Iraqi refugees find home in Baltimore

Refugees struggle to acclimate to life in Baltimore

By: Daniel Furman

Posted: 11/20/08

It was standing room only last Thursday night at the Interfaith Center, as members of the Hopkins community gathered for a panel discussion on the world refugee crisis hosted by the Hopkins chapter of the Refugee Youth Project (RYP).

A series of interviews conducted over the course of the last week with individuals involved on many levels of the refugee and asylee resettlement process have revealed a complex picture in which both adults and children face a series of challenges in acclimating to life in Baltimore.

Additionally teachers and service providers who assist refugees and asylees in this process must do so within tight budgetary constraints and limited resources, according to Worku Fikremariam, resettlement program manager for the International Rescue Committee in Baltimore.

In 2008 approximately 50,000 refugees will be resettled in the United States. In addition to this, around 20,000 individuals will be granted asylum and allowed to stay in the U.S. Martin Ford of the Associate Director of the Maryland Office for New Americans in Maryland, with the majority of these in Baltimore and the suburban Montgomery and Price George Counties.

Presenters spoke of the global situation, in which thousands of refugees have fled their home country to escape death or persecution, which was given a human face by two speakers who shared their stories of flight from their homelands and of difficulties they have faced since arriving in the United States.

Roots in Baltimore

Baltimore has a long history of welcoming refugees. Between 1933 and 1939 3,000 German Jews who fled persecution by the Nazis resettled in Baltimore. In the late 1970s and early 1980s tens of thousands of Vietnamese who fled South Vietnam as the U.S. withdrew from that country made their homes here. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of Jews fled Russia and the former Soviet Republics, tens of thousands of these resettled in the Baltimore area.

During those years up to 3,000 refugees resettled annually in the Baltimore area. These include refugees from conflicts in the Congo, Somalia and the Sudan. Ethnic minorities who have faced majority persecution in Myanmar and the former Soviet Union have also been resettled in and around Baltimore. This year has seen the arrival of refugees from America's latest war. In the last six months 18 Iraqi families have resettled in Baltimore.

Refugee and asylee resettlement is conducted in the United States by private non-profit organizations contracted by the State Department. These private organizations, such as the IRC and Lutheran Social Services (LSS) which are active in Baltimore, receive funds from government sources to help ease recently arrived refugees into their new lives here.

This includes paying for rent and utilities during their fist months here, as well as helping them secure employment. However, these grants total only $850 per refugee. Fikremariam estimated that his agency spends $3,000 to $4,000 per refugee family in the first few months they are in the country.

Resettlement agencies also refer refugees and asylees to appropriate English classes as well as additional employment counseling.

The IRC has been resettling refugees in Baltimore since 1999. In fiscal year 2008 they resettled 480 refugees and 140 asylees, with the majority coming from Nepal, Myanmar and Iraq and various African nations.

The IRC sees Baltimore as a good city to resettle refugees to because the costs of living are lower than many other eastern cities. It is also fitted with accessible public transportation. Refugees also serve to further culturally enrich an already diverse city.

Martin Ford of the Maryland Office for New Americans said that resettlement agencies are under a great deal of pressure to provide comprehensive resettlement services with limited resources.

"Voluntary agencies speak of per capita being underfunded and yet it is a public-private partnership and the expectation from the government is that private entities, whether they be resettlement agencies, churches or local people with big hearts, will be able to leverage local support [for refugees and asylees]," Ford said.

The adjustments

Thus far, Detroit, which has a well-established Iraqi community, has been the destination for the majority of recent Iraqi refugees. Older, more established Iraqi residents are able to assist public and private organizations in resettling refugees with a deep network of support, which can help furnish housing and jobs.

This situation is similar to that in Baltimore in the 1980s and 1990s when the older Jewish community offered a great deal of support to recently arrived Soviet Jews.

Like the Soviet Jews, the majority of Iraqi refugees are well-educated and were professionals in their home country, which better-equipped them to integrate into American life as opposed to other groups of refugees who have spent decades or the remainder of their lives in refugee camps with scant opportunities for education or employment.

However, unlike those in Detroit or the Soviet Jews of Baltimore, the newly arrived Iraqis in Baltimore do not have an extensive network of support to take up the slack left by resettlement agencies such as the International Rescue Committee.

One recently arrived Iraqi asylee said that there are only four Iraqi families who have been in the Baltimore area for a longer period of time.

One Iraqi asylee, who asked to remain anonymous because he has many relatives still living in Iraq, estimated that he had already spent one year and several thousand dollars studying for recertification as a physician here. He held a high position in the government after the American invasion and supervised 10 Ph.D. candidates in their dissertation research. He estimated that he would not be properly certified to find a job in his field here until 2010. Until then he has found a part-time job as a translator.

