Qc Sunday Magazine March 2012 | $9.00
Our new neighbors
Refugee resettlement creates new communities and new challenges in Rock Island
Qc Sunday Magazine
Editor’s note Thank you for picking up the inaugural issue of Qc Sunday Magazine. In the years ahead, our ongoing mission is to inform and strengthen the Quad Cities community through smart, visually-driven storytelling. Included with your subscription to the Dispatch and the Rock Island Argus or purchased on the newsstand, the magazine supplements traditional local news coverage by expanding in-depth feature stories and issue-based reporting. We strive to shift conversation in the Quad Cities community from a narrative of post-industrial decline to creating a shared vision for a sustainable and prosperous future, sparking constructive
debate and collaborative action. This month’s cover story documents one of the most visible ways our community is undergoing change. Immigration is a controversial and complex issue nationwide and the case of refugee immigration presents a particular set of challenges. Our growing refugee communities will be a subject of ongoing coverage and we hope to bridge understanding between lifelong Quad Cities residents and new arrivals. This month we examine the multiple reasons refugees are moving to Rock Island, what life is like for them here and gauge what this new trend means for our community.
Editorial Board | Terry Eiler, Matthew Adams, Mitch Casey, Caycee Clifford, Samantha Goresh, Madeline Gray, Heather Haynes, Darcy Holdorf, Junru Huang, James McCauley, Maddie McGarvey, Rebecca Miller, Patrick Oden, Joel Prince, Becca Quint, Bryan Thomas, Priscilla Thomas, Wayne Thomas, Anita Vizireanu, Emine Ziyatdinova
Pyo Htat Htat, 10, and her brother Phy Htet Sein, seven, cross the railroad tracks behind Earl Hanson Elementary School on their way to class on Tuesday morning, January 31. The school is just a few blocks from their home at Rock Island’s Maple Ridge Apartment Complex.
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Our new neighbors
Refugee resettlement creates new communities and new challenges in Rock Island WORDS AND PICTURES BY PATRICK TRAYLOR
A day in the life At 7 a.m. Mo Po wakes up her three children. As they dress, she seats herself in the middle of their sparsely decorated living room and packs three book bags for the school day. From their window the Rock River is visible through the trees, on its way to join the Mississippi, forming Rock Island’s west end. After taking turns in the bathroom, her children fold and put away the blankets that lined the floor of the small room where all three sleep. Mo Po’s eldest daughter, Mit Pyo Pyo, brushes her hair and is quickly out the door, meeting a friend before walking to school. The younger kids take their time getting ready and watch part of “The Lion King” while snacking on leftover rice from the previous night’s meal. Like many families living in Rock Island’s Maple Ridge apartments, Mo Po and her family are Karen refugees from Burma (Myanmar). The journey to their new home in the Quad Cities was not an easy one. “We couldn’t live in our village anymore,” says Mo Po through a translator. “We had to leave. Some people left easy, but some hard.” In July 1998, Mo Po fled with a group of ten others after fighting with the Burmese Army broke out in her village. They spent three days without food walking through the jungle to cross into Thailand. Only nine of them reached the refugee camp. All three of Mo Po’s children were born in the same camp in Thailand. The family came to the United States in 2007 and
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“Over the past 12 years we’ve probably resettled a total number of people of about 1,200, maybe 1,300, and from all over the world.” — Amy Rowell, Director of World Relief Moline
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LEFT: Sha Doh Doh, Thi Sein Paw and their two-year-old son Kler Doh Htoo, arrive at the Quad City International Airport on Thursday evening, Feb. 2, 2012. The family was welcomed by fellow ethnic Karen refugees from Burma. BELOW: At the family’s new Moline apartment, World Relief case worker Rachel Snyder gets the couple started on the required paperwork for the resettlement process.
after four years in Rochester, N.Y., Mo Po and her husband divorced. In November of last year, Mo Po brought her family to Rock Island where she knew they would have the support of other Karen families they knew from the refugee camp. These days Mo Po and her family are doing well. The children practice extra English reading and writing during an after school program organized by three brothers from the local Karen community. Mo Po is a little slower to adapt. She still struggles to master a new language and function in a country vastly different from the one where she grew up.
