“What happened?” Hasna’s voice rose.
“We were throwing rocks and we hit the birds. They”—here the little boy gestured with his chin to three boys standing sheepishly behind him—“they didn’t know those were your birds. I told them, but it was too late—we’ve hurt this one. I’m so sorry.”
Hasna looked in his gray eyes and wondered what would happen to this boy who was not afraid to confess, who had observed her closely enough to know that she’d grown to care about these birds. He could have left the bird to die; no one would ever have known.
“I’ll take her.” Hasna tugged on the dish towel that she had put on her shoulder and wrapped it gently around the bird. The bird’s chest rose and fell shallowly; Hasna was careful not to touch her legs, hanging limply from her body. She was unsure what she could do, but she nodded gravely at the boys and closed the door with her heel.
In the kitchen, she laid the bird out on the dish towel beside the stove, where she had the best light from the picture window. No wild creature succumbed so easily to being touched by humans unless it was past the point of fighting. They had remained apart for so many weeks and now here they were, improbably beside each other in this kitchen in Ramtha.
Hasna wrapped the broken legs carefully with a paper towel, securing the tiny bandages with a bit of electrical tape. She had no idea if the makeshift leg braces would stay, but she had to try. Hasna gathered the bird up, held it cradled against her belly, carried her up the stairs.
She had never gone this close to the nest before. She could barely see through the tears streaming down her face: There were the five gangly babies. They would not be able to take care of themselves. Those boys and their rock had condemned the children to death with their mother.
Tenderly, she placed the mother inside the edge of the nest. The babies screeched in terror as Hasna’s enormous shadow blocked out the sun. When she pulled back, they pushed against their mother’s familiar body with their beaks, searching for food or comfort or her familiar scent, now mixed with Hasna’s. They would never see their father again—Hasna knew that male hoopoes left the area when their mates died, never to return.
Hasna sat down on her pile of tiles and her body shook with sobs, her face turned toward Syria. She could hear the frantic cries of the five baby birds. She sat vigil with them as their mother died. She stayed up on the roof, back aching, as the sun set.
Eventually the babies were silent as well. She could hear occasional cars, the street dogs snapping and barking at each other in the field below, the wind through the low trees around her, the muffled explosions as the missiles started up in Daraa again. That night, the only lights were from the city of Ramtha behind her, the bombs flaring in Daraa before her, and the stars above.
Chapter 16
US REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT, 1950–1963
As the globe glacierized into the Cold War, the definition of “refugee” shifted again. Europeans displaced by Nazi rule gradually left the camps—returning to their homelands, moving to the newly established Jewish territory in Israel, or resettling in new countries—and the US government turned its attention to those affected by communism. For the twenty years following World War II, “refugee” would be a term applied by politicians, news anchors, writers, and advocates in the United States almost exclusively to anticommunist dissenters and victims, especially white European ones.
The disproportionate focus on Europeans was a hallmark of the political whiteness of the decades following World War II. The Immigration Act of 1924, with its eugenicist language and racialized quota system, remained the law. Refugee resettlement into the US and refugee aid outside it continued to ignore the plight of millions around the globe.
There was no Marshall Plan for the 14 million displaced Indians and Pakistanis in 1947. There were no airlifts for the 750,000 Palestinians who became refugees in 1950. There were no US-government-promoted PR campaigns for the 385,000 Chinese citizens relocated by the Chinese Cultural Revolution between 1950 and 1954. There were no visas allotted for the 1 million Vietnamese forced from their homes when the communist government formed a new country in North Vietnam, or for the 1.2 million displaced Algerians during the Algerian war of independence in 1960. That is not to say that those places did not receive aid, CIA involvement in their political embroilments, or foreign policy consideration from the US government. But none of those people became “refugees” in a way that would grant them special program assistance or immediate new lives in the United States.
However, the Hungarians did.
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In October 1956, student protesters in Budapest launched a revolution against the Soviet Politburo. On November 4, 1956, the Soviet military responded with an assault designed to crush the resistance: The Soviets intended Hungary to serve as an example to other nations of what happened if they resisted occupation. In the bitter winter following those battles, more than two hundred thousand refugees fled on foot to safety in Austria and Yugoslavia.
At the time, the US was deeply involved in a political, cultural, and rhetorical battle with the Soviet Union on a number of fronts around the world. The space program was one of the ways the United States tried to prove cultural dominance during those years; the arms race was another. With the Hungarian Revolution, refugee resettlement became a weapon in the argument that capitalism was superior to communism. To present it more effectively to the American public, the Eisenhower administration partnered with the “Mad Men” of New York in an impressive PR blitz in early 1957.
