Thread: African refugees reshape Dallas foreign population

African refugees reshape Dallas' foreign population

07:16 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 24, 2008
By JESSICA MEYERS / The Dallas Morning News
jmeyers@dallasnews.com

Languages ricocheted off the house clinic's walls faster than patients could enter.

ELIZABETH M. CLAFFEY / DMN
Claudine Ninkunday, front, 13, and her sister Agnes Ndamuhayimana, 11, find their art work at The Cameron Gallery.
View larger More photos Photo store Two men greeted each other jubilantly in Swahili, a child cried his desires in Somali, and a cluster of women stood outside, their babies secured on their backs with magenta cloth. They spoke Kirundi, Burundi's native tongue.

"It's a mini-United Nations here," said Deborah Johnson, a nurse at the Refugee Outreach Program clinic in the Vickery Meadows area just north of NorthPark Center.

More specifically, it's a mini-Africa.

The packed clinic reveals some of Dallas' newest residents, more than 750 Burundians who came from Tanzanian refugee camps in the past two years, and 400 Sudanese fleeing the perils of Darfur.

Last year, Texas accepted more Burundians than any other state, according to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. The total number of Burundian refugees accepted to the U.S. in fiscal year 2007: 4,525. And they estimate an additional 4,000 for the coming fiscal year.

Refugee workers say those numbers will continue to increase in Dallas because of the large number of charitable organizations in the area.

The city already houses 150,000 Africans from all over the continent, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, Liberia, Kenya, Uganda and Congo.

Few area residents know they're here. But they are quietly redefining the area's immigrant community. And spurred largely by the newest influx of refugees, this diverse group is struggling to create a cohesive voice.

"We are starting to see partnerships between universities and churches in the African community in raising awareness about challenges here and at home like droughts and civil war," said Alusine Jalloh, associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington and founder of the Africa Program, an organization intended to promote business and education between Texas and Africa.

"But we are not there yet in terms of a common identity," said the native Sierra Leonean. "I always tell my students when the chips are down, Africans think ethnically."

There's much that distinguishes African immigrants from other minorities. They don't have the familial networks of Dallas' Mexican population or the distinctive enclaves of its Vietnamese. They come from more than 20 countries, speak twice as many languages and are scattered throughout Dallas-Fort Worth.

The most recent to immigrate are united only by exile. The more established groups – like Nigerians, who at 25,000 make up the area's largest number of Africans from one country – came for college in the past three decades and now work as engineers, lawyers or doctors.

The new arrivals have little contact with these long-standing immigrants, said Sethi Bigirimana, 40, a Burundian refugee who arrived six months ago. That's partly because many of the older residents are from West and North Africa, whereas the newer ones are from East Africa and more rural parts of central Africa.

"We are not united," Mr. Bigirimana said through a translator. "We are taught East and West don't go. It's tradition and unnatural to crack that."

Some in the community are trying to change that mentality so Africans as a whole get more recognition. But they're also hoping stronger unity will prevent scenarios like one in April, when a recent Eritrean immigrant died on a Dallas freeway because he had never seen one and didn't know not to cross it.

"We need Africans to come together," said Amadu Massally, 45, an accountant from Sierra Leone who came to the U.S. 24 years ago. He's helping his friend plan an African Banquet and Cultural Center in the Dallas area. They intend it to draw Africans for multicultural celebrations like weddings and birthdays.

"We need to make a concentrated effort to bring ourselves together as one, as a continent and a people representing a people," he said.

The DFW International Community Alliance has made one such attempt with relative success. It hosted the first African Unity Festival this month. About 5,000 Africans showed up over several weekends for soccer tournaments and cultural festivities such as Eritrean dance and West African storytelling.

Debi Wheeler, the International Rescue Committee's regional director, said activities like these help the African refugee community gain much-needed attention.

"Churches in Dallas and Fort Worth say they're committed to sending aid to Africa," Ms. Wheeler said as she left Burundian refugee Jean Nepo Congera's apartment in Vickery Meadows. "And I say, 'Africa, it's right here!' "

Not quite, said Mr. Congera, 27, who came to Dallas with his mother and five siblings a year and a half ago from a refugee camp in Rwanda. He grew up in such camps and never set foot in Burundi.

"There are two sentences I can say in the United States that I couldn't say in Africa," he said. "My car. My computer."

Mr. Congera works as a summer camp supervisor and a housekeeper. He also takes social work classes at Richland College. He's missed eight years of schooling because of continuous resettlement.

"I want one more sentence," he said. "I hope eventually I can say: My career."





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