Something to read over the holidays......

 If you are looking for something to read over the holidays, here are a few great books about refugees and their experiences coming to the United States:

What is the What  by Dave Eggers

This is a novel written by Dave Eggers and drawn from the real-life story of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. The title comes from a local story about the reward of choosing what’s known over what’s unknown. What is the What describes the interminable walking, the militia and bombs, starvation and disease, lions and crocodiles that kill countless young boys as they attempt to find refuge in Ethiopia and Kenya. Eventually many of the Lost Boys gain entry to the United States, and they form a vibrant community displaced across the country but constantly in touch by cell phone. Valentino ends up in Atlanta, adjusting to the fact that America offers its own evils and injustices.

Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers by Marina Budhos

In fourteen interviews with new Americans from Latin America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean, Marina Budhos found many remarkable stories. Muslim girls in New York struggling between rigid home rules and high school pressures. Russians in L.A. testing out the strangeness of American teenage customs. Hmong boys in Wisconsin trying to be true to two unfamiliar cultures. But when she met young people whose experience matched her Guyanese father's, Budhos changed from being a reporter to being a fellow traveler between worlds. Remix faces two ways: it exposes the too-often hidden world of immigrants, and it also reveals, through their insightful eyes, what it means to be a teenager in America.

The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness and Hope by Claudia Kolker

Each chapter in this book focuses on a specific cultural tradition that has made an immigrant group stronger and/or healthier than their American counterparts. These include descriptions of South-Asian lending groups that have led to economic prosperity among Vietnamese refugees, sheltering of extended family members by west-Indians in multi-generational homes, neighborhood social cohesion in Latino communities that lead to better health, and strong education traditions in Korean and Chinese homes. This book identifies strengths in traditional immigrant cultures that can benefit several generations of families after their arrival in the United States.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures  by Anne Fadiman 

This book chronicles the struggles of a Hmong refugee family and their interactions with the health care system in Merced, California. On the most basic level, the book tells the story of the family's second youngest and favored daughter, Lia Lee who is diagnosed with severe epilepsy, and the culture conflict that obstructs her treatment. Through miscommunications about medical dosages and parental refusal to give certain medicines due to mistrust and misunderstandings, and the inability of the doctors to have more empathy toward the traditional Hmong lifestyle or try to learn more about the Hmong culture, Lia's condition worsens. The dichotomy between the Hmong's perceived spiritual factors and the Americans' perceived scientific factors comprises the overall theme of the book.

The Middle of Everywhere by Mary Pipher 

Transformation of Lincoln, Nebraska after US Office of Refugee Resettlement decided it was a “preferred community for newly-arrived refugees.” Through a series of short stories Mary Pipher explores the experiences of different refugee groups in her home town of Lincoln.

ZooZoo at the Imago Theater!

Erin, Sarah and all of the kids pose in front of the theater doors

Three Karen boys show us how to "keep it
real" during intermission

         The Imago Theater hosted an event--'Kid's fest'--for underprivileged kids in the Portland area and they saved 15 tickets for Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement. We brought our elementary-aged kids to the theater for a productions of "ZooZoo." Frogs, hippos, penguins and more danced across the stage (and occasionally through the audience--a polar bear sat on one of our Burmese girls, she was delighted). ZooZoo was particularly wonderful for these kids because it relied exclusively on dance and movement--there were no words so even the newest kids with minimal English could follow along.

Nyibol told me that her favorite  animals
in the show were the cats.

When we first picked up the kids I don't think they had a clue where we were going--they were pretty surprised when the first hippo in pajamas came out on stage. By the end of the performance the kids were laughing out loud and waving at the penguins playing musical chairs. Thanks again to the Imago theater for inviting us to this fantastic show and for giving these kids a chance to just have fun!!!

Thank You!

