God Grew Tired of Us: The arduous journey offers an affirmation of identity

During the Second Sudanese Civil War (1987-2005), all male children in Southern Sudan
became the target of executions regardless of their ages, a group of over 20,000 boys of Nuer and
Dinka ethnic groups had to flee their native country and embark on treacherous journeys to a
Kenyan refugee camp seeking safety. Those children named “Lost Boys of Sudan”, which is
believed to have been initially derived from the children’ story of Peter Pan. There have been a
number of books, films and plays about the Lost Boys, among which is “God Grew Tired of Us”,
written and directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn, a moving 2006 documentary film of young
people overcoming incredible challenges and struggling to improve their own lives and those of
family and friends left behind.
John Bul Dau is one of the three lost boys depicted in “God Grew Tired of Us”. Fleeing
from his villages to escape extermination and sterilization, at the age of thirteen, John became one
of the eldest children and was in charge of over 1,200 children among 25,000 lost boys. Not only
does John become a highly accountable and mature person at the very young age, but he is also
identified as a true son of Dinka ethnic, a Sundanese person. He takes great pride in himself and
his origin that in one scene of the movie, he is parading around Syracuse, New York City in
traditional Sudanese clothes, trying to inform people the situation in Sudan. Notably, he has no
fear to show where he comes from and the culture where he was born. Despite some disguise looks
of other people, he eats every American food with his hands as it shows he is Dinka, and that he
is bringing a part of his old culture back. He desires to affirm his identity as a Dinka person, his
origin and his culture wherever he is.
Furthermore, John’s effort to assert his identity is shiningly illustrated during his migration
journey. Rather than assimilating into a novel community, the personal and social forces allowed
John to become a man of firm stuff, who could care for himself and other lost boys. The very first
change took place when he first ran away from their homes, heading to the refugee camp. At the
age of thirteen, John was from a child of an ordinary family to a matured boy beyond his age, as
one of the oldest children, he had to become a leader of other younger children. How strenuous it
could be that a-thirteen-year-old boy had to take care of other kids, let alone bury other kids died
of starvation with his own hands! From my perspectives, that transformation resulted from a
personal force, his inner longing to survive forced him to be mature so that he could live in the
severest conditions during the migration journey. Moreover, his maturity would let other children
count on him. As the civil war, a social force, he became the eldest child among lost boys, he had
no choice but to grow up turbulently so as he could protect himself and other children.
When living in America, the demand to fit into the American lifestyle drives him to adjust
his ways of life, from a boy born in a “third world” to a man working in America. He gets used to
using electric appliances, going shopping at the supermarket and learning how to support himself
by getting a job, all of which are taken for granted by American but a totally new horizon to John
and other lost boys. His yearning of a prompt adaptation to his new life not only resulted from his
internal desire to change his confined situation but it also from his responsibility of the
resettlement so as to make money and to help people that he left behind.
 But above all, the personal and social forces motivate him to maintain his own cultural
identity. Encountering a different country, he acknowledges the difference between the two
cultures. Moreover, he did not deny his origin, his culture but embrace it. He still wore traditional
Dinka clothes, sang their traditional songs and ate with his bare hands as like his cultural customs
wherever he was. On his immigration journey, John attempted to assert his cultural background,
his identity, and his origin. All in all, both personal and social forces had a heterogeneous impact
on himself, which allowed John to integrate into American life without assimilation as in the end,
all of the forces fueled him to maintain his cultural identity.
Besides, “God Grew Tired of Us” is clearly illustrated the idea that identities are a social
construction, which is created through communication in the context of our social world, histories,
and relationships that even the most “mundane” things have their own meanings (Baldwin et al.,
2014, pp. 95-96). His identity is not only revealed in the way he talked, the way he dressed but
also the way he ate. In the documentary, he is criticizing young Sudanese at a Lost Boys meeting
he held as these boys forgot their culture, abandoned their old clothing and started to dress and talk
more like typical American teenagers. The identities are also expressed through communication.
In order to notify American people the problem in Sudan, John Bul Dau tried to talk to American
in his neighborhood and eventually, he endeavored to form a united delegation so as to represent
the problem in Sudan to the White House.
In conclusion, “God Grew Tired of Us” brilliantly addressed so touchy an issue as the
struggle of the young boy to affirm his identity in a new environment, swallowing his anxiety and
loneliness.
REFERENCE:
Baldwin, J. R., Coleman, R. R. M., González, A., & Shenoy-Packer, S. (2014). Intercultural
Communication for Everyday Life. John Wiley & Sons.
Quinn, C. (2007). God grew tired of us. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.