Ten Bhutanese refugees raised their right hands today in front of Market Square’s lunch crowd and took the oath of United States citizenship.
“I feel very proud,” said Arati Khatiwada, 16, of Bhutan, about her mother, Rupa, 41, who was holding the certificate of citizenship she had just received.
The ceremony was part of the local World Refugee Day celebration in downtown Pittsburgh. The day was created by the United Nations to recognize the 65 million globally who are displaced.
“I think this day is really about celebrating immigrants and refugees that call Pittsburgh home,” said Becky Johnson, director of community assistance and refugee resettlement at the Northern Area Multi Service Center based in Sharpsburg. “It’s about celebrating their culture and what they contribute to Pittsburgh and our regional economy.”
The agency, one of three refugee resettlement agencies in Allegheny County, took the lead in organizing this year’s event. So far this year, NAMS has resettled 60 refugees, the majority from Afghanistan on Special Immigrant Visas, and Bhutan. They expect to resettle 175 by year’s end.
“Refugees do not choose to flee their homeland. They are forced to do so,” Ms. Johnson said.
Approximately three months after arrival in the U.S., at least one family member must find employment; after six months, they must begin repaying the government for their plane tickets. There is a one-year wait to apply for a green card and a five-year wait to apply for U.S. citizenship.
Vendors filled Market Square for the event. African and Somali Bantu dancers as well as Bangladeshi and Syrian poets approached the stage one after another for the event’s entertainment.
Serap Uzunoglu, 40, and her daughter Zehra, 12, sat crossed legged on the ground behind their food stall rolling dough for Gozleme, a Turkish stuffed pastry. Ms. Uzunoglu, a former English teacher in Turkey, was on a trip to the United States with her students when the July 2016 failed coup attempt erupted in her country. The government began mass arrests of educated professionals. She never returned.
“Luckily my husband and daughter were on the trip. I can’t even use my teaching diploma because the government canceled [it]. If you support the government, then you can continue your life there. If you don’t support, then you don’t have a chance to live there,” she said. “We have many teachers who are in prison.”
In the next stall, Emmanuel Kababa, 23, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, attended to customers buying his mother’s handmade beaded jewelry.
Mr. Kababa arrived in the U.S. at age 21 and soon after began taking English and GED classes at Literacy Pittsburgh. He is now enrolled at the Community College of Allegheny County and hopes to transfer his credits to the University of Pittsburgh to study mechanical engineering.
“I love to fix things,” he said.
In addition to studying, he works at the Milkshake Factory and freelances as an interpreter for two local nonprofits.
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and a representative of Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto also spoke at the event.
“The mayor knows that for this city to flourish, we need you,” Feyisola Alabi, of the Mayor’s Office, said from the stage. “Our doors are always open. We love you, and we want more of you.”
The other agencies in the region, Jewish Family and Community Services in Squirrel Hill, and AJAPO in the Hill District, expect to resettle 148 and 145 respectively.
According to the latest numbers from the Pennsylvania Refugee Resettlement Program, 5,035 refugees have been resettled in Allegheny County from 2001 to 2016, the most coming from Bhutan, Burma and Iraq.
But so far this year the flow of refugees into Pittsburgh has been slow, said Leslie Aizenmann, director of refugee and immigrant services at JFCS.
“There have been significant cuts,” she said.
The federal government capped refugee resettlement at 45,000 in 2018, down from 85,000 just two years ago.
First Published: June 20, 2018, 7:19 p.m.