In Exile or Refuge - Why America is Not Home?

In the process, in those three months, I stumbled upon many things and this extract is from a series that I wrote in those sweltering summer months.
It is a collection of interviews, thoughts and analysis...veering from one point to another just as how our thoughts do. But everything is as I saw it, through my eyes...through the eyes of an immigrant who could relate with the fear, the language barrier and the color and the isolation.
A shorter version of this piece was published in the newspaper later on.

REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT- the roadblocks

It was a hot Saturday afternoon. Brazil was playing Australia in soccer world cup. Five of them huddled in front of the small TV in the two-bedroom apartment at 109 Nielson St. The Somali Bantus were hooked to the game. The year was 2006 and it was summer in Utica.
Two more came in to watch the game. And while the players kicked and the audience cheered, Jeylani Hassan and Amjad spoke about their lives in Utica.
"We hang out together...the Somalis. This is a strange country. We have heard people have guns here," said Hassan, who came to St' Louis in 2004 from a refugee camp in Kenya.
The Somali Bantus stick to each other.
Utica is home to many such ethnic groups fleeing the war in their countries. The Mohawk Valley Refugee Resource Center, since its inception in 1979, has resettled around 11,000 refugees in Utica.
The refugees from at least 23 different countries in 27 years that the refugee center has been in existence have changed the social fabric of Utica.

UTICA - the downfall and the revival

When the city of Utica got onto its feet, it did so because the refugees stayed.
At one point the bumper stickers read, "Would the last person to leave Utica please turn out the lights". 65,000 remained in the city to turn on the lights every evening.
Out of these, 15,000 had come from all over the world through the refugee center. In other words, Utica survived. And it did so because the refugees pumped new blood into the staggering economy.
Thousands of the city dwellers had migrated to the south. The population had already halved when the revival began. Slowly, the economy felt the surge of blood. The new hair salons, coffee shops and Bosnian restaurants pumped energy into the staggering economy.
With all this Utica's identity too underwent a cosmetic change. From being a manufacturing town that was an important contributor to the American industrial growth, it became a town of refugees.
Already, it was home to many immigrants who arrived in the 19th century from Europe and parts of Middle East. Germans, Poles and Italians had all been living here before the new groups came in. These came from all over the world, bringing in their own experiences, cultures and identities. And the one entity that changed Utica's face is the refugee center.
Utica has been through rough times. Companies shut down and there were lay-offs. The town changed. Life changed. But refugees kept pouring in...at least till the twin towers were struck.