Forced to flee A refugee is someone who was forced to flee his or her homeland due to persecution or direct violence because of race, religion, nationality or other ethnic, social or political distinction. "In the ideal world, a refugee who has left their initial country would be able to return to their country unharmed," says Amy Rowell, director of World Relief Moline. "That is what we hope, that is what we pray." If returning to their home country is not an option, many
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A group of young refugees from Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo read the Bible and rehearse for a Glory Singers choir performance in a small back room at the Calvary International Revival Church on Saturday, January 28. "These refugees, they don't have a lot of resources," says Senior Pastor Vitalis Kyulule. "Sometimes it's overwhelming."
Barutwanyo Jacques is part of a group of refugees from Burundi helping to start a Burundian cultural organization in the Quad Cities. The group wants to promote cultural traditions like dancing and the production of handicrafts.
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refugees stay in the neighboring country where they fled. Governments of those countries, however, are not always pleased to have refugees streaming in across the border nor are they equipped to handle their needs. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other non-governmental organizations play a key role in averting humanitarian disasters by setting up semipermanent housing and providing food. According to Mo Po, the UNHCR routinely gave out rice, hot peppers, yellow beans and fish paste to families living in her camp in Thailand. "That's what we survived with,” she adds. Noe La, one of Mo Po’s many Karen neighbors at Maple Ridge, came to the United States with his family in 2008 after spending 13 years in refugee camps in Thailand. When he was 18, Noe La stepped on a landmine while gathering food in the jungle and lost his left leg. Both the Burmese Army and the Karen National Liberation Army regularly use landmines in the sustained 63-year-old conflict. When the fight came to his village, he fled with 1,000 others, crossing the border with the aid of a single crutch. Simply reaching Thailand, however, does not mean peace. Burmese soldiers who crossed over the border burned down the camp where he first lived in Thailand. "In the camp you have to worry about fighting- gun shots in the night," says Noe La. "Really the only other option is for them to be resettled in a third country," says Rowell. "That's where the United States has been so gracious to help and allow refugees to come here and live here safely." The State Department coordinates resettlement opportunities for qualifying individuals and families and sets quotas for the numbers allowed into the country each year. World Relief is one of ten certified nonprofit resettlement agencies that facilitate placing refugees in communities. The Moline office opened its doors in 1999 as a satellite of the Chicago branch. Within three months, the agency quickly transitioned to an independent office and began resettling refugees around the Quad Cities. "Over the past 12 years we've probably resettled a total number of about 1,200, maybe 1,300 [people] from all over the world," says Rowell. The most common country of origin for refugees coming to the Quad Cities is Burma (Myanmar) in Southeast Asia. Most, like Mo Po and Noe La, are of the Karen ethnic group from southern and southeastern Burma while a smaller portion are ethnically Chin from western Burma. Significant populations also hail from Bhutan via refugee camps in Nepal, and from the African countries of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As these distinct ethnic communities grow, refugees who
originally settled elsewhere in the United States are moving to Rock Island. Although there are no hard numbers, “It is possible that there are two secondary migrant families moving to the community for every one family World Relief is initially resettling,” says Rowell. A decade ago, residents of low-income housing complexes like Maple Ridge, Manor Homes and Century Woods were predominately African American. Today, refugees make up over half of the residents in Century Woods alone. "Whether it be other family members that are here or the schools or the jobs or the housing- it's a great place," says Rowell about the Quad Cities. "I'm not from here. My husband's not from here. We chose to move here nine years ago, almost ten, because of the community and what it had to offer our family and I would think that many of the refugees would say the same thing."
