Around fifteen percent of Utica's population is composed of refugees from alll over the world. As a summer intern at Utica Observer-Dispatch, I wrote on refugees and their resettlement in the town. 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. 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. These refugees pumped new blood 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.
The town changed. Life changed. 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.
The following is the version published in the newspaper, Observer-Dispatch
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. 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. These refugees pumped new blood 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.
The town changed. Life changed. 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.
The following is the version published in the newspaper, Observer-Dispatch
Refugee center enters 'new phase'
With fewer new arrivals since 9/11, staff shrinks and services adjust
By CHINKI SINHA
Syracuse University Capstone Program
UTICA -- Five Somali Bantu refugees huddled in front of the small TV in a two-bedroom apartment on Neilson Street, watching a soccer game.
As people came and went, Jeylani Hassan and Amjad spoke about their lives in America, their lives in Utica.
"We hang out together, the Somalis," said Hassan, who initially came to St. Louis from a refugee camp in Kenya. "This is a strange country."
The Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, which celebrates its annual gala tonight, is working to make this country and city a little less strange for Utica's newest arrivals. This approach is borne not only out of a sense of mission but a sense of financial necessity.
Over the past 27 years, the refugee center has resettled about 11,000 refugees in Utica and has come to redefine the Mohawk Valley's identity in the process. Around the world, Utica is known as "the town that loves refugees," as a United Nations human rights publication put it last year.
But five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the flow of refugees to America has been cut drastically. The refugee center has been forced to trim its budget and cut its staff as a result.
Fewer refugees means smaller per-capita funding totals from the U.S. government. Today, the center focuses less on resettlement and more on achieving integration and cultural connections among Utica's myriad refugee groups and with the larger community.
"We are moving into a new phase," Executive Director Peter Vogelaar said. "We have redirected our efforts at starting conversation. We have begun to look at our relationship."
It's essential for the larger community to understand where refugees came from and what experiences they endured, he said. Fear, introduced by 9/11, can build barriers to conversations that could help people to understand each other, he said.
"That conversation got stunted after 9/11," Vogelaar said. "Often times, the responses come from fear. We have to try to build awareness," he said.
Because of language barriers, it's been difficult for communities arriving from various countries in Asia and Africa to interact with each other or even adopt the culture and the country they now live in. They've became closeted, Vogelaar said.
That's led to newer strategies toward generating revenue such as providing interpreters to hospitals and promoting cultural competency programs.
"We have to be more creative as we go on," Vogelaar said.
Changing times
In 1997, a few thousand refugees arrived in Utica. By 2002, the year after the attacks, only 240 refugees came. Numbers since then have been at a similar level.
Once, the first floor of the old St. Francis De Sales school building housed three refugee center employment offices. Even then, they could not deal with the number of refugees who required placement. Now, Brian Couzelis, Shelly Callahan and Sidi Chivala are the only three full-time employment officers and yet there isn't enough work to keep them on their toes.
"The pot of money is smaller," Callahan said.
Daniel Sergant of the refugee center said the number of refugees is smaller, but the challenges still loom large. He said it was easy to resettle the Bosnians because they were already familiar with the Western way of life and the work culture.
"They knew," he said. "Somali Bantus, they come from a nomadic tribe. Integration is difficult," he said. He described how challenging it was to hire staff to help refugees from Myanmar (Burma) settle in the area.
Hamilton College professor Judith Owens-Manley, who sits on the refugee board, said refugees are important to Utica's economy because they are mostly young and bring in a future workforce. And so the community needs to welcome them with open arms, she said.
Yet many concerns have affected the local community's attitudes toward newcomers. Fear and the insecurity of losing jobs to the new arrivals are the biggest barriers to complete integration besides differences in culture and language, officials said. Those could be overcome in time like in the case of Cambodians, who after 20 years, exhibit a high degree of integration. A Cambodian wedding over the summer was attended by both Cambodians and long- time Uticans.
Rare moment of unity
But in the short term, refugees are often isolated other than within their core group. Bosnians and Bantus might all be refugees, but not ones with common ground.
A rare exception came during this year's Utica Boilermaker Road Race, which in cooperation with the refugee center introduced the International Mile on Culver Avenue.
The thousands of competitors ran past refugees gathered to sing and dance to cheer the participants.
Later, the refugee center staff distributed doughnuts to the case workers, mostly refugees, and to the refugees.
Ioana Balint of the refugee center gathered the Bosnians and the Somali Bantu to pose for a photograph. All smiled and put their hands around each other.
But as soon as the flash died, the two groups drifted toward their own members, and the integration became just a moment, perfectly preserved in the camera if not yet in Utica itself.
ABOUT THIS SERIES
The number, size and scope of nonprofit agencies and services are growing rapidly in the Mohawk Valley, reflecting both the region's degree of need and a continuing change in the structure of our economy. This article is part of a continuing series produced by 14 Syracuse University Capstone Program master's students who collaborated this year with the O-D.
UTICA AND REFUGEES
--Refugees have arrived from at least 23 different countries in 27 years, changing the social fabric of Utica and redefining Utica less as a manufacturing town and more as a haven for newcomers. A United Nations human rights publication last year devoted an entire issue to Utica, which it called "The town that loves refugees."
