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For 62-year-old GedeonGakindi, the experience ofAustralian police officers

handing him a pizza and softdrinks was a defining moment inhis life. Gedeon survivedRwanda’s genocide in the early1990s when helearned to fear thatany uniformrepresentedrepression andpossible murder.

As a refugee heeventually resettledwith his family inAustralia and at onelocal social event hecame face to faceagain withuniforms andauthority. But thistime the contextwas totally different.

“When I saw police officersserving those pizzas to ordinarypeople, I was amazed,” he recallsnow. “I have never been servedpizza by a police officer before. Itwas an emotional healing” of hisearlier traumatic history incentral Africa.

Hagir Eltayeb remembers

having a pet dog as a youngsterin her family home in Sudanbefore being forced to flee thatcountry’s upheavals after herhusband had been tortured andimprisoned.

When they, too, ended up in

Australia, one of the first thingsthey did to stabilize their liveswas to adopt a dog which theynamed Lucky and introduced itto their three children. Now they“are all very happy.”

William Kolong Pioth spentyears roaming the savannahgrasslands of Sudan and inrefugee camps in neighboring

Kenya as one of the by nowfamous “Lost Boys of Sudan” –another victim of war. He wasresettled in Canada six years agoand one thing he is still amazedby is that at his workplace he hasa life insurance plan.

“In Africa you live dayby day,” he said, as part ofa chaotic environmentwhere you might be deadby tomorrow. “But overhere, I am 100 percentsure that I will be alivetomorrow and I amplanning for things thatare 25 years from now.”

When sevenmembers of a family ofSomali Bantu refugeeswere flying to a new lifein the United States,other passengers on

their flight spontaneouslyorganized a collection. Sick bagswere turned into ‘collectionplates’ and the amazed familywas presented with $830 and 15euros.

It is those little things andvery personal anecdotes whichoften define a magical turningpoint when refugees who may

Pizzas, dogs and life insurance…Starting a new life

Editor:Ray Wilkinson

French editor:Mounira Skandrani

Contributors:UNHCR offices worldwide

Editorial assistant:Virginia Zekrya

Photo department:Suzy Hopper, Anne Kellner

Design:Vincent Winter Associés

Production:Françoise JaccoudRomain Leonarduzzi

Photo engraving:Aloha Scan - Geneva

Distribution:John O’Connor, Frédéric Tissot

Maps:UNHCR - Mapping Unit

Historical documentsUNHCR archives

RREEFFUUGGEEEESS is published by the MediaRelations and Public InformationService of the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees. The opinions expressed by contributorsare not necessarily those of UNHCR.The designations and maps used donot imply the expression of any opinion or recognition on the part ofUNHCR concerning the legal statusof a territory or of its authorities.

RREEFFUUGGEEEESS reserves the right to edit allarticles before publication. Articlesand photos not covered by copyright ©may be reprinted without priorpermission. Please credit UNHCR and the photographer. Glossy printsand slide duplicates of photographs notcovered by copyright © may be madeavailable for professional use only.

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N ° 1 3 8 – 2 0 0 5

High Commissioner Ruud Lubbersannounced in late February that hehad submitted his resignation toU.N. Secretary-General KofiAnnan. Lubbers, a long servingformer Dutch prime minister, whohad taken office as HighCommissioner four years earlier,stepped down in the wake of adisputed sex allegation.

In a message to an estimated6,300 staff members working in115 countries, Lubbers said:

“The opportunity to serve as HighCommissioner for Refugees was agenuine honor for me and formore than four years I devoted allof my energy to the organizationand the people of concern to theOffice. This will remain for me oneof the most compelling andrewarding periods of myprofessional career.

“Most of all, I am tremendouslyproud of you, UNHCR staff, andeverything you have achieved

while I had the privilege of leadingthe organization.

“My decision to resign hasmuch to do with my wish not tocomplicate life for the Secretary-General, who is facing a series ofproblems and ongoing pressurefrom the media. I have everyconfidence that UNHCR willcontinue to be a vital, imaginativeand effective humanitarianorganization.”

During his time in office, the

High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers

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It was the mother of all natural disasters.The end-of-year tsunami which devastatedcountries around Southeast Asia and the IndianOcean and spread as far as Africa, killed anestimated 200,000 people. Millions were madehomeless and the economic damage amountedto untold billions of dollars.

UNHCR’s refugee mandate normally doesnot cover such a scenario, but such was thehavoc wreaked and the need for immediate as-sistance that it joined U.N. agencies and otherorganizations and launched its first ever opera-tion for a natural disaster.