Many recently arrived Iraqis have not been so lucky. This asylee recounted that prior to leaving Iraq many refugees did not realize that they would not be able to apply the same skills and knowledge in their new location. He said that a resettlement agency tried to place another refugee who had been a doctor in Iraq in a low skill job.

"They asked him if he wanted to have a job like wiping the floor or washing dishes. This is impossible for our people, a lot of them prefer to go back home and be killed there than do those jobs here; it is like a stigma," he said.

"Refugees with that kind of mentality will run out of their budget. They won't be able to make rent and then it is a crisis for everybody, it is always misery for everybody; the refugee and the caseworker," Fikremariam said.

The Iraqi asylee said that many recently arrived Iraqis feel frustrated by their lack of success in securing suitable jobs. He contended that this is a result of the pre-departure orientation, which is received by Iraqis coming to the U.S. under the special immigrant visa created by Congress this year.

"[In such situations] depression sets in, they are in an existential vacuum. 'Who am I, why I am I here?' Sometimes they have to go through that for reality to hit and the rosy picture of America to go away," Fikremariam said.

The Refugee Assistance Program of the Baltimore City Community College has recently built on existing initiatives to serve the unique needs of Iraqi refugees.

For over a decade this program has provided free ESOL classes as well as job search training. To accommodate the well-educated Iraqi refugees they have created a higher level English class as well as organized monthly workshops in conjunction with the IRC and LSS. In these workshops representatives from fields in which the Iraqis hope to find employment discuss job opportunities. They have also given referrals to assist Iraqi doctors in beginning the process of recertification to practice in America.

Refugee youth in

Baltimore

Just as their parents sometimes struggle to learn English and adapt to life in America, refugee children can also face hurdles in acclimating to school life. Several Hopkins students assist in this process, as volunteer after-school tutors through the Baltimore City Community College's Refugee Youth Project.

This initiative, which is funded by a grant from the Maryland Office for New Americans was begun seven years ago. This semester they organized tutorial services at three sites, two elementary schools and one high school. Kusten Pickup, acting coordinator of RPY, reported that currently 80 volunteers assisted over 100 students, who range in age from pre-K to high school.

Hopkins students began tutoring through BCCC's RPY four years ago. This semester between seven and eight students tutor elementary school-aged refugees twice a week at Millbrook Elementary School located in northwest Baltimore.

According to Jackie Sofia, the executive chair of Hopkins's RYP chapter, in preparation for Halloween and Thanksgiving tutors use a curriculum developed by BCCC to help educate newly arrived refugees about these particular American traditions.

While some students such as the Meshkentian Turks attended a formal school before coming to the U.S., some of their peers were not so well prepared to adapt to the classroom in Baltimore's public schools. Sofia stated that many Somali Bantu children had grown up in refugee camps and had limited exposure to school life before coming to the U.S.

A fifth grade teacher at Millbrook Elementary School who has had many refugee students in his classroom over the years asserted that these students work very studiously to catch up to their peers.

"Because of their culture they approach education in a very serious way. They are very respectful and very resourceful. They bring a culture which encourages learning, its recognized by other students," David Cooper, a teacher at Millbrook Elementary, said.

Samuel Akau, a presenter at Hopkins's RYP event last Thursday and one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" to be resettled in the U.S., spoke of often having difficulty relating to many Americans because he grew up in a different culture. Pickup of RYP reported that school-aged refugees in Baltimore have become reticent about sharing their culture for fear of being seen as different.

"Students at Furman Templeton Elementary School, which is in a rougher area of Baltimore, get picked on a lot for being African rather than African American," Pickup said. "They have acculturated really quickly, but on the negative side they have been shyer about sharing their own culture. They feel that people are going to laugh at them."

She recounted an instance where she had expressed an interest in a genre of African music and asked a student if they would bring some to a tutoring session to share with her.

"I don't want to do that because you are going to laugh at me," the student replied to Pickup.

RYP has been lauded for its after-school programs for refugee students, which help them gain both academic and social confidence.

"They do a remarkable amount with the little funding they have," Ford said.

It has also been an enriching experience for volunteers, especially those from the sheltered confines of Homewood.

"I came to Hopkins and was overcome by the bubble that is here [around campus]. Working with RYP you get to see Hopkins students involved in the community and at the same time see those kids respond to it so positively. I wish that more students would realize that they can make that kind of contribution to the people of Baltimore," Sofia said.