Thread: TX-Burmese refugees find safety in Austin

Burmese refugees find safety in Austin
By SUZANNAH GONZALES Austin American-Statesman
Article Launched: 07/19/2008 08:08:25 AM MDT


AUSTIN—He can't go back.
He joined a democracy group in neighboring India. If he returned to his home country, he'd be arrested, maybe tortured, possibly killed.

He is a Chin, an ethnic minority group in Myanmar—also known as Burma—that is targeted by the military government for its ethnicity and political affiliations.

But he's safe now in Austin.

A Thang Yawm Nan and his family are part of a new and fast-growing community of Burmese refugees—the largest refugee group in Austin last year, according to local refugee agencies. Since October, about 200 Burmese refugees, the majority of whom are of the Karen ethnic group, have arrived here.

With tens of thousands of Burmese having spent as many as 10 years in refugee camps on the Thailand-Myanmar border and the political situation in their country worsening, Burmese could not continue to stay in the camps indefinitely or go back to their country. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security approved their resettlement in the United States in 2006. Currently the Burmese make up the largest movement of refugees nationwide.

"They're being given safety and a new life," said Sofia Casini, area director of Refugee Services of Texas Inc., which has helped Yawm Nan's family in Austin. "They're here for good."

Burmese refugees, some of whom reject the name Myanmar, began settling in Austin in 2006. Refugee Services helps them from before they arrive in Austin through their

first six months here. The agency coordinates six-month sponsorship of the families by mosques, synagogues and churches, helps set up the refugees in apartments, manages federal funding, raises money for extra needs and provides services, such as mental health counseling, job training and cultural orientation. The other refugee resettlement agency in Austin is Caritas.
Seven Burmese refugee families live in the apartment complex off of East Riverside Drive where Yawm Nan's family lives; more families live in a few apartment complexes near North Lamar Boulevard and U.S. 183.

The refugees work in housekeeping at downtown hotels, in a North Austin paint store or, depending on their language abilities, in supermarkets and factories. Most are paid between $7.50 and $9 per hour. Some work as interpreters and caseworkers with the refugee resettlement agencies.

"They are not these broken, dejected people that are coming to the U.S. so we need to save their lives and put them back together again. People who have made it this far often are extremely resilient, highly intelligent. They've already maybe fled a few different times and had to pull together all different forms of resources, both internal resources and external, to make that happen," Casini said.

"This is just another stage in their life. ... They can finally stop fleeing and stop living in fear."

Yawm Nan, 26, and his wife, Esther Choiki, 27, are from a town near the border with India in the Chin Hills. Yawm Nan said he didn't make enough money to feed his family, government taxes were excessive, prices were rising, and food was scarce.

He left Burma for Thailand, where the wages were higher. Later he went to India, where he worked on farms, and to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where refugees are detained and tortured, to work as a day laborer.

Choiki and the couple's son, Yuan Nan Thang, now 4, met Yawm Nan in Malaysia, where their daughter, Mary Nan, now 11 months, was born.

After a series of interviews and proving they could not return to Burma, they received refugee status from the U.S. government. Then they came to Austin, joining Yawm Nan's cousin and his family at the same apartment complex on Willow Creek Drive, near East Riverside Drive.

Since January, Yawm Nan has worked generally 40 hours a week on the housekeeping staff at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown, one of nine Burmese refugees employed there. He makes between $400 and $500 every two weeks. The family also is on Medicaid and receives food stamps.

He wishes he earned more. Rent for the family's one-bedroom apartment is $545 a month. Then there are utilities, diapers and a travel loan they had to repay over four months.

"One income for the family. He feels it's not enough," he said through the family's case manager and translator, Ma Zin Tin Lwin.

Tin Lwin was a doctor in Burma who left 19 years ago at a time when other educated people, including physicians, started a dissident group. When she arrived in Austin, there were about 30 Burmese, she recalled. The community was made up of mostly professionals. With high levels of education, knowledge of English and having come from urban areas in Burma, their transition was uneventful for the most part, Tin Lwin said.

But the newer refugees are having a much harder adjustment, she said. They're from rural, farming communities, most are illiterate even in their native language, and the majority don't know English.

The language barrier is a major obstacle for Yawm Nan and Choiki.

"It should be a two-way conversation," Yawm Nan said through Tin Lwin, but he can't express himself.

Most of his co-workers speak Spanish, which hinders his English learning. He knows "poquito," "trabajo."

His wife knows "living room," "bathroom," "bedroom."

Almost daily, Choiki attends English classes run by Austin Area Interreligious Ministries at the church across the street from the hotel where Yawm Nan works. Child care is provided at the church during the three-hour class, which lets out at noon. She arrives home about an hour later after taking the bus. She has lunch, feeds her children, showers and prepares dinner.

She tries to find moments to review what she learned in class, but the children make that nearly impossible. She tries to listen to people talking at the medical clinic, but she never understands, and that makes her feel inadequate. She misses her old country, where she can say more than hello.

They don't socialize much with the other families in the apartment complex because of their conflicting work schedules, Yawm Nan says, but sometimes they gather for prayer meetings.

"The thing that makes him feel good is that he's around people who speak the same language," Tin Lwin said.

He says he's not homesick, but he worries about his parents, who are still there. It's hard to communicate with them. Phone service doesn't always reach the Chin Hills. And even if the call went through, it could be screened and endanger his parents. He doesn't have the means to bring them here, and the process would be too cumbersome. Bribing officers for a passport can cost up to $10,000, which could buy 100 houses in a village like theirs.

Here in the United States, he likes the human rights and the opportunities for him and his children. Here, he says, it's first come, first served, and every child can get an education. He believes his children will excel.

Here in Austin, he wants people to know about Burma, how people are being oppressed and how innocent people are denied human rights.

When Yawm Nan arrived in Austin at the end of October, the climate and open space reminded him of home. He envisions staying here until he's very old.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_9933104

Yawm Nan said he didn't make enough money to feed his family, government taxes were excessive, prices were rising, and food was scarce.

So, why would it be any better in the US?