Saturday, September 26, 2009

From the New York Times

A recent article in the New York Times gives a glimpse into the lives of newly resettled Bhutanese refugees in the Bronx, New York. The article is accompanied by an excellent photo slide show by photojournalist Suzanne DeChillo.

An excerpt of the article follows. Click here to read the entire story, but do it soon--articles in the Times aren't available online indefinitely.

Bhutan Refugees Find a Toehold in the Bronx

By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: September 24, 2009

Nearly every immigrant group in New York City has a neighborhood, or at least a street, to call its own. But for refugees from the tiny South Asian nation of Bhutan, the closest thing to a home base is a single building in the Bronx — a red-brick five-story walk-up, with a weed-choked front courtyard and grimy staircases.

Eight families — more than 40 people — have taken up residence here in the past several months, part of a stream of thousands of Bhutanese refugees who have flowed into the United States in the past year and a half. With the help of resettlement agencies, many have found apartments in the Bronx, and the largest concentration has ended up here in the building on University Avenue.

This is their small toehold in a strange new world. The only life most have known was in the rural plains and Himalayan foothills of Bhutan and the dusty refugee camps of Nepal. Few have ever lived in homes with electricity or indoor plumbing, or between walls made of anything but bamboo. continued online

Mentioned in the article...


T.P. Mishra was a journalist in Nepal before being resettled in New York in 2009. He maintains a blog called Journalism in Exile, detailing his firsthand accounts of life as a refugee in the urban U.S. The current post is on top; to read previous and archived posts, scroll down or click on the months listed on the right side of the page.

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