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- Refugees in Utah
- Jun 30:
- Hyatt Place: War-torn refugees find Salt Lake City hotel work
- Jun 27:
- Refugee numbers drop, but many who do flee find only trouble
- Jun 12:
- Iraqi refugees returning to danger zone to escape poverty in Utah
- U.S. welcome disappoints Iraqi interpreter who lost his legs
- Fleeing violence, refugee finds homelessness in Utah
- Utah refugee programs have a hard time coping with growing demand
- Today's refugees face harsher adjustment as program funding, flexibility lag
Logan » Volunteer Holly Hill barks out a hint to refugee Ya He Ma: "Ruff! Ruff!"
When Ma answers "dog" in perfect English, Hill is ecstatic. "Good!" she thunders, pleased with Ma's effort to master the language on this last night of class before summer break.
Such baby steps are celebrated daily here in Logan, where volunteers have formed a net to support more than 100 Burmese refugees who unexpectedly moved to town to take jobs left vacant by an immigration raid.
"We were totally, as a community, unprepared to have refugees arrive," says Katie Jensen, co-director of the English Language Center of Cache Valley, a 10-year-old nonprofit that has become the backbone of that
"They arrived in Logan with nothing," Jensen says. "Our community just kicked into gear like you wouldn't believe."
The first Burmese refugees began arriving in the Cache Valley in the winter of 2008, shortly after landing in Salt Lake City as part of the federal government's effort to resettle refugees from war-torn Myanmar and its Karen state. Myanmar was once known as Burma.
Drawn by jobs at JBS Swift & Co. meat-packing plant, which saw its work force depleted by a 2006 federal immigration raid, the refugees mostly commuted, piling into apartments during the week and returning to their families in Salt Lake City on weekends.
Beginning last summer, entire families started moving from Salt
Today, 22 households are taking root here, a number that's increasing weekly as schools dismiss and apartment leases expire in the Salt Lake area, allowing families to reunite. Most of the adults work at Swift, although a few work at Icon Fitness or area motels.
At first, Logan had no idea.
Refugees trickled in, renting apartments but lacking even the most basic furniture.
Alex Mortensen, who had recently returned from an LDS Church mission to Thailand and Cambodia, heard the English Language Center needed volunteers, and signed up.
Soon, Jensen sent him to seek out refugees.
Mortensen speaks Thai, so he can communicate with a few refugees who picked up the language while living in Thai refugee camps.
He had met tribal people in Thailand, but was shocked to find them living, essentially unnoticed, in his hometown.
"You've been here [in Utah] a year and no one has taught you how to do this? No one has helped you get a bed?" Mortensen recalls thinking.
He was stunned by what they lacked, what they didn't know.
Nine refugees shared a single towel. They had no tables nor chairs, no shower curtains nor even an awareness they could damage floors and walls with water.
The English Language Center began contacting faith and civic groups, and organized a community meeting to rally help.
Melissa Spencer-Perez, a young mother who had experience working internationally, was at that meeting. When no one else stepped up, she became coordinator of the Cache Valley Refugee Organization.
That was in November.
Within a month, the group had a garage full of provisions. Refugees received beds, blankets and sheets, towels, a few cups and plates, clothes, socks, shoes and coats.
Residents donated washers and dryers. One group put together cleaning buckets and gave each refugee household a vacuum.
A single mother invited dozens of refugee children to her home for sledding and gift baskets.
"I cannot believe, still, the generosity of the residents of Logan," Spencer-Perez says.
But the refugees needed more than stuff.
They needed living skills, so Mortensen, Spencer-Perez and others began teaching them.
Volunteers organized English language classes two nights a week. They invited speakers on other topics as well. One week a banker taught refugees how to pay bills and avoid overdrafts. Another week, a nurse taught hygiene.
When someone donated cleaning buckets, volunteers showed refugees unaccustomed to running water how to use cleaning products.
