Wings To Soar by Tina Athaide

Ten-year-old Viva is with her older sister Anna and her Mummy in a refugee camp in England. Viva is Goan and she speaks English, Portuguese, Swahili and Konkani. Her father is still back in Uganda, at their house in the seven hills in Kampala. He is expected to arrive in England in five days. She's left behind many friends and watched as her best friend, Ella fled their country to Canada. The camp is RAF Greenham, an old military base that is being used by the Americans and the Royal Air Force. 

The camp has a common hall for the Indians to play table tennis and cards, listen to records or the news. There is a library run by Mrs. Robinson and her daughter, Miss Robinson. It is in the library where Viva goes to look for a dictionary that she meets the twins, Mark and Maggie Mackay whose mother is a volunteer at the camp. Viva also meets an American soldier named Leroy who notices her singing songs by the Supremes. He calls her Lil' Diana Ross and encourages Viva to be like her idol.

Viva's father is supposed to arrive at Stanstead Airport in the evening. To welcome him, Miss Robinson, Mark and Maggie make a welcome sign. However, he isn't on the plane and Viva and her family are devastated. She and her sister wonder if he's safe, or has been arrested or even dead. For two weeks planes from Uganda continue to arrive but Viva's father is not on them. Viva sneaks to the American side every night to wait at the gate, shivering in the cold and the rain. Anna tells on Viva but she still manages to sneak out again. Unfortunately, Viva becomes seriously ill with bronchitis and mild hypothermia and spends days asleep, recuperating.

When she recovers, Viva learns that her father checked into Entebbe Airport but never boarded his plane. Anna also reveals that they have to leave the RAF camp. Viva and her family learn from Mrs. Robinson that they will be settled in Southall, a borough in the west part of London. It is sixty miles from the RAF camp in Greenham Common and Viva wonders how her father will find them.

Meanwhile Viva continues to look up new words at the library but she also sees from the newspaper headlines that people in Southall do not want more Asians. This upsets Viva, who believes her sister Anna doesn't care about anything but her books. But Mrs. Robinson tells Viva that books offer Anna an escape.

The government begins moving Indians out of RAF Greenham camp into English towns and villages. Viva, who is Catholic, prays to St. Anthony, asking him to find her father. She doesn't want to go to Southall but wants her family to move to Canada as they originally planned.

As their plans do not work out as intended, Viva faces racism and an uncertain future and must draw on her own kind of courage, her "supremeness" to help herself and her family.

Discussion

Wings To Soar is a historical fiction novel set England, from October 1972 to July 1973 during the Ugandan refugee crisis. Ugandan dictator, Idi "Big Dada" Amin ordered the immediate expulsion of about seventy thousand Ugandan Asians, whom he accused of corruption and sabotage, from the country. They were stripped of their citizenship and given only ninety days to leave. The Asians in Uganda had been brought there in 1894 to help build railroads. They stayed in the country and soon were part of the business community and working in the government. Amin believed that they were iin control of the country and taking jobs from African Ugandans. 

In her Author's Note, Athaide, who was born in Uganda but emigrated to England and then Canada, states that sixteen resettlement camps were organized including RAF Greenham Common which was run by the U.S. Air Force. The arrival of so many Ugandans - Asian immigrants - caused social upheaval in England.

In Wings To Soar, Athaide focuses on the refugee experience through the eyes of  ten-year-old Viva Da Silva, a Ugandan Asian who has been forced to flee to England along with her mother and older sister, Anna. Her father remains trapped in Uganda, struggling to make it out before the ninety day deadline. The family's plan is to emigrate to Canada, but they cannot do this until their father arrives in England, meaning that their future is uncertain. Amid this uncertainty, Viva and her family feel fear and and sense of loss while experiencing racism and violence.

 While many English were welcoming of the refugees, many were not. Viva becomes aware of this when she reads the newspapers at the library and when she and her family move to Southall where they experience racial hatred and violence. This feeling of being unwanted and without a home, leaves Viva deeply angry and sad. But Leroy, the American soldier helps to put things in perspective. With a white mom and a black father, Leroy often felt like hiding. His mother told him,

"You get courage

by doing small things

one at a time." 

This helps Viva to find her own "supremeness". She confronts her mother, asking her to tell them the truth about what's going on with their father. And she also find the courage to ask Officer Graham to help find out what has happened to her father, Charlie DaSilva. 

Leroy also gifts Viva with a wing pin, telling her that "When you're down because of your troubles, and you want to fold up your wings, 

"DON'T do it.

Spread those wings wide

                        Soar

                                    high above the skies of gray,

                        Higher

                                    than the storms gathering.

Face life's storms, Viva.

                        Be STRONG.

                        Be COURAGEOUS.

                            

                                        SOAR!"

However, when Viva and her family go to live with the Guptas in Southall, she feels even more overwhelmed because she feels she has no choice and no voice. In the poem, The Colored Girl, Viva expresses how people see her. 

"They don't see me.

All they see is a girl

with skin the color

of dark tea,

with eyes

brown as roasted chestnuts,

with hair as dark as coal.

They don't see me.

They see another refugee

    from Uganda.

        A colored girl."

When a brick is thrown through the front window of their flat, Viva quickly loses hope. But the author also shows that many people were willing to help the refugees through the characters of Mark and Maggie, Leroy and Mrs. Robinson and Miss Robinson. Ultimately, they step up and offer the DaSilva's a safe place to live until the situation with Mr. DaSilva is resolved.

Athaide has crafted a realistic heroine in Viva DaSilva. She is vulnerable, both as a child immigrant and as a daughter missing her father. The hatred she experiences because of her skin colour and her nationality make Viva afraid and humiliated. But she is also determined, resilient and courageous. Viva offers to stay behind to allow her mother and Anna to travel to New York so they can care for their father after he's injured in an accident. And even though she's disappointed at the delay in reuniting with her parents and Anna in the United States, Viva is able to reach out to help another brown girl she meets in the park. That girl, Uma believes she will  never belong because she can't change the color of her skin but Viva tells her that she does belong and that there are people who want her and will help her. To encourage her, Viva gives Uma her treasured wing pin that Leroy gave her, reminding her to soar, to achieve her own dreams.

Wings To Soar is an inspiring refugee story set during a much forgotten historical event, the expulsion of an entire part of the Ugandan population at the direction of a murderous dictator. Although Athaide does show the problems the Ugandan refugees experienced, the story is one of resiliency and hope.

Book Details

Wings To Soar by Tina Athaide
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge Moves       2024

346 pp.