Refugees enrich our lives

I recently received a “begging letter” from the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), an agency based in Washington, D.C., working with refugee populations around the world. I’d given them some money last year, and they were following up with a tax document and a plea for help since USAID funds have been cut off. It brought back many memories of having worked with refugees over the past 50 years in many different capacities, including having been offered a job with ICMC in the Philippines in 1985.

My interest in and experience with refugees began in concert with the work Mary Nelle Gage did for many years with the Lutheran Refugee Resettlement Services in Denver. In 1975, Southeast Asian refugees, primarily Vietnamese, later Laotians and Cambodians, began coming to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon that ended the Vietnam War. I was part of a Loretto Community group in Denver who sponsored a family of 10 children and their parents. Our sponsoring commitment was total in terms of helping the family figure out how to live in an extremely different country. That family still lives in Denver and is still in relationship with some members of the Loretto group.

In time, I worked with other refugees from Afghanistan and Iran, as well as Laos, and with Hmong and Cambodians. I taught English and trained others to do the same. I was a consultant for the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) in Washington, D.C., helping volunteers in the eight-state Mountain West region understand Southeast Asians in their communities and how to help them. In 1985, I applied to three international groups working with refugees in Southeast Asia; ICMC was one of those groups. Instead, I spent two years working for CAL, living in the Philippines and traveled to refugee resettlement camps in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. As I came to learn more about refugees and their reasons for, and experiences of, leaving their home countries, I grew in respect for them and how they enrich our own country.

I now live in Hawaii, a state of immigrants, where there is no dominant cultural group. We’re all minorities — a truly remarkable experience! Refugeescontinue to come to Hawaii from around the world — Ukrainians, Russians, Latin Americans, Palestinians and more. My experiences and learnings over the years, beginning with that Vietnamese family in Denver, have enriched my life, and my hope is that I’ve been able to make the lives of others better in the process. My commitment to refugee resettlement continues as I interact with the Pacific Gateway Center, a resettlement agency here in Hawaii. Refugees are resilient and resourceful people who have honed their problem-solving skills to an incredible level. They have enriched my life tremendously, and they deserve our help as they courageously strive to make a new life.