The day after the tsunami struck, the agencythrew open its warehouses in Sri Lanka, one ofthe main epicenters ofdestruction, and dis-tributed everything onhand—plastic sheeting,cooking sets and cloth-ing for 100,000 people.

The agency’s country-wide network of offices was particularlywell placed to offer instant help in Sri Lankawhere, for nearly 20years, it has assistedmany of the more thanone million people uprooted from theirhomes by civil strife.

Other programs wereput into place in Indonesia and Somaliaon the east coast ofAfrica.

After the initial emergency phase of the res-cue effort, UNHCR announced a six-month, $75million appeal to fund its part of the ongoingU.N. disaster program, concentrating on pro-viding shelter, blankets, cooking kits and jerrycans, logistics and transportation.

There were, however, widespread misgivingswithin the humanitarian community that theglobal response to the tsumani had been sogenerous and overwhelming that help for otherolder, less glamorous humanitarian projectscould suffer from donor fatigue backlash incoming months.

“I want to stress that even as we made avail-able our emergency resources for an immediate

response, we have en-sured that this is notdone at the expenseof UNHCR’s capacityto respond to refugeeemergencies else-where in the world,”Janet Lim, the agency’sDirector for Asia andthe Pacific, said.

“We would also liketo urge memberstates who are ourtraditional donors toensure that their gen-erous response to thedisaster will not be atthe expense ofrefugees all over theworld who need careand protection,” sheadded.

After the tsunami, what next?

2001-2005

have spent years or even decadesin flight and in refugee campssuddenly realize that a new andbetter life has just begun.

The majority of refugees pickup the interrupted threads oftheir lives by eventuallyreturning to their own countries,towns and villages.

Some, often the mostvulnerable civilians, cannot goback and like the refugeesmentioned in this piece, begintheir lives afresh in severalcountries around the worldwhich offer them permanentresettlement.

These places are highlyprized. Last year, fewer than100,000 persons out of apopulation of more than 17million ‘of concern’ to UNHCRwere allocated places.

This current issue tells thestory of just one small Americancity which has warmly welcomedrefugees for several decades. Inreturn, civic, business andpolitical leaders in Utica inupstate New York credit thesenewcomers with reviving thefortunes of the entire city.

It is a remarkable story, butthe legacy of Utica stretches toevery corner of the globe wherethere are refugees and wherethere are communities preparedto welcome them—that togetherthey can form a very successfulpartnership.

global number of people ‘ofconcern’ to the refugee agencydropped from 21.8 million peoplein 2001 to 17.1 million people atthe start of 2004—a fall of nearly22 percent.

These figures included morethan 3.5 million Afghans whoreturned home with agency helpsince 2002.

In addition, the number ofpeople seeking asylum inindustrialized countries dropped

to its lowest level in 16 years, duein part to Lubbers’ attempts tofocus international attention andresources on poor countrieswhich host most of the world’srefugees.

The High Commissioner alsostabilized the agency’s funding,tightened accountability andstreamlined the organization’semergency response capacity.

The United States at the timeof his departure ranked UNHCR

number 1 among all U.N. agenciesfunded through the StateDepartment.

At an emotional farewell,Deputy High CommissionerWendy Chamberlin, who tookover temporary leadership ofthe agency, presented Lubberswith the first annual UNHCRAchievement Award, citing hisindividual and professionalcontributions to refugeesworldwide.

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Amarriage ‘mA SMALL AMERICAN TOWN, ASIAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS , SO

Hassan Murithi and members of his Somali Bantufamily

5R E F U G E E S

ade in heaven’OMALI ‘SL AVES’ AND SURVIVORS OF THE ‘K ILL ING F IELDS’

TE XTS

BY RAY WILKINSON

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY VINCENT WINTER

“Would the last person to leaveUtica please turn out the lights.”

6 R E F U G E E S

Once upon a time it was a jewel in America’s burgeoningindustrial empire. The townrocked to the reverberations ofthe country’s two largest textilemills at a time when cotton wasking. The Erie Canal, one of

America’s most important and grandiose engineeringprojects, was built through the local business district,linking the continent’s internal Great Lakes region toits eastern seaboard and the outside world.

Politicians, Mafia godfathers and renowned celebri-ties came a calling. Charles Dickens and Teddy Roo-sevelt were visitors. It was a hideaway for the crime

czars of New York City who stashed their‘molls’ or girlfriends here and it was notuncommon to read of gangland warfareon the streets.

Shows direct from Broadway werestaged, three glitzy arts centers and the-aters were built and the town’s colorfulhistory earned it the sobriquet of ‘sincity.’

A nearby air force base, part of Amer-ica’s strategic air defense network, addeda touch of gravitas.

