Karen migrants find life in America has its downside
When members of the Thai community in the US are asked to help resettle newly arrived Karen refugees from the Thai-Burmese border, old clichés surface. “Are these people members of the God’s Army?” ask some. Others recall headline-grabbing incidents like the murder of a Thai woman by her Burmese maid.
Many Americans share this prejudiced view of the Karen arrivals, believing they have no idea of civilized bathroom or kitchen hygiene. Some are surprised that the Karen actually wear shoes.
It’s difficult enough for Karen émigrés to cope with the prejudices of their adopted country, but further shocks await them.
“I came to America hoping to study, but ended up cleaning in a hotel six days a week in order to help my family pay the rent,” said Htoo Paw, one of the first Karen refugees to arrive in Austin, Texas, under the US resettlement program. “I’ll have to put my dream of further education to rest for a while.”
Htoo Paw is too old to qualify for free education in the US. He’s 18, one year over the age limit. Further education will now have to wait until he can pay for it. His working hours at the hotel also prevent him from taking advantage of English lessons provided by the resettlement program.
Htoo Paw set off for the US from Tham Hin refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border last September, together with 30 other Karen refugees. Tham Hin is one of nine refugee camps along Thailand’s border with Burma, and it’s providing the first batches of Karen for resettlement in the US. Its 9,500 residents are mostly ethnic Karen who fled Burmese army aggression in Karen State.
Until recently, the US Homeland Security Act banned migrants who had contact with armed rebel groups—effectively excluding from resettlement in the US almost all Karen residents of camps along the Thai-Burmese border, because they lived among the Karen National Union rebel movement. But last year, the US government waived the exclusion clause for the Karen, allowing the first groups into the country last August and September.
After approving refugees for admission, the US Department of Homeland Security allocates them to 10 US resettlement agencies. Karen migrants are cared for by the Episcopal Migration Ministries, a non-profit organization of the Episcopal Church. The EMM, in turn, assigns migrants to its agencies in cities throughout the US.
Austin’s Refugee Services of Texas, an EMM affiliate, took 30 Karen last September and is expecting 300 more this year. Refugee Services of Texas greets arriving migrants, provides them with housing, settles them into their new communities and helps them find employment. Modest monetary assistance and food stamps are also provided to help migrants over their first four months in the US.
“I learned last year that America is taking us as refugees, but I had no idea where and how I was going to live,” said Ba Zoe, whose mother and sisters had left Tham Hin camp a few months earlier to resettle in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“I wanted to go to Milwaukee because my mother and my sisters were there, but they just sent me here to Austin,” she said. “They sent a car to pick us up from Tham Hin and gave us the airplane ticket. Then, when we arrived, they came to meet us at the airport and took us to the apartment and taught us how to use the heater, air-conditioning and all the electronic devices.”
“It was quite difficult at the beginning to express what we wanted. For example, we cannot live on western food. We need shrimp paste and fish sauce as our staple food, but we did not know where we could buy it. Then, one day, a few Thai students who lived here came to visit us. We told them what we wanted, and they took us to an Asian grocery. Life here is not that bad after we got to eat our own food.”
But life in the US can still be hard if the newcomers don’t speak English. Although Refugee Services of Texas offers English classes, instruction begins at the lowest level and progress is slow. A pregnant woman said she was nervous when the agency told her to call the emergency services number 9-1-1 if she felt the birth coming on during the night or at the weekend—the number means nothing to her.
Refugee Services of Texas found one bilingual translator, but she spoke a Karen dialect scarcely understood by the migrants. A Burmese interpreter was enlisted to help out, but few of the migrants understood Burmese.
The problem was summed up by Ba Zoe: “I don’t understand a single word that the Burmese interpreter speaks, but I don’t know how to tell the agency because I don’t speak English.”
Lack of language skills also condemns migrants to accepting menial, low-paid work.
“The agency told us that the financial help will last for the first four months and that we need to get a job as soon as possible in order to be self-sufficient and to pay back the airfare,” said Aung Gyi, a 30-year-old Karen.
“The women are told to stay home to take care of the children while their men folk work—as hotel housekeepers, for example. once we get jobs, we are automatically cut off from an opportunity to learn English,” Aung Gyi said. His wife is pregnant and his 2-year-old son has a heart problem. Aung Gyi’s job pays him $7.50 (9,370 kyat) an hour.
“Life here is certainly better than in the refugee camp,” said Aung Gyi. “We can go anywhere we please, and we have more things to do than wait for food handouts. And there’s no longer that fear of the Thai police if you sneak out of the camp. But living in America is also a struggle. I can only hope for the future of my children.”
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