November 22, 2009
UTNE READER

Utne Reader Book Reviews: July-August 2008

(Page 2 of 2)

July-August 2008
by Staff, Utne Reader 
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Asylum Denied: A Refugee’s Struggle for Safety in America
by David Ngaruri Kenney and Philip G. Schrag (University of California)
We all ought to have a better sense of the tangled, barbarous process to which our government subjects refugees and asylum applicants, and Asylum Denied is a rare page-turner on the subject. David Ngaruri Kenney writes with elegance and composure about his attempts to gain asylum in the United States after being imprisoned, tortured, and harassed for his political actions in Kenya. The legal twists and turns he and Philip G. Schrag, his immigration lawyer, relate are absolutely maddening—John Ashcroft’s post-9/11 “reforms” required the Board of Immigration Appeals to zip through its 55,000-case backlog in six months, the equivalent of each board member deciding one case every 15 minutes—and Kenney is candid about the rest of his life as well, offering plenty of funny, bright moments in this rousing call to action. —Danielle Maestretti

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Black Glasses Like Clark Kent: A GI’s Secret from Postwar Japan
by Terese Svoboda (Graywolf)
How do we not repeat history, if it’s a mass grave of secrets? In 2004, when Abu Ghraib entered the national shamescape, Don Svoboda stumbled into depression, later killing himself. The bad news from Baghdad may have triggered memories of his service after World War II at a prison for American GIs in Japan. Using stories Don committed to tape, his niece, author Terese Svoboda, resolved to unearth her uncle’s war. Connecting the dots cut a twisting route from ambiguous memory to incomplete records, all circling the never-definitively-answered question: Were African American GIs executed in Japan? Read Black Glasses Like Clark Kent quickly to ease your irritation with some of Svoboda’s literary touches (for example, solemn etymologies), but try shrugging off the history she dredges up. It isn’t easy. —Michael Rowe

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