Stepping off the plane A small crowd begins to form at the Quad City International Airport on a Thursday evening in early February. An often repeated scene here in recent years, a group of Karen refugees has gathered for the arrival of a new family. Amy Rowell is there with her nine-year-old daughter Anna to welcome them to the Quad Cities. Sha Doh Doh, his wife Thi Sein Paw, and their threeyear-old son Kler Doh Htoo step out of the gate and onto the concourse. After hugs and greetings, the family is quickly ushered through baggage claim and out to the parking lot. Men from the welcome group carry their bags out to waiting cars. Father Samuel Nyan Lynn from Christ Church Cathedral in Moline translates as Rachel Snyder, the family's case worker with World Relief, introduces herself and begins to put together a car seat. Kler Doh Htoo has never seen such a contraption before, but doesn't protest as he's strapped in for the short car ride. When the family gets to their apartment in Moline, Father Samuel and about ten others are already waiting for them. After a group prayer, the family takes a tour of their new home. It's a duplex on 1st St., which straddles the MolineRock Island city line. In the next few weeks, another Karen family will move in next door. While their toddler plays with toy trucks, Sha Doh Doh and Thi Sein Paw begin to learn about the trappings of their new life. The young couple smiles bemusedly as they're shown how to open the blinds of a living room window. They’ve never seen blinds before tonight. The refrigerator,
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Burmese refugees Hei Ku Thu Paw (left) and Ka Du Paw are both English Language Learner students and seniors at Rock Island High school. As ELL students improve their English, they gradually integrate into regular classrooms.
gas stove, thermostat and separate knobs for hot and cold water are as foreign as English. It’s hard to overstate the enormity of the culture shock that takes place. Refugees who have never had regular access to electricity are now forced to relearn an entire way of life. With Father Samuel's help, Snyder begins to explain the mound of paperwork and schedule of appointments that lie ahead. "Refugees choose to come here and it's probably because they don't have any other options," says Rowell. "They could stay in the camp for the rest of their lives, but they want more and that's why they choose to go to another country to be resettled… that's huge to leave their country to come start brand new."
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English Language Learning (ELL) About 50 people sit around tables counting tootsie rolls and doing addition problems in the basement of the Church of Peace on 12th Street in Rock Island. This setup, however, is not the introduction to a Sunday school lesson. It’s an adult English class for refugees from Burma, Iraq and multiple African countries. “Everyday someone new comes in,” says instructor Brenda Kirby. They meet three times a week for the family literacy class sponsored by Black Hawk College. Today’s lesson focuses on budgeting skills with a review of basic arithmetic. On most days the classes focus on teaching English, but Kirby decided to add a practical math lesson
“Ninety-seven percent of our ELL students are refugees.” — Liz Kantner, Rock Island High School ELL teacher
after requests from several students. “People are going to the grocery store not knowing how much is in their bank account,” says Kirby, worring about her students navigating the challenges of an entirely new culture. “My vision is for them to be able to communicate and know their rights.” The program at Church of Peace is just one location for the Black Hawk College program. For adults and children alike, learning English is the number one way for refugees to find employment and integrate into the community. From the housing authority to the high school, nowhere in the Quad Cities is the growing refugee population more visible than in Rock Island. Enrollment in ELL classes in the Rock Island-Milan School District, for example, has shot up
over recent years. "It's hard to tell [how many refuges are here]," says Jill Doak, a city planner with the City of Rock Island. "It's certainly in the thousands. We can tell that just from our school district population. From six years ago they went from 45 ELL students to about 600 now, which is approaching ten percent of the student population." Spanish-speaking students used to make up the majority of the district’s ELL classes, whereas today refugee students speak almost 30 different languages and dialects. According to Rock Island High School ELL teacher Liz Kantner, 97 percent of the high school's ELL students are refugees.
