Human Rights and Wrongs: Reluctant Heroes Fight Tyranny

by Adrianne Aron

• • • WINNER — 2017 SUNSHOT BOOK PRIZE™ FOR NONFICTION • • •A gift of truth for a generation of Dreamers, a vault of memories for their parents, and a record of shame, pride, sorrow, humor, and forgotten fact for a nation of immigrants.One comes away from Human Rights and Wrongs knowing more about motivation, fear, risk-taking, and problem solving than when one began. But more than that, one knows more about the conditions of oppression that force people from all over—Central America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, North Africa—to flee their countries, and the conditions of human support and solidarity that help them rebuild shattered lives. Dr. Aron’s book is both instructive and uplifting, and a fierce rebuke to anti-immigrant voices booming across our spacious skies.

Genres: Nonfiction

134 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2018

Reviews

[Kenneth Hardcastle]

This nonfiction title takes the form of 12 anecdotes from the life of the author, a liberation psychologist. She studies and assists disadvantaged populations, most specifically in this book refugees with related trauma. Her goal is usually to interpret and explain the experiences of her clients in a way that a court composed of privileged people will understand.

The stories were transformative and compelling. I enjoyed the through-line of the book, with the last story verging into memoir with the author’s experience in a harrowing situation - though not, she notes, anywhere near as awful as those her clients have lived through, or people from their countries experience daily. The book is concise, accessible, and while necessarily political, not partisan. Much like Ms. Aron’s court role, this book helps to humanize what happens to refugees, why they leave their countries, and why they deserve a chance here.