After 3 years, Somalis struggle to adjust to U.S.
By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
HARTFORD, Conn. — "Bbrraannggg!"
Abdiaziz Hussein and his family had been in their apartment only a day, and in the modern world not much longer. Still, he knew from the orientation class at the refugee camp in Africa what that sound meant: Fire! (Photos: Finding a new refuge)


Abdiaziz Hussein plays with his 7-month-old twins in Hartford, Conn. His mother, Batula Gobow, also lives with the family.
By Josh T. Reynolds, for USA TODAY

Abdiaziz told his family — mother, wife and seven children — they had to get out. However, in his panic, he couldn't unlock the door.

He'd never faced double locks before, and now he flipped both furiously, first the top, then the bottom, until he couldn't remember which was which.

He'd also been taught that a fire alarm brought fire engines. However, minutes passed, and none arrived. Eventually, the family realized they were safe — and trapped in their apartment. They stayed there for five days, until their caseworker let herself in with a key and explained to Abdiaziz that what he thought was the fire alarm actually had been the lobby door buzzer.

The tragicomic episode and others like it across the nation became fodder for the national debate over immigration. Were Abdiaziz's people — the displaced Bantu of Somalia — totally unfit for life in America? Or were they no more backward than most Third World refugees? (Related: Three tales of assimilation)

The answer, it now seems, was neither. Bantus, who began arriving almost three years ago, are not latter-day cave men. But their assimilation has been a struggle.

That may be America's mission, political scientist Dan Van Lehman says: "If you read what's on the Statue of Liberty ("Give me your tired, your poor ... "), it's talking about the Somali Bantu."

Out of Africa

When he arrived in the USA on July 29, 2004, Abdiaziz, now 30, was one of the world's tempest-tossed. Bantu people from east Africa had been carried north to Somalia as slaves in the 19th century, and their descendants had been persecuted ever since by ethnic Somalis. When the nation collapsed into civil war in the early 1990s, Bantus were defenseless in the ensuing anarchy.

Portrait of a people
In 1999 the U.S. State Department decided to grant political asylum to 12,000 to 13,000 Somali Bantu refugees, most of them living in camps in Kenya. They began arriving in 2003, settling in or around scores of American cities.

The Bantu people are descendants of six African tribes, and many trace their origins to what is today Tanzania, which was a prime site for slave traders.

19th century: Many slaves are sold to work in Europe and North America; others to Somalia.

1930s: Slavery ends in Somalia, but the Italian colonial government sets up an exploitative system similar to slavery in which the Somali Bantu work as farm laborers.

1960: Somalia gains independence, but the Somali Bantu are denied opportunities for land ownership, education and political representation.

1991: Civil war breaks out in Somalia. In the chaos, stocks of food overseen by the Somali Bantu farmers become targets for looting and attacks by bandits and militia members.

1992: The Somali Bantu begin fleeing to refugee camps in Kenya.

2003: The first group of Bantu refugees begins resettling in the United States.

Reporting by Melanie Eversley, USA TODAY

Sources: www.CulturalOrientation.net, Portland State University Somali Bantu Project, Somaliland Times , U.S. State Department





Many fled on foot to refugee camps in Kenya, waiting in vain for order to be restored back home. Finally, the U.S. State Department in 1999 agreed to give political asylum to more than 13,000 Bantus, making them the largest single group of African refugees ever admitted to the USA.

Their arrival, which began in 2003 and now is almost complete, represented a stiff test of the nation's ability to accommodate newcomers; most Bantus were isolated, disenfranchised and traumatized peasants.

Resettlement counselors who work with Bantus say many had never flushed a toilet, flicked a light switch, watched a TV, talked on a telephone, cooked on a stove, ridden in a car, held a pen, used a fork, seen a two-story building or written or read their own language. In Kenya, some Bantus had gotten stuck in a room at an orientation session because they didn't know how to turn the doorknob. Others asked whether they had to go with their luggage as it passed through the airport X-ray machine.

Resettlement agencies were told not to give the refugees anything too complicated — like a toaster. Plans to cluster some Bantu families in Holyoke, Mass., were canceled when members of the City Council said the community lacked the resources to care for them.