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Finding work The kitchen is bustling at Jumer's Casino and Hotel in Rock Island as the staff preps for the lunch rush on a Thursday morning. Kuzman Petkov from Bulgaria chops vegetables while Comfort Mangeh of Liberia and Ezechiel Ntigahera, a refugee from Burundi, wash and restock an endless variety of shiny pots and pans. Madhav Phuyel is originally from Bhutan, but came to the United States after years of living in a refugee camp in Nepal. He brings two steaming pots of soup out to the lunch buffet where Hagos Gebre of Eritrea is carving a ham. "We are an equal opportunity employer. We have ample opportunities for anyone who wishes to work," says Bill Renk, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Jumer's Casino & Hotel. "We take our responsibility to support the community and all of its residents [to mean] helping those in need, such as refugees, is something we are proud of." In addition to Jumer's, both Tyson Foods in Joslin, Ill. and Farmland Foods in Monmouth, Ill. actively recruit refugees. Many area hotels, motels and restaurants partner with World Relief and other community organizations to hire refugees. "We have been fortunate," says Amy Rowell. "We do have two full time employment specialists on staff." Entry-level jobs, however, are only the beginning. "A lot of our individuals, if they were educated or have some types of certifications or degrees from overseas, they'll go to school right away," says Amy Rowell. "They want to learn, they want to work and they want to be successful."
Changing Faces Big multicolored maps of the city hang on the walls of the conference room in the planning department at City Hall in Rock
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Refugees from multiple countries take part in a basic math and budgeting lesson during a family literacy program sponsored by Black Hawk College at the Church of Peace on Wednesday morning, February 1. "Most of them have progressed 20 percent since we started in August," says instructor Brenda Kirby. "They're doing very well." 17
Bivugire Paskazie and Vanis Nyandwi (Center) carpool to work at Farmland Foods in Monmouth, Ill.
Island. Between the maps, a few historic photos of Rock Island show downtown streets packed with people going about their daily business. These scenes are a stark contrast to the nearly empty 3rd Avenue outside City Hall on this unseasonably warm afternoon in late January. "We've had a shrinking population here in Rock Island and in the whole Quad Cities on the Illinois side for a number of years," says Jill Doak, a city planner. "We definitely have the capacity in our housing to absorb population." Doak is the main city staffer for Neighborhood Partners, a consortium of agencies, neighborhood associations and other groups working together to solve problems and build pride in the community. Qc
Last year, Doak was working with a school-community task force, which decided to hold a public meeting to discuss the impact of changing school enrollment boundaries. "Three quarters of the attendees in the meeting were refugees," says Doak. "It was sort of, from a community perspective, an eyeopener for our neighborhood partners group." The experience working with refugees through the schoolcommunity task force led Neighborhood Partners to begin questioning just how many refugees were moving into the city and the ways they were accessing public services. Doak's group recently wrapped up a series of public study circles aimed at identifying all the issues associated with this
Htoo Naw, a Karen refugee, has been a housekeeper at Jumer’s Casino and Hotel for three years.
new refugee population. "[The study circles] seemed like a very good method to have our long-term citizens and our newer refugees and immigrants in the community interact through a series of very structured meetings," says Doak. "Out of that work of many months we are actually launching the Quad City Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees (QCAIR), which I think is where a lot of our refugee communities are really going to find a home for a voice in a collective sense." The first official meeting of QCAIR took place at the end of February. As the organization gets off the ground, one of its primary functions will be to serve as an information clearinghouse for the different agencies and organizations
providing services to area refugees and immigrants. "It's very important that everyone knows the breadth of services that are out there," says Doak. "We definitely don't want people to be overlapping their resources. It doesn't make sense. They're too limited as it is."
Building community A white, 15-seat van barrels down U.S. Highway 67 heading south out of Milan. One man and seven women, all refugees from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of 19
Sunday services at the Calvary International Revival Church typically last about four hours as the congregation moves to the ever-present beat of African music. People sing and pray in Kirundi, the official language of Burundi— also spoken in neighboring parts of Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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Sisters Habonimana Esterine (Top) and Ntiranyibagira Concilie take a break from choir rehearsal at the Calvary International Revival Church.