But when America’s textile industrydeclined and the once bustling region be-came part of an emerging ‘rust belt’, asdemographics began to change and fam-ilies and jobs migrated to southern states,the town of Utica fell on hard times.

Factories closed and then crumbled. Injust a few short decades, the populationfell from around 120,000 to 65,000 today.

Utica: Reminders of past opulenceand engineeringfeats such as the ErieCanal.

7R E F U G E E S

Like other centers in America’s northeast corner,Utica faced irreversible decline. Things became so badthat bumper stickers proclaimed: “Would the last per-son to leave Utica please turn out the lights.”

HELP IS ON THE WAYUtica has always been a town of immigrants.

Germans, Poles, Italians and Arabs helped to make itprosperous in the first place. Now, another wave ofnewcomers—from Viet Nam, from Myanmar, from theformer Soviet Union, Europe and Africa—are helpingto rescue it from its economic stagnation.

Unlike those earlier immigrants, this latest groupare refugees, selected from some of the world’s mostvulnerable groups to begin their lives afresh in theUnited States.

Many refugee groups have, of course, set up home inother parts of the country, but Utica is unusual for sev-eral reasons:

The town’s size has stabilized at around 65,000 and10,000 of these residents—nearly one in six—are refugees.That is a massive concentration of uprooted peoples fromall corners of the globe transplanted to one small place.

Their numbers are not only impressive, but alsotheir diversity. They come from around 30 countries

U.S. CongressmanSherwood Boehlertand Mayor Tim Julian (right).

“The town had been hemorrhaging for years. The arrival of so many refugees has put a tourniquetaround that hemorrhaging.”8 R E F U G E E S

Utica: Faded glories.

Staff of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees.

and vastly different backgrounds—Synath Buth and hiswife survived Cambodia’s ‘killing fields’ and say that theHollywood movie of that name actually underplayedthe savage butchery of an era when virtually an entirepopulation was uprooted and murdered; Pavel Brutskyserved in one of the Soviet Union’s most secret militaryunits and then survived years of religious persecution;Loi Hoang, a boat person from Viet Nam and HassanMurithi who had been a virtual slave in the failed stateof Somalia on the Horn of Africa.

National, city and refugee officials, industry leadersand the refugees themselves are in no doubt that the ar-rival of this polyglot community has been key in turn-ing the town’s fortunes around.

“Utica loves refugees,” Gene Dewey, the AssistantSecretary of State in the Bureau of Population, Refugeesand Migration in Washington, told a Senate hearinglast year. “Utica has benefited from refugees. The townwas going downhill, but it is now reviving because ofrefugees.”

Republican Mayor Tim Julian agrees. He toldREFUGEES in a recent interview: “The town had beenhemorrhaging for years. The arrival of so manyrefugees has put a tourniquet around that hemorrhag-ing. They have saved entire neighborhoods which wereready for the wrecking ball. As a city, we can’t put a priceon this.”

At the same meeting, local U.S. Congressman Sher-

9R E F U G E E S

wood Boehlert said, “We welcome them with openarms. This is the turnaround stage for Utica. The com-munity has now not only stabilized but is looking to thefuture with much more optimism than many othercenters in the northeast. It’s all coming together.”

RENEWALphysically, utica wears the face of a town with a distinctly chequered history, a shadow of its formerracy self, but trying bravely to apply some new makeup.

Once mighty textile mills lie abandoned. DowntownUtica has a forlorn and weary look, especially in the

depths of winter when vicious winds howl throughempty lots, whipping up snow drifts many feet deepand temperatures plunge to unimaginable depths.Some residential districts became so dangerous duringthe town’s decline that the national guard was called outto demolish unstable structures.

But the Utica Hotel has undergone a multi-milliondollar facelift and an unsuspecting visitor can only gaspat the totally unexpected sight of glittering chandeliersand tastefully renovated interiors in its cavernous foyer.The baroque style Stanley Theater is open for business.More millions have been ploughed into a new insur-ance center. Nearby, stately homes are testament to the

Suburban Utica and refugee faces.

The town’s size has stabilized at around 65,000 — 10,000 ofwhom are refugees. They’re fromnearly 30 countries and vastlydifferent backgrounds.

10 R E F U G E E S

town’s former glory days.Some of the mills have been saved and converted in-

to apartments. Refugees, especially from the Bosniancommunity, have purchased cheap properties whichhad been abandoned before their arrival and they havenow renovated entire neighborhoods.

There are Vietnamese restaurants, Russian neigh-borhood stores, Bosnian hairdressing salons and coffeeshops, a large Pentecostal church built by refugees fromthe former Soviet Union, mosques and temples. Thir-ty-one languages are spoken in city schools. The localnewspaper runs a weekly column in Bosnian. A hospi-tal has a website devoted to cultural diversity.