                       
Our program has been blessed recently with wonderful holiday donations from local parishes and churches.  Joan Goebel Holmgren of St. Pius organized a coat drive that produced twenty bags of gently used coats and three large boxes of brand new children’s coats.  Gail Kingsley of St. Mary’s Cathedral spear-headed the annual drive to put together twenty-eight baskets overflowing with household items, all wrapped in the softest blankets imaginable.  Dana Regan of First Unitarian Church’s youth group coordinated the creation of seven large Thanksgiving boxes bulging with traditional American treats. 

Equally important, Warner Pacific College and the Door of Hope church have pledged to help our refugee clients on an on-going basis.  Warner Pacific students studying with Dr. Cassie Trentaz are fulfilling their service requirement by helping us collect donations, set up apartments for new arrivals, straighten out our always-messy storage unit and, in some cases, helping new families learn English.  The Door of Hope has already donated a Welcome Kit, an immense box filled with almost everything a family needs to get started in their new home, and they’ve agreed to gather other donations as needed.

Helping hands like these not only provide our newly arrived families with basic items like food and clothes, but also send a resounding welcome to men, women and children who may not have felt welcomed anywhere in the world.

Message from Jeanne Toal

Many refugees coming to the United States have endured war, hardships and struggles before arriving.  The path to becoming a refugee is a hard one, one that almost always starts in a moment of crisis.

I spoke with a college volunteer today whose mother was a refugee from Ethiopia.  This young man, a star basketball player and one of the founders of a non-profit that collects athletic shoes for children, told me how he’d first met his older sister when he was eight.  “My mother had to leave her behind,” he said.  “She couldn’t carry her and a baby.  She hid my sister in the bushes in Ethiopia, with my great grandmother.”  It took years for his mother to arrange for his sister to come to the United States, and he still remembers meeting her for the first time at the airport.  “My mother still has a hard time when she thinks about leaving her little daughter behind.  She still feels guilty, even though there was nothing else she could do.”

We, staff and volunteers alike, are aware of the challenges facing newly-arrived refugees. We know that adjusting to a new culture and a new life can be overwhelming.  What we don’t, and maybe can’t, understand is how hard it was just getting here.

Becoming a refugee starts when someone has a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/her self of the protection of that country.”  That’s the legal definition of a refugee.  It means that to be declared a refugee, a person or family has to flee intolerable conditions in their home country and find safety in nearby country.  The United Nations High Command for Refugees (UNHCR) then interviews them to decide whether they should be granted refugee status and qualify for UNHCR protection.

The UNHCR also seeks a ‘durable solution for any refugee situation.’ There are three durable solutions: voluntary repatriation to the home country, integration into the country of asylum, and resettlement in a third country.  Only about 1% of all refugees are referred for resettlement in a third country.  The United States, one of a handful of countries with resettlement programs, is the top resettlement country in the world.

Refugees referred to the United States for resettlement are interviewed by an officer of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS), who decides if a person qualifies as a refugee under U.S. law.  After this, a non-governmental agency known as an OPE gets additional information about the family, including the names and addresses of any relatives in the United States.  The International Organization for Migration (IOM) generally arranges transportation to this country, though refugees are expected to repay the cost of their plane ticket.  Before leaving for the U.S., refugees receive cultural orientation , where they learn about life in the U.S.

A refugee can be resettled anywhere in the country, but refugees with close relatives already here will probably be resettled in their town.  However, the availability of housing, employment, services and other factors determine exact placement.

At Catholic Charities, seven employees provide services to refugees when they finally arrive in Portland.  They speak Bosnian, Burmese, Croatian, Hakha, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Ukranian and Zomi.  Last year the Refugee Resettlement Program worked with 334 refugees, and in the first seven months of this year provided services to 92 people, primarily Burmese, Bhutanese, Congolese and Somali.

Those numbers are interesting, but it’s the faces and the stories that stir your heart.  Stay tuned for our upcoming interview with a Sudanese mother who arrived in Portland nearly a year ago with her seven children.  Her story, like so many others, will amaze you with the courage and perseverance it took to get to Portland, where a whole new set of challenges waited.