Australia - Rabbit-Proof Fence

Book #8: Rabbit-Proof Fence: The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time - Doris Pilkington

"The remarkable true story of three young girls who cross the harsh Australian desert on foot to return to their home.

Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up by whites and taken to settlements to be assimilated. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, award-winning author Doris Pilkington traces the captivating story of her mother, Molly, one of the three young girls uprooted from her community in Southwestern Australia and taken to the Moore River Native Settlement. At the settlement, Molly and her relatives Gracie and Daisy were forbidden to speak their native language, forced to abandon their aboriginal heritage, and taught to be culturally white. After regular stays in solitary confinement, the three girls, scared and homesick, planned and executed a daring escape from the grim camp, with its harsh life of padlocks, barred windows, and hard cold beds. 

The girls headed for the nearby rabbit-proof fence that stretched over 1,000 miles through the desert toward their home. Their journey lasted over a month, and they survived on everything from emus to feral cats, while narrowly avoiding the police, professional trackers, and hostile white settlers. Their story is a truly moving tale of defiance and resilience."

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I chose this book because I was interested to read about the similarities between the treatment of aboriginal Australians and Native Americans. Both Australia and the United States have a history that includes kidnapping indigenous children and sending them to "schools" to be assimilated into white culture. 

I also found myself comparing this book to the last book I read - The Hundred-Year Walk. Both tell the true stories of people who were forced from their homelands, and their struggle to return. But this one, unfortunately, was a much harder read - in that it jumped around from one topic to the next, the flow just wasn't there. It was difficult to get into this book. The first section is an odd history of the aboriginal people that's disjointed and doesn't seem to connect to the story of the three girls. Once you get to their story, the book picks up. But even at 135 pages, I had to force myself to keep returning to this book and get through it.  

Armenia - The Hundred-Year Walk

Book #7: The Hundred-Year Walk: An Armenian Odyssey - Dawn Anahid MacKeen

"An epic tale of one man's courage in the face of genocide and his granddaughter's quest to tell his story. 

In the heart of the Ottoman Empire as World War I rages, Stepan Miskjian's world becomes undone. He is separated from his family as they are swept up in the government's mass deportation of Armenians into internment camps. Gradually realizing the unthinkable - that they are all being driven to their deaths - he fights, through starvation and thirst, not to lose hope. Just before killing squads slaughter his caravan during a forced desert march, Stepan manages to escape, making a perilous 6-day trek to the Euphrates River carrying nothing more than 2 cups of water and 1 gold coin. In his desperate bid for survival, Stepan dons disguises, outmaneuvers gendarmes, and, when he least expects it, encounters the miraculous kindness of strangers. 

The Hundred-Year Walk alternates between Stepan's saga and another journey that takes place a century later, after his family discovers his long-lost journals. Reading this rare firsthand account, his granddaughter Dawn MacKeen finds herself first drawn into the colorful bazaars before the war and then into the horrors Stepan later endured. Inspired to retrace his steps, she sets out alone to Turkey and Syria, shadowing her resourceful, resilient grandfather across a landscape still rife with tension. With his journals guiding her, she grows ever closer to the man she barely knew as a child. Their shared story is a testament to family, to home, and to the power of the human spirit to transcend the barriers of religion, ethnicity, and even time itself."

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As I read this book, I was repeatedly struck by how important it is. Important, because the Armenian genocide is not well-known. It's not taught in American schools, at least not commonly. It's not even officially recognized by the US government. I consider myself to be more informed than the average American. I'm certainly more educated. And yet, I am ashamed to say that I didn't even know Armenia was a country until I moved to Los Angeles and met an Armenian named Suzie. I remember very clearly the day she took me over to an atlas and showed me Armenia on a map (right after I'd asked her what country Armenia was in). I was 26 years old, and I don't think I'd ever felt quite so ignorant. There I was, an adult with two graduate degrees, looking at a map as if for the first time. I certainly wasn't aware there was such a thing as an "Armenian genocide." 

In Los Angeles, there's a large and vibrant Armenian community. They hold a huge march down Hollywood Boulevard every year on April 24th, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. It's difficult to miss if you live there, but very easy to miss if you don't. Which brings me back to the importance of this book. If we believe that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it (and I do), then it is essential that the stories of those who survived are told. And that we hear them. Particularly since the Turkish government still actively insists that the genocide never happened. Their version of the truth must be met with the truths told by the Armenians who were there - who witnessed it, who experienced it, who suffered, who saw what happened, and who lived to tell about it. 

This book is hard. Genocide is not a pleasant topic. But it's also a story of hope and family and triumph over pure evil. And, most importantly, it's a true story about the Armenian genocide. 

Argentina - The Secret in Their Eyes

Book #6: The Secret in Their Eyes - Eduardo Sacheri

"Benjamín Chaparro is a retired detective still obsessed by the brutal, decades-old rape and murder of a young married woman in her own bedroom. While attempting to write a book about the case, he revisits the details of the investigation. As he reaches into the past, Chaparro also recalls the beginning of his long, unrequited love for Irene Hornos, then just an intern, now a respected judge."

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That's a terrible summary. Absolutely terrible. Not inaccurate, I suppose, but had I not done further research into what the book is actually about, I certainly would never have selected it based on that information. More than the above, it's about the political realities of Argentina in the 1970s and early 80s. Chaparro is not really a detective. He's an administrative clerk in the federal judiciary, who coordinates with local detectives and oversees criminal cases in Buenos Aires. One of his cases becomes personal, and it weaves through his entire career - causing great upheaval, both emotional and physical - to many people in Chaparro's life. It's an entertaining read, though it does lag a bit in places. And while the main storyline - the rape and murder of a young woman and the resulting police investigation - unfortunately could be moved to any location, the storyline takes twists and turns that are decidedly unique to the political climate of Argentina at the time.