We spent Saturday afternoon on the linoleum floor of a 100 sq foot apartment in the home of our friends who are refugees from Burma. Apartment is a generous term—their home is a room with a drafty window that barely fits a crib and double mattress. There is no bathroom (the family uses a shared unit in a hallway that serves the whole building) and there is no kitchen (the mom cooks on a hot plate and sometimes her neighbor lets her use their kitchen.) It's not even close to a legal set-up, but they tell us every time we see them how lucky they feel to be here. The mom spends most of her time in this room with her rambunctious three year old and baby because she is afraid to leave without her husband, who works long and hard to provide for his family (including to pay back the airfare for their tickets to the United States: something a lot of people don't know refugees must do!) Making a new life in NYC is a difficult feat even for English-speaking Americans with comfortable budget and established support network—but these dear friends are working so hard to learn the language, the culture, how to navigate public transit, plus a million other things we take for granted, and yet they always go *far* out of their way to be enormously generous and kind to our family.
This weekend was my friend's birthday, and to celebrate really wanted to cook us a traditional Burmese meal in her home. They flipped the mattress up and stacked their few belongings along the wall to make room for our whole family to sit with them. I've been lucky to eat some really delicious meals in my life, even a few at pretty fancy places, but this was the most special meal I've ever been treated to.
I hesitated to share, both out of respect for their privacy and because the experience feels sacred—but it feels important to say right now, over and over, loud and clear: Immigrants make America great. I try to avoid generalizations, but every immigrant I have had the honor to know sits at the tip-top furthest edge of the hard-working/generous matrix—what could be more “American”?
If you have the safety, privilege, and comfort in your own life to do so: **speak up and help**.
Now.
Updates:
This family is doing relatively ok, but we are trying to find them a more proper apartment in Sunset Park BK where their daughter was admitted to pre-k ($1100/mo budget) just in case you have any leads. To help families at the border, I recommend The Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project (http://firrp.org/) and IMPORTANTLY: CALLING YOUR SENATORS DAILY! Ask them to tour the detention centers and tell them you support ending family separation. Also, the org I volunteer with @LiftingHandsInternational is pretty grassroots and we are always down to brainstorm a collaboration—so many people in need of help! Lastly, discussing these issues, especially with friends and family who don't share pro-immigration stances is helpful and important.
I feel real empathy for these people. Why wouldn’t they choose to locate in a lower cost city?
good question—refugees don’t actually choose where they get resettled, not even which country in fact! And because of the high expense, we don’t get tons of refugee resettlements in NYC proper, but sometimes if they have family connections they get assigned here. All of the refugee families I know here in NYC, the dad was here first (usually living w relatives) and the family joins a few years later. This family hope to save up to relocate once they both get their green cards, but there is also a lot of trauma at play that makes them so nervous to make any changes.
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