It's important the refugees stay in landlords' good graces, Spencer-Perez says. "Logan is small. A lot of people talk. We could foresee that could be a huge problem. If they don't clean, no one will rent to them."
Two AmeriCorps volunteers began playing soccer and Burmese games with the teenage boys and the men each Saturday. Mortensen last week began teaching basic computer classes.
He meets each new family and after ensuring they have basic household items, helps them get immunizations and apply for green cards. Those cards will allow them to become citizens after five years, a vital step in integration.
"We were able to find people who had slipped through the cracks in other places and get them on the right track," he says.
Among the most successful of the refugees so far is Hser Doh, a 22-year-old who goes by the nickname "Chapter," which is how Hser translates into English.
He was one of the first Burmese refugees to take a job at Swift and quickly learned English. He no longer works at Swift, but instead is a liaison and translator for the English Language Center.
Jnut Bi also arrived in February 2008 to work as butcher at Swift.
The first months were the hardest, she says, speaking through a translator -- Doh -- in the three-bedroom apartment she shares with her husband, Sa Bo Din, and children.
She and other refugees go to work before dawn each morning, car-pooling to the plant in Hyrum, where they are on their feet all day.
The work is difficult, particularly for people who did not hold jobs in the camps.
"After one year, we feel better," Bi says.
A Swift human resources employee, Omar Cortezano, says the refugees came along at a good time. Last summer, the plant was hiring 33 people a week for its $10.80-an-hour production jobs. This summer, few are being hired.
Cortezano said the refugees are "good workers," with few problems. The plant uses translators to communicate with refugees, he said.
Though thankful for the jobs, Bi and her husband are working hard to learn English so they can find other jobs.
Their motivation is evident as the couple arrives for the English class, Din wearing large plastic-framed eyeglasses donated by a Cache Valley couple.
Bi concentrates on her workbook, learning how to punctuate the words "Mr.," "Mrs." and "Dr.," while her husband matches words to pictures using numbers he has learned.
It's slow work, learning English, particularly because most of the Burmese are not literate in their own language.
"We're really trying to hit home with them, to have a better life in the future, you've got to learn English," Mortensen says.
The point is not lost on another couple, Htee Blut and Shee Wah.
Wah worked in housekeeping at a Marriott after arriving in Salt Lake City. When their apartment lease expired in April, she and their three children joined Blut in Logan.
The couple attends the English classes in the Karen language, taught at the Department of Workforce Services.
"We want to stay here. We have a hope for the children to be educated for the future," Blut says through the translator.
Gerald Brown, director of the State of Utah Refugee Office, says the Logan situation is not ideal.
For one, the community effort to help the refugees has no funding. The English Language Center gets only a tiny education grant.
The two resettlement agencies working in Utah -- Catholic Community Services and International Rescue Committee -- have no caseworkers in Logan.
Brown's office has assumed long-term oversight for those refugees who arrived after March 1. But those who arrived before then are the responsibilities of CCS and IRC.
"Every new refugee needs a case manager for at least two years," Brown says. "It increases their chance of success."
He doesn't know when, or if, money will be found to help the English Language Center continue its casework among refugees in Logan.
Jensen works constantly to raise money.
"We've had to do a lot with very little," she acknowledges, but adds she's hopeful that can continue.
"If we see a population that needs help, we just help and then we hope things come along to aid us in doing that. It's what we do here, and it's worked."
The United States is resettling more refugees from war-torn Burma -- Burmese, the Karen and the Chin -- than from any other country except Iraq this year. By the end of May, 10,150 refugees from Burma had been resettled in the United States, according to the Cultural Orientation Resource Center. Dozens are settling in Utah, mostly in the Salt Lake Valley. Some, however, are heading north to Cache Valley.
The English Language Center of Cache Valley is helping the refugees get settled and can use donations. The Web site is www.elc-cv.com, and the phone number is 435-750-6534. The volunteer group, Cache Valley Refugee Organization, also can give ideas of how to help. E-mail: cvrefugees@gmail.com.