All are testimony not only to the new economic vig-or of the place, but of the increased cultural and reli-gious diversity which has accompanied the refugees.

In Veldin’s barber shop, 60-year-old Juso Miykovicwho fled the Balkan wars in the 1990s, finishes with acustomer and begins a lively discussion with a local ar-chitect who is designing an enlarged salon for himacross the road. On the wall, a newspaper clipping an-nounces, “East Utica is a haven for Bosnians.” Yes, saysJuso “Life and business is very good here.”

Close by, Dzevsa Dizdarevic named his grocerystore and tiny coffee shop after his daughter, Amy,when he opened a couple of years ago. He sells Bosnian

11R E F U G E E S

12

specialities, meats and chocolates. Clients smoke end-lessly and drink small, strong cups of coffee as they didduring the fighting back home in the 1990s. “High tax-es are killing businesses,” the owner grumbles and thenadds “but for us Utica has been good.”

WIN-WIN SITUATIONOn the edge of town is the recently renovated facto-ry of one of the region’s major employers, ConMed,maker of precision surgical equipment. The buildingwas originally owned by General Electric, but as thecity fell into decline GE, one of America’s mightiest

conglomerates, closed its doors.ConMed these days is looking for all the workers it

can get. “We have hired 16 people in the last six workingdays,” Bob O’Reilly, the director of ConMed’s human re-sources department said one day recently. “We have 111openings.” The company employs around 1,300 peoplein three plants, approximately half of them refugeesfrom all over—Bosnians, Vietnamese, Burmese.

Some of the jobs are distinctly low-tech, such as basicassembly line work, but refugees are also productionplanners, international sales representatives and ad-ministrative employees. Three and four members ofsome families work at the plant.

R E F U G E E S

13

“This is a win-win situation,” Bob O’Reilly said. “It’sgood for the refugees and it’s good for us. In fact, thecompany probably would not be here without theserefugees.”

Across Utica, around 50 refugees are employed atthe Presbyterian Home which cares for the aged. Theywork in the kitchens, the laundry and as nursing aides.“What I hear constantly from both patients and theirfamilies is the degree of warmth and the ‘connection’shown by our refugee helpers with their patients,” saysdirector of human resources Mary Austin Pratt.

Administrator Tony Joseph is equally emphatic.“We’d be dead in the water without these refugees. Itwas a marriage made in heaven. We could never haverecruited such quality people from any other source.”

This ‘marriage made in heaven’ has been the resultof a particular set of positive circumstances.

As a community with strong immigrant roots, Uti-ca finds it easy to welcome other newcomers, despitepredictable grumblings from some residents who com-plain about the mythical advantages and benefits therefugees reputedly enjoy.

For nearly 25 years a vibrant group called the Mo-hawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees has over-seen the arrival of the newcomers, arranging accom-modation, jobs, schools, language training and citizen-ship lessons—a veritable independent life-supportsystem.

Schools, hospitals and clinics, housing authoritiesand other vital groups have had to adapt to accommo-date the refugees.

As the town’s economic decline bottomed out, manyjobs on offer, though not high tech, had the advantage ofallowing people who often did not speak English or

Refugees at work.The ConMed plantand humanresources directorBob O’Reilly.

R E F U G E E S

“We’d be dead in the water without these refugees. We could never have recruited such quality peoplefrom any other source.”

14 R E F U G E E S

have the skills needed in a highly industrialized society,to immediately find employment and begin building anew life.

Equally and perhaps ironically, a depressed housingmarket caused by the economic decline, was a vital fac-tor in helping the refugees establish themselves. Apart-ments were available and cheap to rent or buy. Three,four and five bedroom homes which many local fami-lies had moved out of were snapped up for a few thou-sand dollars and vigorously renovated by their new

owners. There were few oth-er places in America wheresuch bargains could be found.

“All of these factors havebeen critical in being able tointegrate so many refugees sosuccessfully and so quicklyinto the local community,”said Peter D. Vogelaar, the Ex-ecutive Director of theRefugee Resource Center.

WHERE AM I?But how exactly did free-

dom fighters from Myanmar, prisoners of war fromBosnia or political refugees from Iraq end up in an ob-scure town in upstate New York that few of them hadever heard of before they arrived?

The United States is among only a handful of coun-tries (others include Canada, Australia, New Zealand,the Scandinavian states, the Netherlands, Ireland andthe United Kingdom), working closely with UNHCRwhich officially accept quotas of refugees for perma-nent resettlement. These places are highly prized. Lastyear, less than 100,000 were resettled from an overallglobal population of 17 million which the refugee agen-cy cares for.

