Thread: Bhutan Refugees Find a Toehold in the Bronx

September 25, 2009

Bhutan Refugees Find a Toehold in the Bronx

By KIRK SEMPLE

Nearly every immigrant group in New York City has a neighborhood, or at least a street, to call its own. But for refugees from the tiny South Asian nation of Bhutan, the closest thing to a home base is a single building in the Bronx — a red-brick five-story walk-up, with a weed-choked front courtyard and grimy staircases.

Eight families — more than 40 people — have taken up residence here in the past several months, part of a stream of thousands of Bhutanese refugees who have flowed into the United States in the past year and a half. With the help of resettlement agencies, many have found apartments in the Bronx, and the largest concentration has ended up here in the building on University Avenue.

This is their small toehold in a strange new world. The only life most have known was in the rural plains and Himalayan foothills of Bhutan and the dusty refugee camps of Nepal. Few have ever lived in homes with electricity or indoor plumbing, or between walls made of anything but bamboo.

Now they dwell among high-rise canyons, contending with wild traffic, a miasma of cultures and languages, and New York’s frenzied pace. Their challenge now is to bridge those two worlds — finding jobs and enrolling in classes — and move beyond the building.

“We have started inventing our lifestyle,â€

The only life most have known was in the rural plains and Himalayan foothills of Bhutan and the dusty refugee camps of Nepal. Few have ever lived in homes with electricity or indoor plumbing, or between walls made of anything but bamboo.

Sounds like America in 10 years or so.

This is cultural discomfort for the refugees is what comes from locating them in order to conveniece the American social workers.

Richard wrote:
"This is cultural discomfort for the refugees is what comes from locating them in order to conveniece the American social workers."

I cannot help asking you, Richard--completely tongue-in-cheek--whether you think these refugees should be housed in bamboo houses without electricity or indoor plumbing in Central Park, for example, so that they would "feel at home"?

There has to be some balance between the needs of the host nation and those granted legal immingrant status and asylum - unfortunately for too long this balance has been sharply tilted in favor of the latter by our government.