Lee T Bycel - Refugees in America: Stories of Courage, Resilience, and Hope in Their Own Words

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REFUGEES IN AMERICA

REFUGEES IN AMERICA

Stories of Courage, Resilience, and Hope in Their Own Words

L EE T. B YCEL

P HOTOS BY D ONA K OPOL B ONICK

F OREWORD BY I SHMAEL B EAH

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW BRUNSWICK, CAMDEN, AND NEWARK,
NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bycel, Lee T., author.

Title: Refugees in America : stories of courage, resilience, and hope in their own words / Lee T. Bycel.

Description: New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018058704 | ISBN 9781978806214 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: RefugeesUnited States.

Classification: LCC HV640.4.U54 B93 2019 | DDC 305.9/069140973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058704

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright 2019 by Lee T. Bycel

All photography 2019 by Dona Kopol Bonick with the following exceptions: Asinja Badeel by Jordan Scheiner; Malk Alamarsh by Michael A. Schwarz

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

www.rutgersuniversitypress.org

Manufactured in the United States of America

DEDICATION

Refugees are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, with the same hopes and ambitions as usexcept that a twist of fate has bound their lives to a global refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale.

Khaled Hosseini

This book is dedicated to all those who have traveled hundreds, often thousands of miles in search of a haven and refuge from horrific conditions in the countries of their birth, leaving family, work, and homes behind. They are human beings who have experienced the worst of the human condition. Their spirit, courage, and resilience reflect the greatness of the human spirit.

The eleven stories in this book provide a lens into what millions around the globe are experiencing today. I remain steadfast in my belief that if we can transcend the limits of political discussion and see refugees as human beings with needs and dreams just like our own, then we can find sustainable, just, and compassionate solutions for them to live lives that are safe, that meet their basic needs, and that are rich with the opportunity to have their deepest hopes and dreams fulfilled.

My hope is that this book will move readers to not only care deeply about the plight of refugees and their resettlement but also deepen their resolve to help.

Profits from the sale of this book will be donated to two organizations that are doing excellent refugee resettlement work and offer many opportunities to support refugees:

HIAS (founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) hias.org

International Rescue Committee (IRC) rescue.org

CONTENTS

Hope Is the Oxygen of My Life

Children Who Returned from a Walk through Hell

The Imaginary Girl

He Threw Garbage on Me

The Apple Lady

The Walls Have Ears

A River of Memories

Blind but the Heart Can See

The Life Before and the Life After

They Bombed My Church on Christmas Day

Empty Walls

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.

Nelson Mandela

There is no better way to introduce this remarkable book than to begin with these wise words of Nelson Mandela. The human beings you will meet in these pages have endured horrors unimaginable, and yet time and again they stood up and continued their walk toward freedom, toward peace and restoring what has been shattered of their humanity. If only we can see them not merely as refugees but as people who have so much to offer us, who will teach us what it means to appreciate being human, to embrace and be thankful for life.

Often when the stories of those seeking refuge, refugees, reach us, they are pervaded with fear that prevents us from being fully immersed in the human context of such stories. The labels and sound bites of the media do no justice to remind us that no one leaves their home, their culture, their heritage, their customs, their lives for the unknown, to live with uncertainty, to suffer, simply to come to America. People leave their homes, their lands, and their countries behind because they can no longer find life therelife as in the possibility to exist, to be alive. They drag their wounded, but not broken, spirits, looking to start over again, often anywhere, really. How can anyone fear such people?

Lee Bycel has crafted for us a rare gift through the stories of eleven individuals, refugees, who now call America home. He brings his compassion, insight, experience, and deep respect to the interviews with the refugees, offering them the opportunity to speak for themselves. Through this gift of stories about what it means to be human regardless of circumstance, the reader will journey through Eritrea, Guatemala, Iraq, South Sudan, Poland, Syria, Cambodia, El Salvador, Vietnam, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Afghanistan. It is indeed an incredible journey that will change your understanding of the word refugee and bring you to meet the human beings behind the labels that often create unnecessary apprehension because of the missing context, the voices of these individuals.

This book is needed now more than ever to reawaken our natural impulses of empathy that are dulled due to the overwhelming rhetoric of threat from the others, who are mothers like us, fathers like us, sons and daughters like us, children like us. If you have ever yearned for love, for acceptance and recognition for simply being human, if youve ever felt loss or pain and hoped for a better life, then you will find in these stories these same yearnings, these same expressions of what it means to be human. Do read with an open heart and witness the strength of the human spirit.

Ishmael Beah, international and New York Times best-selling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and Radiance of Tomorrow, a Novel

REFUGEES IN AMERICA

Are all humans human? Or are some more human than others?

Romo Antonius Dallaire, saved 30,000 lives during the Rwandan genocide

My Journey

It is the fall of 2004 and I am traveling through the sub-Saharan desert of Chad, one of the poorest countries on this planet. I have just spent two weeks visiting with Darfuri refugees in several refugee camps. It is extremely hot, and I have been riding in a jeep through the middle of the desert for several hours. There are no roads. All you see is sand. You start to feel a sense of vertigo, losing perspective on where you are, where you have come from, and where you are going. It is unimaginable how our driver knows where to go, but his instincts and his knowledge of the desert guide him in the right direction. I am in kind of a trance, tired, thinking about this commitment I have made to meet some of the dispossessed people from Darfur who have come to Chad seeking safety.

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