Identity of Refugees in Iowa

 

ABOUT THESE UNINTELLIGIBLE VOICES

By Alphonse Muhare

Have you ever wondered how far on earth Iowa is known?

In Africa, children whose parents are resettled and work in America expect to get dollars every month and hope to join their parents in future. The process to re-unite a family of refugees can take one to two years.

Well, in case such an idea has never crossed your mind, let me tell you that, as you are reading this article, a naked, hungry and black child in Kiringye, deep down the eastern Congo, is sitting in a local church waiting for a phone call from his father, who works in a Cedar Rapids warehouse.

The kid woke up early in the morning and walked more than an hour to see a priest who borrows him his cell phone so that he can talk to his father. Of course, their conversation is always about money.

His father works for more than 40 hours a week to make the ends meet. After he has paid his taxes, he pays his bills, buys his food, and sends the rest of the money to his son and his mother, who are still living in Kiringye.

Isn’t it that strange! I know this name--Kiringye-- is not familiar. Yet most people who live in this refugees’ camp are somewhat familiar with the tiny Iowa.

The U.S. department of State resettles thousands of refugees in America, including a small number of refugees from Kiringye, Congo.

The State of Iowa, through its Bureau of Refugees, a division of the Iowa Department of Human Services, welcomes yearly dozens of those refugees.

All the way from Africa, these African refugees come to enrich the Iowan cultural apparatus. They love Iowa for its savannas and green pasturage, which reflect the nature that has nurtured them in Africa.

In Kiringye camp, refugees expect a lot from their parents working in Iowa.

Sudanese, Rwandan, Burundian and Angolan refugees, walking barefoot on Iowan plains, say Iowa reminds them of their pastoral life.

Congolese, Ivorian, Liberian, Guinean, and many more African refugees spend their week-ends drinking and dancing African music as a sign of appreciation for the American freedom.

They relentlessly appreciate America for pulling them from all types of persecutions from their respective governments and giving them a haven where they can work and make their living without fear of death.

As you move around this site, you will meet these refugees in their enriching cultural diversities. From their family values to their integration in the American society, African refugees have been living among us, though many Iowans were unable to notice them. As a result, this site has chosen to raise the Iowan consciousness about refugees' existence among them.

For so long, media have confused refugees with immigrants. As a matter of fact, the Homeland Security Department grants a special visa to refugees and allows most them to become American citizens in less than six years after their successful integration in the American society.

Consequently, refugees hold a status different from immigrants. They live legally in America after they have been resettled from refugees' camps around the world.

In Iowa like other parts of the U.S., refugees work as much as they can to support themselves, their families and to pay taxes like responsible citizens.

Here in Iowa, they do most works that American citizens would not like to do; they pay taxes; they tend to live together to support each other in their cultural shocks.

They struggle to preserve their cultural heritages while they have to learn to speak English and other American lifestyles in order to integrate in America and to obtain American citizenship.

They learn everything from simple laws, like public urination to felonies. They learn also to read English correspondences, to communicate in English at work and in court and to listen to news in English. And it does not matter whether they are old or young.

Refugees learning to read and to write in a refugees' camp.

 

This site is the creation of ALPHONSE MUHARE. His resume can be accessed by clicking on his name. Fall 2006 @ the UI Journalism school