A newsreel from 1957 followed the format of the postwar newsreels. The announcer relied on lyrical language thick with alliteration to show “battered Budapest under the brutal Russian boot” over a violin-laden soundtrack. Filmmakers smuggled the footage out of Hungary to show the world the “grim evidence of the brutality and savagery with which the red tanks blasted a defenseless people and their city.” Soviet soldiers “blockaded highways and destroyed bridges in a desperate effort to halt the mass exodus,” but these “proud people” were not deterred on their “flight to freedom.” The film showed a father carrying his son through shoulder-high grass, refugees balancing on a tree-trunk bridge over a border canal, guards waving Hungarians into Austria. There, representatives of the “free world, which suffered through Hungary’s gallant struggle for freedom, opens its hearts to the homeless masses,” assisting refugees as they headed to temporary camps, and from there to resettlement in Switzerland and other European countries.
President Eisenhower responded almost immediately with extraordinary levels of aid—he launched Operation Safe Haven, a joint effort by the air force and navy in which they eventually brought over more than ten thousand refugees by transatlantic air and sea transportation into the United States. The newsreel section on the displaced people ended with refugees arriving at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey: “Stepping out into the crisp air of America, the refugees have found the freedom for which their countrymen yearned, and fought, and died.”
As part of the PR blitz, in coordination with Operation Safe Haven, the January 7, 1957, cover of Life magazine featured a smiling Vice President Richard Nixon embracing two small Hungarian girls in a crowd of refugees; there was a Norman Rockwell quality to the cover photo as one little girl lovingly gazed up at Nixon with a beaming smile, touching his cheek, while another girl, clutching a baby doll in a bassinet, looked on. The magazine featured an eight-page photo spread of black-and-white pictures, beginning with Hungarian women being lifted into wagons in the snow after fleeing Soviet oppression. It followed one family’s arrival in Indianapolis with images of a small girl pledging allegiance to the American flag on her first day of school, families embracing one another after being reunited on US soil, a woman enjoying washing machines and television sets. The photo series ended with the children starting school and the man kissing his wife before going to work at Anheuser-Busch.
&nb
sp; The Life photo series used what would become the standard tropes for presenting refugees to the American public: images of a bleak journey; crowded photos indicating hordes of people hoping for scant resources; relieved faces when refugees realize they were accepted for resettlement in the United States; moments of joyful reunions with loved ones; pictures of smiling refugees in their new homes and at new jobs. The American Dream, granted to the deserving few.
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In the 1950s, restrictionists (still mostly Democrats) and liberalizers (still mostly Republicans) hammered out refugee policies and rhetoric as the postwar surge of goodwill began to dissipate. The nationalist quota system of the Immigration Act of 1924 remained in place, bolstered by the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952. Eisenhower and other liberalizers created a separate track for refugee admissions in 1953 with the Refugee Relief Act and the resulting federal program. The Refugee Relief Program lasted three years, until 1956; with restrictionists wielding power in Congress, the executive branch had limited options for refugee resettlement. During his tenure, Eisenhower “paroled” thousands of refugees to the United States in an attempt to go around Congress. But the short-term nature of the crisis-driven acts and programs in those years made resettlement especially difficult; the lessons learned with each of these initiatives did not necessarily carry over to the next crisis. A series of ad hoc solutions followed in 1957, 1958, and 1960, patching the issue without fixing it.
Beginning with the Refugee Relief Act, restrictionists made sure that national screening protocols were in place—vetting refugees would be a critical part of every resettlement policy from the 1950s on. McCarthyism and the Red Scare were in full effect in the early 1950s and in the beginning, officials worked to keep out almost everyone in the 1953 Refugee Relief Act, not just Soviet spies. The Eisenhower administration eventually intervened and, in that act and others, worked to prevent over-vetting and to regulate the program. It took some time and some political finagling, but vetted refugees arrived in fits and starts throughout the decade.
The 1950s were a tumultuous time in terms of American identity, and that played out in the immigration debates. The back-and-forth, stop-and-start nature of resettlement reflected the mounting tension that would erupt with the civil rights movement. Still, those years provided fundamental building blocks for the program when it finally stabilized a few decades later. Liberalizers who argued that resettlement numbers were never high enough to address real refugee needs and restrictionists who wanted to ensure that national security vetting was always included—both paved the way for the program that would come.
Chapter 17
MU NAW
AUSTIN, TEXAS, USA, APRIL 2008–MARCH 2009
A year after Mu Naw gave birth to her son, Saw Doh, they moved from their first apartment, 1-1-2 (she always said each number individually and carefully, so that Americans could understand her, knew where to find her), to the glorious upstairs apartment, 2-1-6. 216 was next door to an older Karen couple who were soon like the grandparents her children had never had. They came over for dinner, spent time chatting outside on the porches. After the birth of her son, with so many families around her, life in this new country, while not easy, was becoming familiar. Most days, she was glad they had come.
Each week brought even more new families as the refugee resettlement program for Myanmar expanded. Austin was highly receptive to refugees—housing was expensive, but jobs were plentiful. Churches and other groups were quick to meet the needs of the new families; there were people around all the time. After those first lonely months, Mu Naw found it refreshing. She loved to be needed and busy. She and Saw Ku were thriving.