Each year the federal government in Washingtonestablishes America’s quota, vets the prospective immi-grants and then, in coordination with state, city, churchand domestic refugee and humanitarian agencies, de-cides which communities can and are willing to acceptarrivals.

Utica’s involvement began in 1975 when a group ofclergy decided among themselves to help resettlerefugees. Their first project was modest, helping a loneVietnamese man to escape the aftermath of the wars inIndochina. Four years later, sponsored by the LutheranImmigration and Refugee Service, the current Refugee

Learning English at the UticaResource Center.

“There is still room here for more refugees.”

15R E F U G E E S

Nezir Jasarevic,wife Azira anddaughter Tina. The war inthe Balkans (right)in the early 1990s.

R E F U G E E S 17

Resource Center was established.The numbers of refugees began to increase. In one

particularly noteworthy project in the early 1990s,hundreds of so-called Amerasian children, youngstersfathered by Americans during the Viet Nam war andthen abandoned, were flown to Utica where they wereintroduced to American life, taught English and vo-cational skills before being integrated into local com-munities.

Today, the Refugee Resource Center, which ishoused in an old Catholic school and with a staff ofnearly 40, most of them refugees themselves, is oneof the most lively and colorful institutions in town.The long corridors and classrooms are packed withswirls of color—a saffron clad monk, women drapedin a kaleidoscope of vivid cotton hues from Somalia,lithesome young women from Eastern Europe inbright, skimpy tops, people bundled into bulbousdown-filled topcoats against the biting cold—and ababble of languages from around the world.

English and vocational classes are in progress.People seek help to find a job, accommodation or aschool for their children, an interpreter for a visit tothe hospital or a lawyer or just the company of otherrefugees. There is advice available on obtaining Amer-ican citizenship.

But this is a two-way street. The center is not onlyresponsible for helping the refugees, but also in advis-ing local institutions such as schools, hospitals andapartment owners in how best they can both under-stand and assist the often overwhelmed newcomers,“building bridges between the two groups,” as Peter Vo-gelaar describes it.

WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERENezir Jasarevic had been a prisoner of war duringthe Balkan conflict, had been pummeled by his guards,seen one of his fellow inmates beaten to death and hadwandered aimlessly across battlefields as his weightshrunk from 100 to 61 kilos.

He eventually escaped the Balkan nightmare, but insome ways his arrival in the United States appeared atthe time almost as traumatic as his wartime experi-ences.

“I knew America only by the movies and Utica cer-tainly wasn’t the movies,” he recalls. “God, get me out ofthis place. I want to go back home,” was his first reactionto his new home.

He had thought he was moving to New York City,but when he arrived at the airport there his offi-cial greeter spoke only Russian, not Bosnian.Nezir did not speak any English.

At his next stop at Syracuse airport near Uti-ca “A Vietnamese looking guy came up andgrabbed my travel bag,” he said. “I had been in-structed never to surrender my bag. We had atug of war right there. We fought. Then anotherman came and spoke to me in Bosnian.”

If he had initially asked God to get him out ofthis place, now “I thanked God for this fellowBosnian. Welcome to Utica.”

Kaw Soe also thought he was going to NewYork City when he arrived in 1999. A member ofthe persecuted Karen ethnic minority in Myan-mar, he had been involved for years in what hecalls the democracy and nationalist struggleagainst the military regime in Rangoon.

He also flew on to the Syracuse airport ratherthan staying in ‘The Big Apple’ and en route by

“I knew America by the movies, and Utica certainly wasn’t the movies.”

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road to Utica he noticed lots of deer bounding and leap-ing across the highway. “I thought to myself that maybethey had decided to move us to this place because withso much wildlife it might remind us more of the junglewe had left behind,” he recalled recently, chucklingslowly to himself.

“Awful, awful,” said 41-year-old Pavel Brutsky about

his own arrival in his newly adopted town. And heshould know ‘awful.’

Brutsky was born in Belarus in the former SovietUnion. Despite being persecuted because he was amember of the Pentecostal religious sect, he was never-theless drafted into a top security military unit and sentto the Mongolian border where, throughout his tour, he

A family fromBelarus. Prayer in thePentecostal church.

19R E F U G E E S

was never allowed off base, never allowed leave or thechance to meet girlfriends and subsisted on the equiva-lent of a few dollars a month in pay.

He tried for 12 years to escape the country and thepersistent religious persecution and when he finally re-ceived official permission to emigrate he had to surren-der his national passport and pay a fine.

