'Just black sometimes', part 2: reflections on an adolescent's journey

In this second article about work at a refugee centre for unaccompanied minors in Berlin, the author discusses his encounter with Syrian and Afghani adolescents who were enrolled in the program. Issues around adaptation to a new culture are explored with attention to the dynamics of conformity and marginalization. The questions of what happens to adolescent refugees separated from their families, and how their identity formation is shaped by this burden is explored in relation to the author's meeting with a Syrian adolescent living in Berlin. To illustrate the long reach of a missing father who has been left behind, characters from Virgil's Aeneid are discussed to amplify heroic and spiritual aspects within father-son relationships. The interplay between needing help and allowing for resilience is explored as an important aspect of refugees' transitions, while also considering variables such as dependence and independence, foreign and familiar, being with or without family, and adjusting to the present and/whilst relating to the past; tensions between these alternatives can create various psychosocial challenges for adolescent refugees.