A startling 39 percent of U.S. Burmese are high school dropouts, so not surprisingly, 30 percent of this ethnic group lives below the poverty line, according to a new report.
Scheduled for release Wednesday, the report, titled “Invisible Newcomers,” explores the educational attainment, socioeconomic challenges, migration and settlement experiences of the Burmese and Bhutanese, who make up the two largest, recent refugee groups in this country. The report’s authors are Dr. Chia Youyee Vang, an associate professor of history and comparative ethnic studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Dr. Monica Mong Trieu, an assistant professor of sociology and Asian American studies at Purdue University. It was issued by the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF) in collaboration with the Association for Asian American Studies.
Since 2004, more than 80,000 Burmese have arrived in the United States after fleeing political, religious and economic persecution. Bhutanese refugees began coming in 2008 to escape discriminatory social and political rule. The migration of both ethnic groups grew so rapidly that, in 2011, refugees from Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, made up 30 percent and those from Bhutan comprised 26 percent of people resettled in this country.
Calling such statistics “alarming,” Vang and Trieu say that intensive educational and social support should be provided to teens to improve the likelihood of high school completion. Furthermore, the dropout rate among Burmese Americans is almost twice that of the national dropout rate among non-Asians here. [More than black American teens?—-ed]
Gee, that sounds like another generation on welfare to me.
In a related story, the state of Kentucky is considering extending graduation time for refugee teens, here. Add that to the cost of refugee resettlement when your city’s politicians are “welcoming” more refugees and immigrants.
Last week we reportedon the mental health issues plaguing America’s 70,000-strong Bhutanese refugee population and now according to reporter Erika Beras, here at New America Media, it seems they are also being plagued by diabetes they got after arriving in America. Type II diabetes is associated with too much weight gain. Sure is a good thing Obamacare has come along to take care of them!
And get this! Pittsburgh now has 4,000-5,000 Bhutanese (mostly Hindu) refugees. That population growth is only since 2008!
Bhutanese family in Pittsburgh sees first snow! Reporters love these refugee snow stories! http://www.alleghenyfront.org/story/new-natural-world-bhutanese-refugees-brave-pa-weather
On a typical weekday morning, 47-year-old Tek Nepal is moving about the Mount Oliver duplex he shares with his wife, sons, daughter-in-law and grandchild.
He works nights, so he gets his family time in the mornings. And often, that time centers around eating. Those meals used to consist of lots of starches. But since a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis last year, they have changed.
“I don’t eat rice at all. I don’t eat potatoes. I try to eat a lot of green vegetables like lettuce, spinach … carrots, and I don’t eat totally fried things,” he said, showing off a chart of appropriate foods on his kitchen wall.
Nepal is ethnically Nepalese. He was resettled in California as a refugee, moved to Tennessee, then Pittsburgh, which has a lower cost of living and boasts a growing Bhutanese-Nepalese population. Before coming to the U.S., he spent 17 years in refugee camps in Bhutan.
About 4,000 to 5,000 ethnically Bhutanese-Nepalese refugees call Pittsburgh home. Having migrated in the last six years, it’s a new population that is falling into an old immigrant paradox.
Nearly 26 million Americans have diabetes, and another 79 million are pre-diabetic, up sharply over the last few decades. Included among those statistics are newer Americans, people such as Nepal who came here as refugees. According to a study published in the journal Human Biology, an immigrant’s risk of obesity and hypertension — indicators of diabetes — grow with every year they are here.
At the Squirrel Hill Health Center, a federally qualified facility that provides the bulk of initial and follow-up care to refugees, Chief Medical Officer Andrea Fox is perpetually busy. She spots trends in her patient population. Rarely do the Bhutanese come to the U.S. with a diabetes diagnosis, but they’ve found a high prevalence of the disease in those they treat.
[…..]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitors refugee populations. Among their priority health conditions for the Bhutanese are anemia, B12 vitamin deficiency and mental health. They haven’t been tracking diabetes numbers.
See our ‘health issues’ category for 191 previous posts on refugee health problems. We have them all—HIV/AIDS, TB, intestinal parasites, mental health issues, and now diabetes.
…..resettlement agencies responsible for solving the problem!
That’s what the Wall Street Journal blog reported earlier this week (thanks to two readers for sending it).
UN and the US in its infinite wisdom scattered the ‘Bhutanese’ refugees to the four winds.
Before I give you the highlights from the WSJ, this is how we came to have tens of thousands of Bhutanese refugees in America. After nearly 20 years of a stalemate between the tiny countries of Nepal and Bhutan, the United Nations basically got sick of running the camps in Nepal (unlike the Palestinian camps they have been running for 60+ years).
