Internment

Set in America in the near-future, Samira Ahmed’s best-selling novel Internment (2019) explores what happens when an American government, controlled by duly-elected far-right extremists, decides in the best interests of the nation’s security to round up Muslim American families and relocate them indefinitely to internment camps.

Told through the eyes of a spirited teenager named Layla Amin, whose family is sent to an internment facility in the arid mountains of central California, the novel examines the impact of the government’s initiative and how a country long defined by its celebration of freedom and diversity can nevertheless imprison innocent Americans, based solely on the racist logic of scapegoating and hate-mongering. Ahmed, a Muslim American born in India, cited the importance of using the genre of Young Adult fiction to introduce her readers to such real-world problems and, more importantly, to show how young people must be the ones to lead the resistance to racism.

Plot Summary

The study guide will use 2019 Hachette Book Group paperback.

At 17, Layla Amin is a typical high school teenager. Her father is a college literature professor and a respected poet; her mother is a chiropractor. Except for nights when Layla slips out after curfew to meet her boyfriend David, Layla is an exemplary teenager. Aware that since the election of a far-right president the country has begun to target Muslim Americans for specific scrutiny, Layla believes that this public policy is just heated rhetoric.

That changes in a single night when government agents come to the Amin house and tell them they have ten minutes to gather what things they can. The government is beginning a program of relocating Muslim Americans to internment facilities, supposedly for the safety of the country. When the Amin family arrives at the first-of-its-kind facility in the desert of central California, Layla sees Camp Mobius for what it is: a prison. The internees’ every move is monitored by surveillance drones; their phones are confiscated; each family is assigned a tiny trailer, itself equipped with surveillance cameras; camp television is programmed only to receive government-approved programming; meals are scheduled; and internees are assigned work duties. The camp Director assures them that the camp will run more effectively if they accept their roles in this new community.

From the beginning, Layla finds the camp repellant. The food is appalling, the living arrangements primitive, the desert dust thick, and the heat unbearable. She misses David profoundly and chafes against the camp as an obvious violation of her civil rights as an American. She befriends a camp guard, Jake Reynolds, who is unsure he agrees with what his government is doing. Jake agrees to help Layla maintain communication with David. Jake secrets David into the camp to meet her. Layla begs David to help get the message out about the camp and to let the world know. She gives him an article she wrote in longhand describing the facility’s conditions, and she wants him to post it to the internet.

Layla meets another internee, Soheil, who is passionate about the immorality of the government camp. Together, they plot to undermine the camp director. They organize a protest for the afternoon the Red Cross will inspect the camp. Rows of kids in the mess hall refuse to get in line for their meal. Soheil makes a dramatic speech about the reasons for the fast until the Director punches him in the face, breaking his nose. Soheil, under the protection of a Red Cross team, is taken to a hospital off-site.

Days pass. Layla hears nothing about Soheil. Jake tells her that her message has found a wide audience on social media and that there is clamoring for an investigation into this government facility. Layla notices protesters now gathered outside the camp gates—among them David and Soheil. Determined now to close the camp, Layla, with the help of Jake and other friends, plans a Gandhi-style silent protest. Internees, all teenagers, will line up in front of the gate in solidarity and together raise their fists high in the air. The peaceful protest, however, sparks a riot, and in the confusion Soheil is killed when he tries to climb over the camp’s electrified fence in a desperate effort to join the internees’ protest.

In the wake of the protest, the Director singles out Layla. She is sent to solitary confinement. Under days of intense interrogation and physical abuse by an increasingly enraged Director, Layla refuses to reveal any of the names of those who helped organize the protest nor any of their future plans. Concerned over such blatant violations of the Geneva Convention—Layla is 17 and considered a minor—Jake himself reports the Director’s behavior, and Layla is released only to find her parents have been taken away.

Layla now organizes a massive camp protest outside the Director’s office and in full view of the phalanx of press outside the main gates. They demand the release of Layla’s parents. Internees, fired up by Layla’s passionate speech, chant that it is time to close the camp. The Director, gun in hand, emerges from his office accompanied by Layla’s parents. He hands them over but threatens immediate disciplinary action if the protestors do not disband. When they refuse, the Director orders the guards to shoot Layla. They refuse. The Director raises his gun and fires, but Jake bravely jumps in front of Layla, taking the bullet. He dies almost immediately.

Within two days the camp is closed. Layla understands she and her parents are free to return to their lives but that they will never be the same again.