“When I first came here I wanted to escape assoon as possible. Now I love it. I really do love it.”

20 R E F U G E E S

“We had to give up everything, but we didn’t mindwhere we ended up when we left,” he said, “Canada,Australia, the United States… Still, when we got to Uti-ca, it was a big shock.”

Worse followed. Pavel saw his sister shot in the chestinside their rented house in what was then still a lawlesspart of Utica.

A group known as the Somali Bantu are among thelatest refugee arrivals in Utica and many of them arestill in some shock. Cultural differences between theirhomeland and the U.S. are among the most extreme anyrefugee group has experienced and so is the weather.

On the Horn of Africa, summer temperatures routine-ly top 40 degrees centigrade. In Utica there are also of-ten 40 degree readings—but this time it is 40 degrees be-low freezing during the harsh regional winters.

Hassan Murithi saw his wife raped in front of him bymarauders when the state of Somalia imploded in theearly 1990s. After that atrocity the couple, togetherwith their eight children, walked for a week to reachKenya and comparative safety. Some fellow SomaliBantu died along the way from thirst.

The Bantu had originally been slaved by Arabs fromsouthern Africa in the 1800s and were treated as virtu-

Life in a refugeecamp in East Africa.

“I never, never thought the climate

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21R E F U G E E S

al serfs in Somalia until clan warfare destroyed thatcountry. Like Hassan and his family, thousands of theBantu fled to neighboring Kenya and after a fruitlesssearch by unhcr lasting for a decade to find them a newhome, the United States finally agreed to relocate thebulk of them two years ago.

When Refugees wrote about their flight to a newworld in 2002 (N° 128), it reported, “The Bantu now facea frightening cultural chasm. Most cannot read, writeor speak English. They are sturdy farm workers withfew other skills, who have never turned on an electriclight switch, used a flush toilet, crossed a busy street,

ridden in a car or an elevator, seen snow or experiencedair conditioning.”

Since their arrival in America, they have tackled allof those problems reasonably successfully, but in thedepths of what is the first winter for some of them, it isstill the weather that can be overwhelming. “I never,never thought the climate could be as bad as this,” Has-san Murithi said recently in his rented apartment as thecentral heating soared towards the height of an Africansummer’s day. He put the situation into context: “InAfrica we had to pay a lot of money for ice. Here, it is ev-erywhere,” pointing toward the snowbound streets.

The Somali Bantucome to grips with a freezing Uticawinter.

could be as bad as this.”

22 R E F U G E E S

“And it is free.” Accompanied by a hearty laugh.

NO, LET’S STAY AWHILEBut if arrival in Utica was disorienting forvirtually all of the refugees, another common threadhas been the resilience and ability to adapt of both thenewcomers and Utica itself.

Hassan Murithi’s oldest son Mohammed has a driv-

ing licence, a car and is studying medicine at a localcommunity college. All of his other children speak En-glish, attend school and talk of hamburgers, pizzas andthe Simpsons television show. Hassan and his wifework full time.

The turning point for Nezir Jasarevic came when heattended local classes full of Vietnamese refugees.“They were in a totally alien environment,” he said,“and I realized that as a European I probably had a better

Loi Hoang and hisfamily. A long wayfrom Viet Nam andthe boat people.

23R E F U G E E S

chance of making a success of it than they did. I begansleeping with my dictionary to learn English.” Today heis a successful health insurance marketing official witha pleasant suburban home on the outskirts of Utica.

Pavel moved out of the area where his sister was shotand along with his wife, Mira, and six children nowlives in a ranch style home overlooking Utica and nearto the Pentecostal church where his father-in-law isminister and which is a major pillar of support for the

more than 2,000 refugees from theformer Soviet Union.

“Look. Look,” he said to a visitorrecently. “I grew this cabbage in myown garden. I love this garden. I lovemy house and my family being here.

“When I first came here I wantedto escape as soon as possible. Now Ilove it. I really do love it.” And he isundoubtedly sincere.

Loi Hoang, who escaped by boatfrom Viet Nam as a teenager, nowworks as a poker dealer at a nearbygambling complex run by the Onei-da Indians. “I can’t leave here,” hesays. “I have so many friends.” Andthen the inevitable quip about theweather. “I like everything here ex-cept the winters. But at least we don’thave flooding and earthquakes,” a

reference to the recent tsunami disaster in Asia.The town itself has had to be equally ready to accept

change. Few school systems anywhere are called uponto teach children speaking nearly three dozen lan-guages. Many new arrivals have to learn English fromscratch.

Because of language, social and cultural differences,visits to the doctor can be fraught with difficulty forboth medical staff and patients. Many refugees have es-

“I can’t leave here. I have so manyfriends.”