The last 600 Bantus are due to arrive by summer, according to the State Department — and two things are clear: Most are making it in America, and they have needed more help getting settled than any refugee group since the Hmong from Laos a quarter-century ago.

Van Lehman, a Portland (Ore.) State University professor involved in a national effort to study and assist the Somali Bantu, says almost all the men who can work do, usually in low-wage posts such as janitor, warehouse worker and orderly. Most of the men have learned some English. Many have bought cars and gotten driver's licenses.

Most of the women are isolated at home without a car and with several small children. Their only exposure to English is a volunteer tutor for a few hours once a week.

Bantus are determined to drive — so determined that many living in Connecticut, which does not offer the driver's test in Somali, have flown to Arizona, which allows them to take the test with a Somali-speaking interpreter. To fulfill the residency requirement, Abdiaziz says, they list the address of the relative or friend with whom they're staying. There is so much to learn about America.

Last winter, Hartford police were called after some newly arrived children were seen playing outside without coats or shoes, just like in Africa. On July 4, some Bantus in Springfield, Mass., were terrorized by what they thought was gunfire. "But at least we had them prepared for Halloween," says Robert Marmor, director of Jewish Family Services of Western Massachusetts, which helped resettle 250 Bantus.

For some Bantus, the adjustment has been particularly difficult:

• More than 200 Bantus ended up in homeless shelters last year in Columbus, Ohio. They'd moved to the city, which has a large Somali population, from the communities where they were originally settled, looking for work.

• The 100 Bantu families who were resettled in Pinellas County, Fla., in 2004, found jobs and housing so scarce that within a year all had moved elsewhere.

"We had no idea how hard it would be, even though we spent a year preparing for their arrival," says Marmor, the Springfield agency director. "We didn't realize there would be people with no knowledge of Western civilization."

The biggest problem, he says, is a lack of English, particularly among women. Their children also are not learning as fast as they should, partly because for the past two years there were only a few part-time Somali interpreters for about 90 Bantus spread among 20 Springfield public schools. (Last month, in response to a civil rights complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education by advocates of the Somalis, the school system agreed to hire more bilingual tutors and start after-school programs for the high school students.)

Overall, however, Marmor says he is struck by how much Bantus are like other refugees: "You could be talking to a Russian ้migr้ from 1900. They want the same things — a job, a home, education for their children." Whatever their disadvantages, he adds, Bantus have passed other trials — bondage, war, the camps. "They may not have known what a door was," he says, "but they know how to survive."

From hut to Hartford

Abdiaziz Hussein is a survivor. His remote farm village had no school, no electricity, no running water, no telephone. His family lived in a thatched-roof hut the size of his current living room.

In 1992, a warlord's militia invaded the village. Abdiaziz says he saw gunmen cut off his father's head when he begged them to stop raping Abdiaziz's sister. Then they killed her, too.

Abdiaziz's assimilation began in a Kenya refugee camp, where he worked odd jobs for CARE to get money for private English lessons. By the time he left the camp, he was teaching the language himself.

In Hartford, his English helped him get a job as a teacher's assistant at a Head Start program run by Community Renewal Team, an anti-poverty agency.

He works 40 hours a week and makes $13.60 an hour. Over the past year and a half, he has bought a car, gotten a cellphone, passed his driver's test (on the third try) and become the father of twins.

He has also learned to laugh at his own befuddlement over the "fire alarm."

"It was crazy!" he recalls. "I thought we were going to burn up." Despite his youth, he's become a Bantu community spokesman. He's met the mayor, City Council members and resettlement agency officials to discuss Bantu grievances, including cramped, expensive housing; insufficient day care; and slow enrollment of children in public school.

"He was reluctant at first, because by age he's not an elder," says Tara Parrish, an organizer with Hartford Areas Rally Together, a community group. "He's grown into the role."

Economically, however, Abdiaziz is stuck. His family's size alone probably will keep it in the ranks of the working poor, no matter how hard he strives.

But he says he's determined to buy a house, go to college and get an administrative job. He also wants to form a Somali Bantu organization. In America, he says, "If you don't have an organization, you're nowhere."



He makes more per hr. than my niece, a college grad., and she only has a part time job!