The Bhutanese refugees are ethnic Nepalis (mostly Hindus) who had lived in Bhutan for decades, but were expelled by the government trying to keep Bhutan for its religious (mostly Buddhists) and ethnic majority. Nepal didn’t want them back either.
So, the US State Department (under Bush Asst. Secretary Ellen Sauerbrey) announced in 2007 that we would resettle the lions’ share of the refugees—60,000. How we had any national interest in this situation is still beyond me, and I don’t know how we couldn’t have persuaded (with some international aid) those two small countries to work it out is troubling.
Honestly, I am so cynical now I believe we brought them here for cheap docile captive LEGAL laborers! And, the resettlement contractors needed more bodies to resettle since they are paid by the head to bring ’em to your towns and cities.
And, maybe, just maybe, every ethnic group in the world is not going to melt in the mythical American melting pot! How would you like to have been protected and cared for in a camp for your whole life and then dropped into the heart of some American city—often in slum neighborhoods—and expected to make it!
Before Menuka Poudel left the refugee camp in Nepal where she and her family sheltered for almost two decades after being displaced from Bhutan, the 18-year-old spoke to me about her hopes of pursing her college education and living the American dream.
Just over a year later, on Nov. 30, 2010, she was found by her mother hanging in an apartment in Phoenix Arizona, where her family had moved a month before. They had hoped to begin a new life under a resettlement program for Bhutanese refugees who had fled cultural and religious persecution.
Ms. Poudel, who was still breathing when her mother found her, was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix where she was pronounced dead the following day, according to her family.
The young woman was one of over 30 Bhutanese refugees who have taken their lives in the U.S. since the summer of 2008 when the resettlement program began.
The problem of suicide in the community seems to be worsening: Since the start of Nov. 2013, seven Bhutanese refugees have killed themselves after resettling in the U.S.
[….]
As of Oct. 2013, there were around 71,000 Bhutanese refugees living in the U.S., according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. [Originally we were only taking 60,000!—ed]
Mismatch between their idea of the American dream and the work they do in America (yeh, like working the line in a slaughter plant, if they even find a job!).
“Different psychological stressors occur at each stage of the resettlement process,” the study said. Once refugees are relocated, factors such as inability to find work, increased family conflict and symptoms of anxiety, depression and psychological distress are associated with suicidal thoughts, it added.
After resettlement, many young Bhutanese adults seem to find a mismatch between their idea of the American dream and the availability of work and quality of pay in the U.S. [What! We are told all the time that refugees are finding plenty of employment!—ed]
Those working with the Bhutanese community in America say there is a lack of support and provision to deal with the problem.
Organizations that resettled them are responsible for solving the suicide problem! Hah! Don’t hold your breath unless they get some (more!) taxpayer grants to do it.
Mr. Subedi [community volunteer in Philadelphia] says that to tackle the problem properly and highlight the issue among Bhutanese refugees, a U.S.-wide campaign by the organizations responsible for the resettlement program is required because the community in general is a self-contained and introverted culture.
We have written many posts on the Bhutanese resettlement. Click here for all of them. Here are our posts on Bhutanese suicide. We are also putting this into our Health issues category as it relates to what we have been saying lately about refugee mental health problems.
Cargill, the largest employer in the county, gets its refugee laborers through Lutheran Family Services! Taxpayers foot the bill!
Ho hum! Here we go again. Why on earth are US taxpayers paying Lutheran Family Services to bring immigrant labor to meat packing towns in the heartland? And, if you missed our posts the other day, hereand here, about Noel, Missouri, maybe you don’t know that the federal contractors, like the Lutherans, are working side by side with the meat packers to get “comprehensive immigration reform” (S.744) through Congress.
A growing, distinct group of people has been immigrating to the United States, and Nebraska, in the past few years.
They are refugees, escaping their homeland because of war, oppression or famine.
Two representatives from Lutheran Family Services spoke about Nebraska’s growing refugee population during the quarterly community forum held Dec. 12 at St. John’s Lutheran Church.
Lacey Studnicka, development officer for the community services program, said Schuyler is a good example of how a small town can help refugees looking to start a new life. [This is a standard talking point—praise the community for being “welcoming” before they have a chance to complain, or if they are already complaining it’s a way to make them feel guilty!—ed]
[…..]
These refugees come from all over the world, but recently, large populations coming to Nebraska have been from Burma and Bhutan, two countries located in southern Asia.