--As Utica's long-term population left or died off, refugees have helped stabilize the population. Today, about 1-in-10 Uticans is a refugee.
--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.
-- This followed a pattern seen a century earlier when immigrants arrived in the 19th century from Europe and parts of the Middle East. Germans, Poles, Italians and Lebanese all made their mark in ensuing decades.
With fewer new arrivals since 9/11, staff shrinks and services adjust
By CHINKI SINHA
Syracuse University Capstone Program
UTICA -- Five Somali Bantu refugees huddled in front of the small TV in a two-bedroom apartment on Neilson Street, watching a soccer game.
As people came and went, Jeylani Hassan and Amjad spoke about their lives in America, their lives in Utica.
"We hang out together, the Somalis," said Hassan, who initially came to St. Louis from a refugee camp in Kenya. "This is a strange country."
The Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, which celebrates its annual gala tonight, is working to make this country and city a little less strange for Utica's newest arrivals. This approach is borne not only out of a sense of mission but a sense of financial necessity.
Over the past 27 years, the refugee center has resettled about 11,000 refugees in Utica and has come to redefine the Mohawk Valley's identity in the process. Around the world, Utica is known as "the town that loves refugees," as a United Nations human rights publication put it last year.
But five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the flow of refugees to America has been cut drastically. The refugee center has been forced to trim its budget and cut its staff as a result.
Fewer refugees means smaller per-capita funding totals from the U.S. government. Today, the center focuses less on resettlement and more on achieving integration and cultural connections among Utica's myriad refugee groups and with the larger community.
"We are moving into a new phase," Executive Director Peter Vogelaar said. "We have redirected our efforts at starting conversation. We have begun to look at our relationship."
It's essential for the larger community to understand where refugees came from and what experiences they endured, he said. Fear, introduced by 9/11, can build barriers to conversations that could help people to understand each other, he said.
"That conversation got stunted after 9/11," Vogelaar said. "Often times, the responses come from fear. We have to try to build awareness," he said.
Because of language barriers, it's been difficult for communities arriving from various countries in Asia and Africa to interact with each other or even adopt the culture and the country they now live in. They've became closeted, Vogelaar said.
That's led to newer strategies toward generating revenue such as providing interpreters to hospitals and promoting cultural competency programs.
"We have to be more creative as we go on," Vogelaar said.
Changing times
In 1997, a few thousand refugees arrived in Utica. By 2002, the year after the attacks, only 240 refugees came. Numbers since then have been at a similar level.
Once, the first floor of the old St. Francis De Sales school building housed three refugee center employment offices. Even then, they could not deal with the number of refugees who required placement. Now, Brian Couzelis, Shelly Callahan and Sidi Chivala are the only three full-time employment officers and yet there isn't enough work to keep them on their toes.
"The pot of money is smaller," Callahan said.
Daniel Sergant of the refugee center said the number of refugees is smaller, but the challenges still loom large. He said it was easy to resettle the Bosnians because they were already familiar with the Western way of life and the work culture.
"They knew," he said. "Somali Bantus, they come from a nomadic tribe. Integration is difficult," he said. He described how challenging it was to hire staff to help refugees from Myanmar (Burma) settle in the area.
Hamilton College professor Judith Owens-Manley, who sits on the refugee board, said refugees are important to Utica's economy because they are mostly young and bring in a future workforce. And so the community needs to welcome them with open arms, she said.
Yet many concerns have affected the local community's attitudes toward newcomers. Fear and the insecurity of losing jobs to the new arrivals are the biggest barriers to complete integration besides differences in culture and language, officials said. Those could be overcome in time like in the case of Cambodians, who after 20 years, exhibit a high degree of integration. A Cambodian wedding over the summer was attended by both Cambodians and long- time Uticans.
Rare moment of unity
But in the short term, refugees are often isolated other than within their core group. Bosnians and Bantus might all be refugees, but not ones with common ground.
A rare exception came during this year's Utica Boilermaker Road Race, which in cooperation with the refugee center introduced the International Mile on Culver Avenue.
The thousands of competitors ran past refugees gathered to sing and dance to cheer the participants.
Later, the refugee center staff distributed doughnuts to the case workers, mostly refugees, and to the refugees.
Ioana Balint of the refugee center gathered the Bosnians and the Somali Bantu to pose for a photograph. All smiled and put their hands around each other.
But as soon as the flash died, the two groups drifted toward their own members, and the integration became just a moment, perfectly preserved in the camera if not yet in Utica itself.
ABOUT THIS SERIES
The number, size and scope of nonprofit agencies and services are growing rapidly in the Mohawk Valley, reflecting both the region's degree of need and a continuing change in the structure of our economy. This article is part of a continuing series produced by 14 Syracuse University Capstone Program master's students who collaborated this year with the O-D.
UTICA AND REFUGEES
--Refugees have arrived from at least 23 different countries in 27 years, changing the social fabric of Utica and redefining Utica less as a manufacturing town and more as a haven for newcomers. A United Nations human rights publication last year devoted an entire issue to Utica, which it called "The town that loves refugees."
