71 pages • 2 hours read
Mawi AsgedomOf Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Key Figures
Mawi
Against all odds, Mawi Asgedom, the author and protagonist of this memoir, manages to go from destitute Ethiopian refugee to Harvard graduate, becoming an esteemed member of American society.
Mawi is the second eldest of the Asgedom children, and he looks up to his older brother Tewolde greatly. When Tewolde is killed by a drunk driver, his death has a profound effect upon Mawi. Several years later, Mawi’s father Haileab is also tragically killed by a drunk driver, marking another death in Mawi’s life that changes the contours of Mawi’s existence and perspective. Mawi’s story is mostly one of triumph, but it is rife with tragedy.
Mawi’s story pieces together many disparate elements to give a holistic portrait of what it is like to grow up as a refugee in America. Family relationships, schoolyard trials, high school–the reader is given a window into these intimate scenes, thereby embedding an even deeper sense of empathy in the reader for the plight of refugees.
The bulk of this story is told through Mawi’s eyes as a young child. Given that part of Mawi’s mission in writing this book is to give a voice to the voiceless, he doubly accomplishes that goal by elevating the voice of a refugee child, when children are so often silenced in this kind of story, and in life in general.
Haileab
The father of the family, Haileab was a respected doctor in Africa, but in America he is reduced to working as a janitor, which takes an emotional toll on him. Nonetheless, Haileab, with his characteristic resilience and strength, manages to persevere and help his family achieve their goals. Haileab is also known to be a strict disciplinarian, a skilled dancer, and a fantastic storyteller. He is a healer, though he is humbled by his “beetle” station in life when he arrives in America. Haileab dies before Mawi graduates Harvard, but remains hugely influential in Mawi’s life.
In a story with so many tragic variables, Haileab has some notable semi-humorous moments in the book, mainly due to some cultural misunderstandings as Haileab assimilates to life in America. Two examples of this are Haileab referring to prison as “the house of imprisonment” throughout the text, and him not realizing that burning leaves is illegal.
Tewolde
The eldest brother in the family, Tewolde is one of Mawi’s greatest inspirations. When Tewolde is a senior in high school, he is killed by a drunk driver, just like his father will be.
Tewolde and Mawi, being very close in age, are close companions throughout their early childhood: they play on the schoolyard together, they trick-or-treat together, they play basketball together. It is no wonder, then, that Tewolde’s death is a major event in Mawi’s life, and part of the reason Mawi decides to write his autobiography in the first place: to share the stories of refugees in general, and also to share the personal story of his brother.
Mawi finds Tewolde’s industriousness perhaps his most inspiring quality. Long after Tewolde’s death, Mawi continues to keep Tewolde’s business card for Tewolde’s cleaning business, called ProClean, in his wallet, as a reminder to work hard.
Tsege
Mawi’s mother Tsege is a strong yet quiet presence in this book. The reader learns of her incredible strength in great detail in Chapter 9, when Tsege tells the story of her and her children’s flight from Ethiopia, travelling on foot to meet Haileab in Sudan.
In the author Q&A, on page 160, Mawi mentions that, because his mother is alive (unlike Tewolde and Haileab), there were some privacy concerns when writing about her in-depth.
Mehret
Mehret is Mawi’s youngest sister and, like Tsege, she is a quiet female presence in the book. Through Mehret, the reader learns of some cultural differences in the way Ethiopian women vs. men are treated, standards that are vastly different from American ones.
Mulu & Hntsa
Mulu is Mawi’s half-sister, who is older than the rest of the children, having been born by a different woman before Haileab met Tsege. Mulu is nonetheless family, and part of the reason why the family delays their journey to the United States. Hntsa is the Mawi’s youngest brother, and the only member of the family born in the United States.
