Embracing America: Tragedy mars refugees' new life

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Hser Ner Moo arrived in Salt Lake City last summer, a quiet Burmese girl born in a primitive refugee camp in Thailand.

At Woodrow Wilson Elementary School she was growing into a "cute mischievous personality" in Cinderella high-heel slippers, remembered for once pouring soap on a bathroom floor so she could "ice" skate.

The affectionate 7-year-old, allegedly killed by a neighbor Monday, is now being mourned by Utah's Burmese, a small community struggling to find work, learn English and start new lives after years in refugee camps.

Zar Ni and his family, now living in Salt Lake City's Rose Park neighborhood, were some of the first to arrive, in December 2005.

"In the beginning, we were a small community, only seven families were here," recalled his daughter, Aye Nyein Chan, who attends Salt Lake Community College while working as an assistant case manager at the International Rescue Committee.

Today there are so many Burmese refugees, the families don't all know each other. More than 300 Burmese refugees have been brought to Utah by resettlement agencies, primarily over the past 15 months. Still, shops and restaurants featuring the fashion and food of their homeland, now called Myanmar, have yet to develop.

But their stories have similar chapters: years, if not decades, trapped in Thai refugee camps and yearning for freedom.

This past has indelibly shaped them, said Susan Roylance, who works with the refugee advocacy group Welcome Hand. Some of the Burmese refugees along with those from other countries may appear to have a subdued reaction to Hser Ner Moo's death, she said.

"One thing we've noticed as we've talked to refugees about this . . . they're kind of shell-shocked already," she said.

Like all refugees, many Burmese arrive in Utah as strangers to everything: the grocery store, the bus, a monthly budget. Volunteers and staff with resettlement agencies become quasi-parents, helping families find a place to live, providing furniture, helping them find jobs.

Utah's most recent arrivals are primarily members of the Karen and Chin ethnic groups who fled Myanmar for Thailand. In today's Myanmar, eight main ethnic groups comprise the 55 million people living in an area roughly the size of Texas.

Hser Ner Moo's family was one of about 10 Burmese families who settled in South Salt Lake in the South Parc apartment complex, where Russians call Iraqi and Burmese families neighbors.

Her family's apartment became a welcoming home where guests never knocked before coming in, friends said. After refugee advocates started an English class in the apartment, more and more people seemed to gather there. The parents encouraged other people to come and learn.

Outside his job at Deseret Industries, Cartoon Wah, Hser Ner Moo's father, is known for helping others - such as cutting people's hair and fixing their bikes, Roylance said. Her mother, Pearlie Wah, uses the English skills she brought to the U.S. to work as an interpreter at the Granite School District. Often, other refugees seek out Pearlie Wah for help with their new strange language.

She too sometimes needed help, such as wanting to communicate clearly during medical appointments.

On Monday, the day her daughter disappeared, she asked refugee and medical interpreter Bawmu Everest to accompany her to a dentist appointment to translate.

Hser Ner Moo delightedly greeted him at the door around noon, enjoying a school break. She asked to go along.

"Why? You are happy. You need to stay here," Bawmu Everest recalled the girl's mother saying.

Hours later, Hser Ner Moo disappeared.

Lea- rning that Esar Met, 21, another Burmese refugee, is accused of killing Hser Ner Moo, has made the community wonder about the future, Bawmu Everest said.

"We're scared especially because American people will think refugee people from Burma are bad," said Bawmu Everest, who is known as Tha Ra or teacher because of his language skills. "The belief and the trust in the refugees will be lower."

Refugees have spent years already trying to escape the past.

Hser Ner Moo's father, a member of the Karen ethnic group, fled violence in Burma for the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand, one of nine United Nations-sponsored camps.

University of Utah faculty and community members who visited the camp this February found it to be a "thriving village" of more than 50,000 refugees with dirt roads and bamboo homes served by a variety of nongovernmental and community organizations. Some of its residents never choose to leave.

Cartoon Wah lived in the camp, where Hser Ner Moo and her three older brothers were born, for 24 years. The family's newborn son was born in Utah a few weeks ago.

When Zar Ni speaks about Burma, the pain is evident in his eyes.

He was part of an Aug. 8, 1988, uprising by the country's people against the military government; nearly 3,000 were killed. He continued to protest and was jailed in 1992.

In 1990, Democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi had a landslide win with candidates from her National League for Democracy, although she was placed under house arrest and thousands of supporters were jailed. But generals did not cede power and changed the country's name to Myanmar.

Political unrest has continued since then; last September, Buddhist monks were killed during a protest.

Zar Ni, now 43, said he endured near-daily beatings in Insein Prison until his release in 2001. He fled to Thailand, where his family joined him and lived for nearly three years, with eight months in a refugee camp.

The International Rescue Committee helped them resettle in Salt Lake City.

Zar Ni and his family have transitioned well, but thoughts of home are never far from his mind. Flanked by his wife and Chan, his 19-year-old daughter, he eagerly shares a DVD of news reports about Burma, compiled over years. His living room walls are covered in photographs of Aung San Suu Kyi and others who have fought for democracy in Burma.

But Zar Ni and his daughter say they are grateful to be relocated to a place such as the United States.

"Here, you have environmentalism, law and order, democracy, human rights and freedom," Zar Ni said. "There, we had nothing."

Hser Ner Moo was eagerly embracing her adopted country, friends said. A person who identifies herself only as "Miss A." wrote a letter to the girl and posted it on a utility pole near the family's apartment complex. In the letter, Miss A. writes about seeing the girl blossoming at school.

The second-grader once cut up scraps of paper and glued them to her nails so that she, too, "could have long, beautiful fake nails like the adults," Miss A. reminisced.

"It was really hard to have a bad day or feel down when you were around," she wrote. "You could always make me smile or laugh. I am so grateful for the mark you left on my life . . . we'll try to remember to see the world as you did a place full of laughter, delight and adventures to be had. I love you."

jlyon@sltrib.com

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