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Our New Neighbors
More than 100 Burmese refugees now call valley home.
By Karen Lambert
Jnut Bi vacuums the hair off cows, a job far different than farming her rice paddy when she lived in Burma. The mother of five says through a translator that she enjoys her work, however. After years in a Burmese village afraid for their lives and in a Thai refugee camp with nothing to do, the Sab Din and Jnut Bi family members make up just seven among more than 100 refugees from Burma adapting to the quiet pastures, opportunities to work and rural safety they’ve found in Cache Valley. After the family waited 10 years in a refugee camp in Thailand, the U.S. granted members asylum and assigned them to Utah, along with many other Burmese refugees. This summer Cache Valley saw a large influx of the refugees when JBS, a meat-packing company in Hyrum, offered employment. Refugees continue to come — at least 30 have arrived in the last week. “We’re really grateful to them (JBS),” said Katie Jensen, codirector of the English Language Center. Jensen explained the refugees badly need work, but find opportunities greatly limited by their inability to speak English. Jnut Bi, her husband, Sab Din, and their five children moved to Logan as a family in February, just five months after moving to the U.S. But, many men come alone for work, while their families stay in Salt Lake City until leases there expire. There are more than 40 Cache Valley nonprofits, churches and government entities collaborating to provide the refugees with clothing, food, language skills and assistance as they navigate a new culture, with unique challenges. Burma, the country also known as the Union of Myanmar, is in the midst of the world’s longest-running civil war — now going on 60 years. The country’s government is essentially conducting an ethnic cleansing, as soldiers — often children fighters — kill the Karen people. Sab Din and his family are Burmese, not Karen, but that granted them no safety. They fled for their lives to the refugee camp in Thailand, and many of their countrymen died of malaria in the jungle as they went, said Jnut Bi. The refugees had to wait in Thai camps for a country that would grant them asylum. Some have found homes in Europe, Canada, Australia and the U.S. When Jnut Bi learned the U.S. would give her family a home, people told her she and her husband could find jobs and her children would have good opportunities for education. The U.S. government assigned them to Salt Lake City, where they arrived and then became free agents to move wherever they wanted in the country, said Jensen. They chose Logan to find work. Sab Din said he’s happy to live here because he has a job waiting for him, but struggles to recover from 10 years inactivity in a refugee camp. His wife said the camps were like prison. They could not leave and Burmese soldiers attacked some camps, leaving everyone in fear. However, in the U.S. everything from paying bills and learning local laws is a new culture. To help is Refugee Specialist Alex Mortensen, an employee through the English Language Center who learned the Thai and Cambodian languages while working with refugees for two years on his mission to Thailand for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many of the Burmese and Karen refugees also speak those languages. “(Here) it’s just like a totally different world to them — everything from cars to bills to traffic lights, just having carpet, having utilities to pay,” Mortensen said. “I mean, for many people having a job where they have scheduled hours — they’ve never had anything like that before.” The English Language Center is at the center of the efforts to help the refugees and is working to have the resources in place so the refugees can come directly to Logan, rather than starting their life in the U.S. in Salt Lake City. “These are a warm and grateful people,” Jensen said. “They’re just happy to be alive. For the first time in their lives they can go out (without fear for their lives.)”
Children adjusting to American life
The Sab Din and Jnut Bi family moved to Logan in February. Previously, they’d spent 10 years in a refuge camp in Thailand as a result of civil war in their own country, Burma. Now, the two oldest children, 17-year-old Ha San and 16-year-old Nol Za Mar attend Logan High School. They say they enjoy learning to play on computers — they’d never seen one before coming to the U.S. Ha San, who can already answer simple questions in English, said he is also excited to learn a new language. Nol Za Mar said he also enjoys math. “It’s a little different than I’d heard it would be like before I came here,” he said through translator Kyaw Eh, who also moved to Utah from the refugee camps. “I have been through many changes. I have to go to school to learn English and everything is freedom.” Ya Sin, age 13, attends Mount Logan Middle School, and Moe Ha Met, 8, attends Hillcrest Elementary. Sin said after school he likes to do homework and play soccer, a sport he enjoyed in Burma as well. All his brothers play soccer also. But unlike his three brothers, Sin is no fan of a newly learned sport — basketball. The last sibling in the family is So Ma Ya, who is 3 and the only girl.
Read the full article originally printed on Sunday, December 7, 2008 in The Herald Journal…