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caped wars and persecution and need extra care fortrauma related problems.

Property owners may welcome new clients, but theysometimes bring with them unwelcome habits, occa-sionally daubing walls with graffiti or doing the laun-dry in the middle of the living room floor.

Inevitably, some locals complain about the refugeesreceiving massive cash handouts, free apartments andeasy jobs—grumbles heard wherever refugees resettlearound the world, but all untrue.

What is true is the need for major financial and hu-man resources, flexibility and patience from both sidesto make an experiment like this work successfully.

WHAT NOW?The continuing flow of resettlement refugees toUtica and other American communities depends on aseries of factors—world events, federal policy, the abilityof organizations such as the Mohawk Refugee Center to

handle new arrivals and the willingness of communi-ties to absorb the strangers.

In the waning decades of the 20th century, the Unit-ed States accepted successive waves of refugees fromViet Nam, the former Soviet Union and Bosnia. In someways, those were relatively straightforward programs,generously funded, easy to accept politically and, sinceeach of these large groups was ethnically homogenous,easier for host communities to absorb linguistically andculturally.

In those earlier times there were also many familyreunifications—husbands joining wives and childrenjoining parents—which again required modest humanand financial resources.

Those ‘simple’ days have gone.Refugees being accepted for resettlement today are

often among the most genuinely vulnerable groups ofthe uprooted rather than simply being ‘politically ac-ceptable.’ They are from smaller groups and from manymore diverse countries.

Coming to termswith a moresophisticated new world.

25R E F U G E E S

In humanitarian terms thatmay be a major step forward,but in an era of tighter fund-

ing, it can be a major headache for domestic refugeeagencies and host communities. Instead of having tohandle refugees from a single country with a reason-able grasp of western cultural values, they may nowhave to juggle with and devote more human and finan-cial resources for greater periods of time to address theneeds of several groups speaking different languagesand having far different social norms.

Then there is the question of numbers. Before theterrorist attacks against New York and Washington onSeptember 11, 2001, the United States allocated some70,000 places annually for resettlement refugees. In2000, the Mohawk resource center helped 744 refugeesrelocate to Utica.

Following the attacks, and as security concerns tookprecedence, the national figures dropped precipitouslyto only 26,300 in 2002. The Utica figures showed a cor-responding fall to a mere 240 people that year. Refugeecenters had to adjust their budgets and even reshapeprograms and overall objectives to remain relevant and

in business.The overall number of entrants to the U.S. doubled

last year, leaving refugee agencies in an unaccustomeddilemma. They warmly welcomed the turn around inrefugee numbers, but then had to scramble for scarceresources to help a far more complex and larger flow ofrefugees.

In Utica, the very success of the refugee programcreated other headaches. In a more buoyant housingmarket, prices have risen, making it more difficult fornewcomers to find suitable accommodation. There arenow some soft patches in the job market. Financial re-sources are tight.

So has the town reached a saturation point forrefugees?

Despite some concerns, the answer is emphatic.“No,” said Mayor Tim Julian. “We look forward to wel-coming more of them.” “There is still room here formore refugees,” said Congressman Sherwood Boehlert,a sentiment echoed by many local companies whichattribute their survival to the refugees already here.

It looks like the love affair could continue for sometime to come. �

There are Vietnamese restaurants,Russian neighborhood stores, Bosnianhairdressing salons and coffee shops, alarge Pentecostal church built byrefugees from the former SovietUnion, mosques and temples.

Multiculturalism at work: A roadsidebillboard in Bosnian.

26 R E F U G E E S

A DAY I N T H E L I F E

O F A U N G T I N M O E

A N D H I S FA M I LY

27R E F U G E E S

LIVING ‘THEAMERICAN

DREAM’

28 R E F U G E E S

The first floor apartmentat N° 1122 St. VincentStreet, Utica, upper New

York State, is a long way from thebamboo huts and jungles ofSoutheast Asia.

On this particular day, Kin SoeMoe rises at 5:30 a.m. prepares asimple lunch of rice, beef and soupbefore leaving for an early shift atwork.

Outside, the sidewalks arecovered in several inches of snow—that is not too bad, really, becausesometimes during the long winterdrifts many feet deep bury theplace—and with icy gusts blowing

through the deserted streetstemperatures have dipped tominus 30 degrees belowfreezing.

“It was so cold when wearrived in this country and it isstill so cold. Oh so cold,” thediminutive Kin Soe Moe shivers asshe begins the short drive to thesurgical instrument plant where sheearns nearly eight dollars an hourassembling precision equipment.

