But if she did, she never let it stop her. That may be what makes this book so compelling. For all the devastating decisions and terrifying events that occurred, Ms. Nayzgi's determination and hope never seem to flag. Too often, it's very easy to avoid tough stories or look away from hard experiences. I hope readers will not do so with this story. There is so much goodness and kindness to be found both in Ms. Nayzgi and her family and in the people who risked a great deal to help them reunite and to help her eldest daughter recover from a truly frightening medical condition. This is a triumphant story and because of Ms. Nayzgi's bright and confident outlook, one that can't help but make a reader have a little more faith in humanity.

[Carla (Carla's Book Bits) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is a proverb in my native Tigrinya language, both warning and admonishment. It goes like this: Haki tseraba mot keraba. It means, if you speak the truth, you will gather many enemies."

Many immigration stories are, sadly, filled with racism and disillusionment. From my own experience as an immigrant, it's not always the most positive experience to be uprooted from a culture you once knew into a brand new one, and learning about racism, etc. You know what I appreciated about this immigrant memoir? That Wudasie focuses on the things that she's gained from all of this. It's been an honor to read Wudasie's immigration story, because she's a woman who wants much for her children. But she's willing to go through a lot of pain to get it, and she's a soul who's deeply appreciative of what she earns.

"Some pains, no matter how hard one tries to forget them, can never be diminished, whether by the passage of time or the richness of circumstance. We learn to live with them. They become a permanent part of us."

I saw a lot of my own mother in Wudasie. They're both women who spearheaded the immigration process for the entire family. This kind of thing takes a lot of bravery, more so than many people realize. I also saw pieces of myself in Wudasie's children; Natsanet's uncertainty that comes with being separated from her mother, and being in a new country.

"Yes, we have a lot of work to be done - more than ever - but no one ever promised it would be easy or quick. A mountain doesn't wear away into the sea in a single year."

This is such a richly personal story, and it hit so many chords with me as an immigrant myself. As I closed the book, I felt a sense of triumph, but thinking about it several hours later, I can't help but wonder what's happening with Wudasie and her family now. They've become so close to me through this story, and I can't keep myself from wishing the best for them. War is tough. Immigration is tough. Many times we have to be tougher, but sometimes we can overcome it.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a review copy of this book.

[Morag Forbes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This autobiography of sorts tells Wudasi’s remarkable story of life in Eritrea after then end of the 30 year war which ended the reign of Ethiopian dictator Emperor Haile Selassie in 1991. Although as she says in the book in many ways her story is unremarkable because so many people are refugees and seeking better futures. This is a story that shows the struggle of leaving your homeland and family. It is a story of fighting for your children, her eldest daughters disability particularly impacted me as a disabled person myself. I know very little about the history of Eritrea so I learnt a huge amount. The start of the book is a bit slow but definitely stick with it.

[Bev Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an enthralling read. I was captured from start to finish and what a journey they took. We take our freedom for granted and protest when the governments tell us to stay home for our own good. We dont know the half of how others in the world have to live. We take it for granted that we take our children to the doctor and all is well, we may have to go to a bigger city but its still in Australia and its still the same language and medicare system I can not imagine having to take my child to another country. Wonderful story

[Denise Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent story on immigration

As a US citizen with an immigrant heritage, having lived in Africa for many years, I found this author’s expressions of bureaucracy in African and the US identifiable. The strength many immigrants possess is amazing and reflected well in this story. The story of the immigrant peoples of the US that should never be forgotten by the generations that follow!

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even with the political climate as it currently is at this time in the United States, we need to be grateful that we live here, rather than in another country where life as we know it does not exist. What Wudasie and her husband , as well as her entire family went though is unbelievable and how she persevered and stayed as strong as she was is remarkable.