In How Dare the Sun Rise by Sandra Uwiringiyimana readers are able to see the protagonist, Sandra, transition between social classes through her moving to America. While living in the Congo, through Sandra’s young eyes there is not much economic or social diversity. She grew up in a small village where, by North American standards, they were quite poor and did not have many resources. However, that was the only life Sandra had ever known, and everyone around her lived the same lifestyle. Sandra’s family and their neighbours did not seem bothered by not having a luxurious lifestyle. They all supported each other and were not focused on social hierarchies or economic differences. The first sign readers get of social classes is when Sandra’s family are forced to flee to the refugee camp. As Sandra’s family attempted to go to the refugee camp, they were stopped and attacked by the Congolese people (2017, pg. 63). This memory gives readers an insight into how Sandra’s cultural group were somehow of a lower social class than other groups in that region.

The greatest way the text looks at social and economic class is through the comparisons of Sandra’s life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Other than through movies and books, Sandra’s family did not really know anything other than their life in the Congo, and their assumptions of life in America were highly glamourized. When they finally did arrive in America, they were automatically in a lower class, and economic diversity was very evident. Sandra states “I didn’t have to be a genius to notice that the white-people neighborhood was much nicer than our neighborhood” (2017, pp.138-139). Relatively quickly Sandra starts to notice the inequalities based on race. She had just moved from a country where her cultural group were under genocidal attack. She was not unaware of being discriminated against because of a part of her identity, but the racial issues in America were unknown to Sandra and her family.

The book works as a piece of activism to raise awareness of the violence occurring in many African countries, and also to raise awareness of the facts of being a refugee coming into America. The current belief of many people in Canada and America is that refugees are an inconvenience to our current society. This belief is a highly conservative/right wing belief and is what is being perpetuated by current world leaders. This text acts against that and challenges these belief systems. Sandra’s book has a more democratic stance. Sandra uses her personal experiences to shed light on the horrors she faced, and fight for the rights of others in similar positions to her. She is fighting against the belief that refugees are just trying to steal away jobs. Moving to America caused Sandra to be subjected to even more discrimination (due to her race), be placed into a lower economic and social class, and be separated from the life the she knew and loved. How Dare the Sun Rise fights against the discriminatory stances being spread across North America currently.