If you are wondering, the Bhutanese and most of the Burmese are not Muslims. A few years back it was all the rage to bring Somali laborers for the meat packers, but when Somalis began striking and demanding religious accommodation on the job, the US State Department shifted to bringing in more Bhutanese and Burmese, I believe because they are more docile workers.
The ‘do-gooders’ at Lutheran Family Services depend almost exclusively on taxpayer dollars for anything they do for refugees! These articles always make it sound like the Lutheran contractor is doing all of this out of private charity.
Lutheran Family Services gets two- to four-weeks notice before the refugees arrive in Nebraska. The organization provides the refugees with a foundation, including a furnished apartment and groceries.
Social security cards are obtained within the first 90 days, the adults receive job-placement services and schools are located for the children.
“Cargill has been a great partner!”
Studnicka gives credit to Cargill, which has helped immigrants and refugees make a life for themselves in the community. [Oh yeh! And, Cargill is doing all this out of the goodness of its corporate heart!—ed]
“We have seen a lot of growth,” Studnicka said. “Cargill has been a great partner.”
Lutheran Family Services is the largest refugee-resettlement agency in the state.
Last year was the organization’s busiest yet, with 478 refugees resettled in Omaha and 120 in Lincoln. Statewide, there were almost 1,000 refugees who came to Nebraska.
Lutheran Family Services gets paid by the US State Department to bring-’em in by the head. Cargill gets cheap reliable labor while the town and state get to support the immigrant families’ other needs (housing, education, food stamps, medical care). It’s a great business model, wouldn’t you agree!
The camps in Nepal housing the Bhutanese refugees (who are really ethnic Nepalis and not Bhutanese) are being depleted because the US and other Western countries, but mostly the US, got in the middle of a dispute going on between Bhutan and Nepal and resettled nearly 80,000 camp dwellers. It is still beyond me why the Bush Administration agreed to the resettlement plan.
Some of the camp dwellers, then and now, wanted the West to push for their “right to return” to Bhutan, and heck why wouldn’t they think the UN would help them when the UN continues after, what, 60 plus years!, to pressure Israel about a “right to return” for Palestinians. And, of course one wonders why Nepal couldn’t just take its own ethnic kinfolk back!
Beldangi-2 camp in 2007 where clashes broke out between two refugee factions—one that wanted third country resettlement and the other that was holding out hope for repatriation to Bhutan.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that big corporations (and people like Norquist’s pals) needed docile cheap LEGAL labor. Some big companies (especially meat packers) had already run into problems with the litigious Somalis and I surmise they then sent the word to the Bush State Department that they wanted workers who weren’t going to be troublemakers.
And, readers, remember that one of the great benefits to employers who want to keep wages down is that some of the living expenses of legal “refugees” are being covered by you, the taxpayer.
Of course we can’t discount the likelihood of the resettlement contractors needing a new batch of clients and therefore driving the resettlement. Contractors are paid by the head to resettle refugees.
Back in Nepal there are still camp residents who don’t want to come and live “like beggars” in some American inner-city and are holding out for repatriation to Bhutan. Here they are complaining that the UNHCR is (still!) putting pressure on them to sign up for third country resettlement.
DAMAK: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee has granted a month’s deadline to Bhutanese refugees who had earlier filled forms for third country settlement, to reconfirm their choice.
Since the process of third country resettlement of refugees began in 2008, at least 83,000 Bhutanese refugees have been settled in eight countries, including US, New Zealand, Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Britain and Norway.Now, the UN Refugee Agency has granted a month-long deadline to those who had filled the interest forms for third country resettlement, but could not be contacted later.
The commission has notified all the three refugee camps at Beldangi, Damak and Shanischare, Morang. “We’ve granted extra time for those who had earlier filled the forms but failed to appear in the interview for the same. We have sent them forms to notify us their final wish,” said UNHCR Nepal office External Relationship Officer Nini Gurung, adding her office is now collecting the latest data of those who are willing to settle in a third country.
“I’ve got a form and I’ve written that I don’t have any interest in settling down in a third country,” said Beldangi-2 camp secretary Sanchahang Subba, adding that those refugees who want to return to their homeland were worried after hearing about the latest move of the commission. Harkajung Subba, one of the refugees who wants to return to his homeland, accused the UNHCR of trying to pile pressure on refugees to opt for third country resettlement.
Photo is from this story about the violent conflicts. Those wishing to return to Bhutan believed that once their numbers were depleted by “dispersing their people to the four winds” there would be no hope of pressuring the Bhutanese government.
We have written a lot about the Bhutanese refugee resettlement, click hereto view our archive. Some have done well in the US, others have had lots of problems (and are creating some problems too according to sources who have worked with them!).