There was a women’s cooperative that began and quickly grew as new women moved into the apartment complex. Some of the women were deft artisans and American volunteers worked to find the right yarn and to replicate the backstrap looms of the more experienced weavers. The new yarn was from Maine, stiff and mostly in earth tones. The women did not like it as well as the supple, bright cotton from Myanmar, so they mixed the two together in dazzling new combinations: fuchsia with coral, emerald green with brick red, neon orange with black. The white women figured out how to sell the bags and the weavers profited, and Mu Naw became their go-between, explaining the cultural significance of Christmas and Halloween colors, why the earth tones would do better in the United States. When they were gone, the women talked about the ridiculousness of white people’s taste: Who would want to weave only in brown and gray? Didn’t Americans know these colors were ugly? But the women were glad for the money. They enjoyed spending time together. Daily the courtyard of the apartment complex was filled with the women who were too old or had children too young to work, weaving on their porches. Mu Naw was the unquestioned leader of the daytime group.
They banded together in everything from child care to sorting out bills and Mu Naw felt, for the first time, that the bonds that had restricted her for her entire life were truly gone. She could never have done in Mae La camp what she was doing here.
Some place inside of her healed in that year. Pah Poe was in elementary school and Naw Wah in pre-K. She had a fat, happy son. Her husband adored her, could not always keep his hands off her, especially now that they knew they would have no more children. They giggled as they had as teenagers, not so many years and yet a lifetime ago.
The new second-floor apartment had wider windows and laminate flooring. There were more shoes by the door than the year before, neatly stacked onto low shelves. On the porch were two chairs, the mesh seats slightly frayed, where she could sit and visit with friends or watch the birds in the branches in the courtyard’s only tree.
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One day the white women from evening English classes came to the apartment complex with some of the caseworkers from Refugee Services and a new interpreter. Mu Naw did not know these caseworkers; the agency had hired more people as more Burmese people moved to Austin. The caseworkers showed them a piece of paper with two pictures of Bob behind a white backdrop with some numbers listed; in one, he glowered at the camera, and in the second he looked to the side.
Usually informal and always laughing, the white women were serious, teary. The interpreter repeated himself several times, in a variety of ways: Bob was dangerous. He hurt children. The police had caught him inappropriately touching a young boy. If their children had ever been alone with Bob, they should come and talk to RST immediately.
A few weeks later, all of the refugee families who lived in the apartment—from Burundi, Somalia, Iraq, and Myanmar—were asked to come to a meeting in the conference room at RST. It was the only time they had all been called together and almost everyone came. The refugees made a circle in the room; mixed in with them were many familiar faces—the ministers who spoke at the Karen Baptist church, one of the white men with a beard who played the guitar, the RST caseworkers, the white women who brought them yarn. The room was overcrowded and stuffy.
The director of RST, a woman with straight dark hair and intricate dangling earrings, stood in front of a whiteboard and spoke loudly in a firm voice that surprised Mu Naw. Mu Naw had been asked to be a translator for the meeting and she stood with the other translators in an inner circle facing the group of people near her.
They divided the room based on language, so the Burmese were in one part divided up into subgroups based on dialect; the Karen speakers were in front of her and the Karenni speakers were to her right in front of another translator. The director of RST would say a sentence and then pause. Then, simultaneously, the translators would translate what she said into the first language, then the second round of translators picked it up. For the Iraqis, the phrases were repeated once in Arabic. For the Burundians, twice: in French and then Kirundi. For the refugees from Myanmar, four times: Burmese, Karenni, Po Karen, and Ska Karen. Mu Naw was the Po Karen and Ska Karen translator, which meant that her voice was the only one at th
e end of each statement, the large group of people listening expectantly for her to be done saying each phrase twice before the director of RST began speaking again. Mu Naw could feel her neck and cheeks flush the first time her voice rang out alone in the silent room, but she repeated the phrases faithfully in two languages.
The director enunciated each word: “This man, Bob, who said he was your friend, is not your friend—he is a dangerous criminal who has lied to all of us.
“The police are helping us. In other countries, it is not always a good thing to have the police involved. In the United States, this is a good thing.
“Bob wants to touch your children in sexual ways, in ways that only a husband and wife should use with each other.
“Bob was arrested, but the police do not have enough proof to keep him in jail. The fact that the police suspect him makes Bob especially dangerous right now.
“If you see Bob at the apartments, you need to call the police.
“Do not let Bob into your home. Ever.
“If the police want to speak to you about Bob, that is okay! Do not be afraid! It is okay to speak to the police! If you think that maybe Bob has already hurt your children, you can tell your caseworkers privately and we will help.
“Right now, the police do not have any way to keep Bob away from the apartments. They are working to get everything they need to keep Bob in prison for a very long time, but those things take time.
“You must tell the police if you see Bob—for the sake of your children.”
Mu Naw’s voice finished last. In each of the languages, the word echoed: Children. Children. Children. Children.
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After the Last Border Page 19