Congo, head to their shift at Farmland Foods in Monmouth, Ill. Everyone seems used to the hour-long commute. Some of them pass the time with conversation. Some nap. The van belongs to Calvary International Revival Church, a congregation of about 100 African refugees and immigrants. Each Sunday morning and throughout the week it’s not uncommon to see women in colorful traditional clothing walking down the sidewalk in front of the church. Services usually last about four hours and are conducted entirely in Kirundi, the official language of Burundi, which is also spoken in neighboring parts of Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Music, however, is a universal
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language. Four different choirs take turns onstage as the entire congregation sings and dances for hours on end. Young men play instruments and work the soundboard, recreating the sounds of Africa each week. The congregation was able to purchase the small, decaying building for about $40,000 last year and they are already outgrowing the space. In addition to organizing car pools, the Rev. Patrick Noya, the church's administrator and junior pastor, translates for members of the congregation during hospital visits and takes people to a never-ending list of appointments. “It is not that easy," says Noya. “I just do the work I do for the love of the people." He arrived in the United States from Tanzania in
The congregation heads home after a service at Calvary International Revival Church in Rock Island on Sunday, January 29.
“People have that sense of sharing and acceptance. That's why people are coming to the Quad Cities” — Rev. Patrick Noya, Calvary International Revival Church
2004 on a student visa and was soon joined by his wife and daughter. Now a family of four, they survive on a small stipend from the church and often struggle month to month. Nonetheless, Noya remains committed to the growing community here. Although Burma is the largest single country of origin for refugees in Rock Island, the African community is the most visible outside places like Century Woods or Maple Ridge. Noya says that every weekend someone from his congregation drives to Kolona, Iowa to buy natural chicken, eggs or goat meat from the Amish. “Most of [the refugees] don’t like the meat in the stores,” says Noya with a laugh. 23
It’s impossible to imagine all the ways in which these new refugee communities will begin to interact with established communities. However it plays out, Noya seems to think that the interaction will be positive. He says that people in Rock Island are friendly— like people from his home district in Tanzania. “People have that sense of sharing and acceptance. That's why people are coming to the Quad Cities,” says Noya. “I love it here." After families settle in, figure out the lineup of American kitchen appliances and determine the schedules for school and work, there is still a lot of learning to do. "This is a process," says Amy Rowell. "Anybody who's ever moved to a new city as an American- it's a process in learning that new city. This is tenfold because you're learning a new culture, learning a new civilization. Especially if you've lived in a refugee camp. It's much different." From church basements to the community room at Manor Homes, more and more adult English language classes are popping up as the demand increases. As the Quad City Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees moves forward, hopefully understanding between the different ethnic communities and across neighborhoods will too. "We just want to be able to provide the foundation for people to really get going," says Rowell. "They want to learn, they want to work, they want to be successful and they don’t want that entry-level job. They want a career someday and they want more for their kids than they will ever have."
A day in the life Mo Po makes sure that her kids' lunches are packed and finishes brushing her youngest daughter's hair. They put on their shoes and coats and are ready for another school day. Mo Po's son, Pyo Htet Sein, dons his yellow Pokémon hat and kisses his mother goodbye for the day. She wraps her arms around him in a big hug before he's out the door. They make the short walk to Earl Hanson Elementary School, joining a trickle of other children from Maple Ridge. Both the Burmese and American kids cut down the same short muddy path. “Living here is better because we have the opportunity to do everything we want,” says Mo Po. “In the camp we used to hide from the police, but here when you see the police you’re happy because they’re here to help.” She feels at peace here in her new life and she is grateful for the chance to leave the stress of the camp behind. “I want to have a good life, own a house ... good jobs for the kids.” Although she worries about work and improving her English, she is hopeful for her family’s future. For now, she is content to watch her children grow up in peace.
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Mo Po hugs her son Pyo Htet Sein before he and his sister head off to school on Tuesday morning, January 31.
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