--As Utica's long-term population left or died off, refugees have helped stabilize the population. Today, about 1-in-10 Uticans is a refugee.
--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.
-- This followed a pattern seen a century earlier when immigrants arrived in the 19th century from Europe and parts of the Middle East. Germans, Poles, Italians and Lebanese all made their mark in ensuing decades.
P.S. I changed one of the names to protect the identity of the person.
For refugees, many adjustments ahead
Observer-Dispatch
Observer-Dispatch
UTICA - When Khet Khet, a refugee from Burma, 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 refugees who recently arrived in Utica to escape the persecution at the hands of the military junta that took control of Myanmar in the late 1980s, adjusting to the new environment where live-in relations are not uncommon is difficult.
In a living room on Addington Street, 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, the women 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- mostly jobs and language.
Myanmar has at least 135 ethnic groups. The two dominant groups in Utica are the Arkanis and the Karen, both of which have arrived in Utica.
The Tabernacle Baptist Church in Utica plays an important role in resettling Karen refugees. The Karen are Christian, and about 100 of them are members of the Tabernacle church.
It is the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees that's played a major role in resettling the Arkanis, who are mostly Buddhists.
That was just the beginning.
For refugees who recently arrived in Utica to escape the persecution at the hands of the military junta that took control of Myanmar in the late 1980s, adjusting to the new environment where live-in relations are not uncommon is difficult.
In a living room on Addington Street, 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, the women 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- mostly jobs and language.
Myanmar has at least 135 ethnic groups. The two dominant groups in Utica are the Arkanis and the Karen, both of which have arrived in Utica.
The Tabernacle Baptist Church in Utica plays an important role in resettling Karen refugees. The Karen are Christian, and about 100 of them are members of the Tabernacle church.
It is the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees that's played a major role in resettling the Arkanis, who are mostly Buddhists.
Link to an article that clears some myths such as the common feeling that refugees are a drain on the social security and public assistance and America takes in a lot of refugees.
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20060925_singer.htm
here is the full text
From 'There' to 'Here': Refugee Resettlement in Metropolitan America
by Audrey Singer and Jill H. Wilson
September 2006
Though comprising only 10 percent of annual immigration to the U.S., refugees are a distinct component of the foreign-born population in many metropolitan areas. Using data from the Census and the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, this report examines where refugees come from—documenting significant region-specific flows tied to various overseas conflicts—and where they land, finding that refugee destinations have shifted away from typical immigrant gateways housing large foreign-born populations to newer, often smaller, places.
Findings
Although refugees only comprise approximately 10 percent of annual immigration to the United States, they are a distinct part of the foreign-born population in many metropolitan areas. Using data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) on the location of initial settlement of refugees arriving between 1983 and 2004, this paper finds that:
More than 2 million refugees have arrived in the United States since the Refugee Act of 1980 was established, driven from their homelands by war, political change, and social, religious, and ethnic oppression. These flows were marked first by refugees primarily from Southeast Asia and the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s during the Cold War period, followed by Europe in the 1990s during the Balkans period, and now a growing number from Africa in the 2000s during the civil conflict period.
Refugees have overwhelmingly been resettled in metropolitan areas with large foreign-born populations. Between 1983 and 2004, refugees have been resettled across many metropolitan areas in the United States, with 30 areas receiving 72 percent of the total. The largest resettlement areas have been in established immigrant gateways in California (Los Angeles, Orange County, San Jose, Sacramento), the Mid-Atlantic region (New York) and the Midwest (Chicago, Minneapolis- St. Paul), as well as newer gateways including Washington, DC; Seattle, WA; and Atlanta, GA.
In medium-sized and smaller metropolitan areas, refugees can have considerable impact on the local population, especially if the total foreign-born population is small. Refugees dominate the overall foreign-born population in smaller places such as Utica, NY; Fargo, ND; Erie, PA; Sioux Falls, SD; and Binghamton, NY helping to stem overall population decline or stagnation. Medium-sized metropolitan areas like Fresno, CA; Des Moines, IA; Springfield, MA; and Spokane, WA also have a strong refugee presence.
The leading refugee destination metro areas have shifted away from traditional immigrant gateways over the past two decades, while newer gateways are resettling proportionally more refugees. While New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago still accommodated large numbers of refugees in the 1990s, other metropolitan areas such as Seattle, Atlanta, and Portland (OR) have taken in increasing numbers. Furthermore, different groups of refugees have become associated with different metropolitan areas: Nearly half of Iranian refugees were resettled in metropolitan Los Angeles, one in five Iraqi refugees arrived in Detroit, and nearly one-third of refugees from the former Soviet Union were resettled in New York.
Unlike other immigrants, refugees have access to considerable federal, state, and local support to help them succeed economically and socially. Affordable housing, health care access, job training and placement, and language learning dominate the local service needs that need to be built and maintained. Ultimately though, metropolitan areas are the critical context for refugees as they settle into communities and become active members of their neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.
1 comment:
Nice one..!!
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