The shards from 9/11...barriers to integration

It changed a lot of things. It shut off people. The task became uphill for the refugee center. There were substantial cuts in funding.
The definition of resettlement changed and it demanded the community became open to the newcomers and the newcomers shed their inhibitions too.
Attitudes changed and the fear introduced by 9/11 if the 'others' seeped in peoples' minds and they started closing in. On part of refugees too, there was a fear of the strangers and they stuck to each other. There were language issues, there were cultural barriers, there was the color factor and there was the 'others" factor fueled by 9/11 and added to by the outsourcing debate and peoples' ideas that refugees were a drain on America's resources.
9/11 made things difficult not just for the people but for the refugee center. There were massive staff cuts because funding was reduced considerably because of new security acts. Also, the refugees were too different in their ways. The local community did not how to interact with some of them.
One other development took place. Refugee center started getting a diverse range of refugees at this time. In a small town ravaged by unemplyment and economic decline, the city was not equipped to handle such varied groups such as Somalis and Burmese refugees.
Bosnians, who had come in earlier, were a different case. They were familiar with the western way of life, wore the same clothes and had the same habits and looked similar...white, blue-eyed. The refugee center, despite its efforts, felt the pressure. This meant it had to provide interpreters, get counselers, get more help in fact. And the biggest challenge lied in integrating these people who looked different and came from vastly different cultures with the local community that was still not able to forget 9/11.
But these people were there. Interactions outside these groups are limited to waving at others or a curt greeting at the workplace. America sacers them too. What if they are deported to the war-torn countries that they fled from. No more nightmares, they must have thought and so played it safe. And there was another side to it too. They did not want to forget their heritage so clung to it with all that they could.
Not just the Somali Bantus but other refugee groups too such as the Arkanis Burmese who feel that in order to retain their identities, culture and language they must be with their own people.
Integration is a desirable goal for the refugee center, one that its mission statement encompasses - "Many Cultures, One Community". But there are too many hurdles.
The numbers of refugees coming into the city dropped suddenly after the government passed the Patriot Act and the Material Support Provision, which makes screening very strict and thus limits the number of refugees coming into United States.
Branching out into providing different services and exploring new opportunities for generating revenue for its survival became imperative for the refugee center. The focus of the refugee center changed too.
Now, they were not just concerned with bringing in refugees and resettling them but fostering a dialogue between various groups and with the local community in order to bridge in the divide.
"We are moving into a new phase. We have redirected our efforts at starting conversation. We have begun to look at our relationship," said Peter Vogelaar, executive director of the refugee center. "They are struggling to deal with the demons of the past, the horrific experience of their lives."
Vogelaar said it was essential for the local community to understand where these people were coming from and how important it was to integrate them with the society. Fear, introduced by 9/11, could build barriers to conversation, to understand and to live side by side.
"That conversation got stunted after 9/11," he said. "Often times the responses come from fear. We have to try to build awareness," he said.
The refugee center started various fee-based programs to reach to the local community and make them aware of their new neighbors and their backgrounds. For example, the culture competency program that tells people at workplace how to interact with refugees and to make them understand why these groups act the way they do.
"Every new refugee group has its own set of challenges. They have different concepts.
"We have to be more creative as we go on," Vogelaar said, referring to various changes that are changing the refugee center's role in the community.
One of the new strategies toward generating revenue is to provide interpreters to hospitals. Having as much as 15 percent of the population that is just refugees, all the organizations have to gear up to the challenges of servicing such a large and diverse client base. Language is one big barrier and also an opportunity for the refugee center to keep the money flowing and the work continuing.
Staff cuts were normal. Once, the first floor of the old school building on Clark Street housed three employment offices and even then they could not deal with the number of refugees who required placement. Now, Brian Couzelis, Shelly Callahan and Sidi are the only three fulltime employment officers and yet there isn't enough work to keep them on their toes.
Couzelis said the refugee center underwent some massive undercuts as a result of the less number of refugee arrivals.
"The pot of money is smaller," Callahan said.
But the challenges are more. The Bosnians and the East Europeans that came in during the 1970s did not require special attention. They were used to a life that was westernized and were already familiar with certain way of living.
But Somalis lived in huts and had never seen electricity. They lived nomadic lives. The Burmese have an entirely different culture. They are not used to the life as it is lived here.

A new life and getting used ot it

When Khet Khet, a Burmese refugee, first saw a girl and a boy kissing on the street in Utica, she was shocked. She said how it seemed strange to her. That was just the beginning.
For Burmese, who recently arrived in Utica to escape the persecution at the hands of the military junta that took control of Myanmar, adjusting to the new environment where live-in relations are not uncommon is difficult.
In the living room at 109 Addington St., men sat in the main hall, while the women sat in the other section, clearly demarcated from the hall by a half wall. They speak but only from where they sit. At intervals they come into the main hall but only to pour tea or drinks for the men, who are discussing the issues that concern the Arkanis Burmese refugees in Utica such as jobs and language.
Myanmar has at least 135 ethnic groups. When the situation in Myanmar became dangerous, people started fleeing to neighboring countries such as India and Thailand. It took a long time for the refugees to get approval to apply for resettlement in United States that accepts just one percent of the total world refugee population. Sept. 11 made things difficult and in case of this nationality, the material support provision that came into effect just after the twin towers were struck, made it near impossible to get to America till Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice intervened.
Khet Khet, who lived in New York City before coming to Utica, said it was dangerous living in the country. Her grandfather was involved in the political movement.
"It is really difficult to survive for a young girl. They rape women, do forced labor nd kill people," she said about the SPD.
Her parents are still in Myanmar. "They live in the jungles. It is not safe," she said.
It has not been an easy task to forget their country. And songs of loneliness and longing, of isolation and the love for the green fields bring
At the refugee day celebrations at the refugee center, Muka Paw sang about the green fields, the beautiful country and the need for the displaced people, the refugees, to not forget their language and culture. The urgency is her voice was hard to miss.
Over the years, the community has warmed up to the idea of new neighbors. But bitterness in some is not unusual. Integration remains a challenge still in the face of so many difficulties. And the refugee center is still figuring out what is the best way to make these newcomers feel at home or at least feel comfortable.