“It took me two times to pass mydriving test,” she giggles as she recallsher early efforts to come to termswith a new life in America. “I hadnever seen snow before let alone

drove on it. It is still so scary.”At home, 9-year-old Kapaw

Sasam and her 8-year-old sister,Kapru Htoo, scurry around their firstfloor home, packing school satchels,cuddling their brother, 4-year-oldThomas Dale, before donning winterovercoats to catch the school bus at7:30 a.m. for a private Catholicschool.

06:00 Mom gets four-year-old Thomas Dale, theyoungest member of the family, ready for his day

07:45 Thomas Dale arrives at school

Nine-year-old Kapaw

05:30 The start of a new day

29R E F U G E E S

Husband Aung Tin Moe drives hisson to a day nursery fifteen minuteslater. Three times a week, he works a12-hour shift at the same plant as hiswife. On the other days he is a full-time student at the Mohawk ValleyCommunity College studyingelectronic engineering technology.

Late in the afternoon Kin SoeMoe collects her son and returns

home to prepare the family eveningmeal. “Ah, I am so tired. I have aheadache. I will rest for just threeminutes,” she says, slumping on a sofabriefly. She collects her daughtersfrom an after-school center beforereturning home, completing a dozenother household chores, servingdinner and, if there is no other crisis,slumping into bed before 9 p.m.

Sasam at the computer Carol Polito, principal of the school

08:15 Breakfast at school

09:00 Getting down to work

06:30 Off to work 07:30 The girls leave for school 07:40 Battling the ice Day-care center complex

30 R E F U G E E S

Between work, school and study,husband Aung Tin Moe often getsonly three hours of sleep a night.

They have little waking timetogether and already worry they arenot spending enough timeinstructing their children in theirnative language.

It is difficult ‘living the Americandream.’

ESCAPING TO A NEW LIFEThe family are minority ethnic Karens

from Myanmar (Burma). Aung TinMoe was a student activist againstthat country’s military regime andwas forced to flee into the junglewhere he married his wife and where,in bamboo huts, his two daughterswere born.

“Many pregnant women at thetime were suffering from malaria.Some newly born children died ofbrain damage,” Kin Soe Moeremembers. “I was one of the verylucky ones. I didn’t get malaria and

the girls were lucky, too. They werehealthy.”

The family moved on toneighboring Thailand in the late1990s, but living in a refugee camptheir future was unclear. Returninghome would certainly mean ahazardous life on the run from thearmy and possible death.

He decided instead to make anunauthorized trip to the Thai capital,Bangkok, to seek official refugeestatus and, perhaps, a new life in

09:00 Studying at home

Meanwhile her daughters enjoy a snack and playwith friends after school before being picked up by their mother

Life on the run andmarriage in the rainforests before starting anew life in America.

31R E F U G E E S

another country.“I hitched a ride on a truck,” he

remembers. “Before each policecheckpoint, I would hop off, make along detour around the checkpointand then get back on board. It tookme two days to reach Bangkok.”

When his wife and children triedto join him later they bribed apoliceman to take them in his officialcar. “When we reached eachcheckpoint, I concentrated onbreastfeeding my youngest girl and

didn’t dare look at anyone else,” shesaid. “They thought we belonged inthe car and let us pass.”

After living in Bangkoksurreptitiously and working on aconstruction site—had they beenpicked up by the police they mayhave been sent back to a camp or toMyanmar—they obtained thecoveted refugee status. Since theyhad no immediate family or directsponsor in the United States whichwould have made it easier to apply, it

took themanother fullyear to obtainpermission toenter thecountry forresettlement.

There is asmall butthriving 250-strong Burmesecommunity inUtica, mainlyethnic Karens.Four-year-oldThomas Dale

Moe was the firstchild to be bornwithin the group.

The family sendssome of their wagesback to Myanmarto support familyback there. Even onmodest salaries,they neverthelessalso decided tosend theirdaughters to aprivate school for a top educationand at the Our Lady of Lourdesschool principal Carol Polito calls hertwo Karen pupils “Delightful. Theyare a credit to the school and to theirparents.”

Aung Tin Moe will complete hisstudies at community college thisyear, but then plans to continue hiseducation at the State University ofNew York for two more years.

The phrase ‘Living the AmericanDream’ is often overused anddevalued, but in this particular case,difficult though it may be to achieve,it could be true. �

12:00 Husband Aung Tin Moe begins work at the same plant as his wife

17:00 Dinner is prepared and eaten by the family, minus father who is still at work

00:30 He returns after midnight, in time

for three hours of sleepbefore the start of

another day

15:30 After finishingwork Kin Soe Moe

picks up her son fromday care and returns

home to study English