I wrote the piece when I had just started my job as a reporter at Utica O-D in December of 2006. For many of us the English New Year's is not something very significant. It is just a change in the way we write the date...and I thought it would be interesting to look at how refugees in Utica celebrated the New Year's or whether they did not. Turned out many had their own new year's days. It also hints at integration and how for many of us coming from vastly different societies, we are living on the border...we never let go of things that we know as ours and yet we try to become familiar with the strange...it is very interesting to see how integration for immigrants works at multiple levels. It is complex.
http://www.uticaod.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061231/NEWS/612310331
New Year's Day — with a twist
Sunday, Dec 31, 2006
By CHINKI SINHA
Observer-Dispatch
csinha@utica.gannett.com
UTICA — Jan. 1 will be just another day for many people in the Mohawk Valley.
For some of the diverse communities in Utica, New Year's Day will fall in months of the year other than January.
During the past several decades, Utica has seen an influx of refugees from all over the world, from Belarus to Myanmar, after the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees started welcoming and resettling them in 1979.
The refugees brought their own cultures and beliefs and have held fast to the traditions, celebrating them and preserving their heritage. New Year's celebrations are one part of their heritage. Here's how some communities and families celebrate:
Cambodians
Chandara Pros will sit at home and celebrate New Year's Eve like many traditional American families. He probably will watch the ball drop at Times Square in New York City on television, eat dinner with family and go out.
But in April, he will join many other Cambodians in visiting the Wat-Sotheathek-Uticaram temple on 1552 Steuben St. and celebrating the Buddhist New Year.
"That is my culture," said Pros, who came to Utica in 1985. "We do a lot of things. We clean the temple, cook a lot of traditional food and pray."
In Cambodia, Khmer or Cambodian New Year is the biggest traditional festival and lasts for four days. Cambodians prepare traditional food to welcome the angels who bless their house and take care of them the whole year.
They also exchange gifts and show respect to elders. This year, the New Year celebrations will start April 14.
Many Cambodians came to Utica as refugees in the 1980s and have since built their temple and contributed to the diversity in the city. Most of them are Buddhists and follow the lunar calendar.
Burmese-Arkanis
At 109 Addington St., 2007 also will be welcomed in April. January is just the 10th month of the year, and there's three more months before the start of the Buddhist New Year.
Khaing Ray Linn Aung's family is from Burma, now Myanmar. They are Arkanis Burmese and are mostly Buddhists.
Because of the military regime and ethnic cleansing in their homeland, many Burmese people came to the United States under refugee status. Many of them made Utica their home. Among them are Karen, Arkanis and Burmese people.
Their New Year's, which is called Maha Thingyan, is also celebrated for three days and is spent fasting, praying and throwing water on each other.
Khaing Oo said she will not do anything on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1.
"It is not our culture," she said.
But come April, Oo will celebrate New Year's with her community. They will make traditional rice balls with sugar cubes, powdered with coconut, and other food such as chicken curry and rice. The Burmese New Year will begin April 15.
"We will go to the temple. The monk will tell us stories about god. We will pray and spend time with family," she said.
In Utica, the weather will not allow for a water festival such as they are used to in Myanmar. But Oo said they will wait until July to do it.
"It is so much fun," she said. Last year, community members went to New York City for the water festival.
Throwing water on each other is done to welcome the rains in Myanmar. It also symbolizes the cleansing of soul and body so that people may start the New Year with a purified soul.
Muslims
Kashif Qureshi still remembers the halim, dish of chicken, which his mother used to make for Muharram, the first month in the Islamic Calendar. The first day of this month, which will be Jan. 31 in 2007, is the start of the Islamic New Year.
"She used to cook halim and we distributed it to families. It is a holy month for us," he said. "The day is meant for prayers, lots of it."
Qureshi came to the United States about 15 years ago from Pakistan. There is a large Muslim population in Utica, including about 6,000 Bosnian Muslims who came to the city in the 1980s.
Many Muslims now exchange cards and gifts for New Year's, he said.
Muharram is also the most sacred of all the months. It commemorates the death of Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. On the tenth day, also called the Ashurah, many Muslims fast.
Many Muslims in Utica, who are from different parts of the world, will spend their New Year's Day on Jan. 31 praying and doing charity.
For Arbai Majeni, a Somali Muslim, Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 will be just holidays.
"I will do nothing," she said. "During Muharram I will pray and spend time with the family."
Majeni is from Somalia and came to Utica about four years ago.
Burmese — Karen
The Christmas tree at Saw Chit's house is still lit brightly, but the lights are not on for New Year's Day.
A Karen Burmese refugee, Chit is Christian. But unlike many others who will herald the New Year on Jan. 1, he will celebrate the Karen New Year with about 500 Karen people at Westminster Presbyterian Church.
"It is not the same every year," Chit said. "It is different from the English New Year's because we, the Karen people, came before Christ from other lands."
The first Karen New Year was officially celebrated in 1939. In 1938, the Karen leaders demanded that the British administration in Burma recognize their New Year and declare it a national holiday.
The Karen New Year's fell on Dec. 19 this year, but because it was not a weekend and the holidays, the Utica Karen Organization will celebrate it on Dec. 30 so that people can enjoy the celebrations on a weekend.
The Utica Karen Organization started organizing Karen New Year's celebrations two years ago. Karen people from Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse come down to Utica to celebrate the New Year.
"We have traditional clothes, traditional dance and music on that day," Chit said.
The families will cook food, which will consist of sticky rice and curry, and carry it to Tabernacle Baptist Church before moving to the other church for prayers and entertainment programs, Chit said.
The Karen came to Utica as refugees to escape the military regime in Myanmar.
Copyright ©2007 uticaOD.com All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment