There may be 20 million refugees around the world today. For many, their search for freedom ends in camps in countries of first asylum. There they wait for offers of permanent resettlement in the West. This book explores how two countries traditionally noted for their humanitarian treatment of refugees have responded to the refugee crisis of the 1980s and 90s, how they have recast their admission criteria, developed reception policies and constructed resettlement programmes.

This edited volume brings together scholars from various disciplines to discuss how language is used by, for, and about refugees in the United States in order to deepen our understanding of what ‘refugee’ and ‘resettlement’ mean. The main themes of the chapters highlight: the intersections of language education and refugee resettlement from community-based adult programs to elementary school classrooms; the language (of) resettlement policies and politics in the United States at both the national level and at the local level focusing on the agencies and organizations that support refugees; the discursive constructions of refugee-hood that are promulgated through the media, resettlement agencies, and even the refugees themselves. This volume is highly relevant to current political debates of immigration, human rights, and education, and will be of interest to researchers of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology, and cultural studies.