Somewhere in the Unknown World Read online

  For Yusuf Abdi, director of refugee services for Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota and a former refugee himself, the resettling of refugees into small towns and communities can be gentler than a move into a big urban center. His own experience of coming to a small community in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, three and a half hours away from the Twin Cities was a blessed relief. While his parents, other Somali refugees, Bosnian refugees, and the Hispanic population in town worked at the local turkey processing plant, he and his brother had attended the public schools. In the small town, they joined an “international” soccer team with other refugees and immigrants and one Caucasian boy and girl. The team competed for first place in the northwest region of the state tournament, and while they did not take home the championship they came home to a celebration. For Yusuf, “The most critical component of a successful refugee resettlement initiative is to find a place with affordable housing, job opportunities, and a receptive community and school system,” and in his experience these places are sometimes quieter, more rural settings.

  In a conversation with Bwet Taw, Aimee Barbeau, and Laurie Ohmann, individuals who have worked with Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, for the new refugee “every day is a new beginning.” For Bwet, a Karen refugee, the newly arrived refugees often don’t know what they are entitled to by law. He was resettled by himself at the age of twenty-two, with limited English, in Kentucky. For the entire first week of his stay in America, he lived in an apartment with no food in the fridge and had no one to call. Bwet knows what many refugee resettlement workers don’t know: that often “the refugee feels he is a loser. He has lost everything.” As a caseworker now, Bwet’s goal is to help new refugees succeed in America from a place of understanding. “Sometimes, I’m the only one talking to them. They compare their home countries to mine. They ask me questions where sometimes I can only answer with ‘I don’t know’—because it is important for them to hear that they are not the only ones who don’t know.”

  Aimee was the organization’s program manager for New American Services. For her, the hardest part of the job was knowing that you’re “resettling people into poverty.” Laurie, the executive vice president and chief operating officer, believes that resettlement agencies such as Catholic Charities exist as “a voice against the people who make horrific claims and untrue statements about who refugees are and what they bring into this country.” Of all the people who enter into the United States of America, refugees go through the most serious vetting. There are no privileges in the refugee process.

  For Michelle Eberhard, who used to be the director of refugee arrival services for Arrive Ministries, the most pressing question is, “How do we let people have their own voices in a system that is designed against their stories?”

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to the fourteen individuals who have bravely shared their stories with me. Your lives extend far beyond the stories in this collection. Thank you for trusting me and choosing to believe in the heart of this refugee writer. You are the heroes I see in the life we share.

  This book benefited from the different refugee resettlement agencies in Minnesota. The work that you have done and continue to try to do allows for these stories to live here.

  I want to recognize the generous work of three singular forces for good: Imam Samir Saikali, who invited me into his mosque, the most diverse in Minnesota, and shared from the bounty of his relationships; Dr. Sarah Lucken, pediatrician to countless immigrant and refugee children; and Dr. Tea Rozman Clark, of Green Card Voices, affectionately and respectfully known as the “Balkan hustler,” who has connected the threads of humanity in her efforts to build a better world.

  In my language, the language of my heart, ua tsaug ntau.

  ALSO BY KAO KALIA YANG

  What God Is Honored Here? Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color

  (edited with Shannon Gibney)

  A Map into the World

  (for children)

  The Shared Room

  (for children)

  The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

  The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir

  About the Author

  Kao Kalia Yang is the author of The Song Poet, which received the 2017 Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN Center USA Literary Award, and the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize. Her previous book, The Latehomecomer, also received the Minnesota Book Award and is a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read title. Her debut picture book, A Map Into the World, is a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, an ALA Notable Book, Kirkus Best Book of the Year, and a Minnesota Book Award winner. Yang lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can sign up for email updates here.

  Thank you for buying this

  Henry Holt and Company ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Quilting

  Prologue

  Part I: Other People’s Children

    1.  From Irina to Irene

    2.  The Strongest Love Story

    3.  Adjustments to the Plan

    4.  Up Close, It Is Different

  Part II: Certificate of Humanity

    5.  When the Rebels Attacked

    6.  Leaving with No Good-byes

    7.  In the Valley of Peace

    8.  Certificate of Humanity

  Part III: Please Remember

    9.  Officially Unconfirmed

  10.  Natalis: Same Old Tired World

  11.  Sisters on the Other Side of the River

  Part IV: Edge of the Horizon

  12.  A Burial and a Birth

  13.  Revival

  14.  Never Going Home Again

  15.  For My Children

  Logistics of Refugee Resettlement

  Perspectives from Refugee Resettlement Agencies

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Kao Kalia Yang

  About the Author

  Copyright

  SOMEWHERE IN THE UNKNOWN WORLD. Copyright © 2020 by Kao Kalia Yang. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10271.

  www.henryholt.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Yang, Kao Kalia, 1980– author.

  Title: Somewhere in the unknown world: a collective refugee memoir / Kao Kalia Yang.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, [2020]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020002964 (print) | LCCN 2020002965 (ebook) | ISBN 9781250296856 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781250296863 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Refugees—United States. | Immigrants—United States. | United States—Emigration and immigration—Social aspects.

  Classification: LCC HV640.4 .U54 Y364 2020 (print) | LCC HV640.4 .U54 (ebook) | DDC 305.9/06914092273—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020002964

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020002965

  First Edition 2020

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

 

 

  <
br />