Bhutanese refugees among latest newcomers to Nebraska

Aug. 26, 2016, 6:45 a.m. ·

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Former Bhutanese refugee Govin Magar is now a mechanical engineering student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

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In the last 15 years, just over 10,000 refugees from around the world have resettled in Nebraska. Refugees from Bhutan are one of the largest groups among newcomers to the state.


In a strip mall at 40th and Dodge Streets, tucked away behind the Jimmy John’s and the Family Dentistry, is Namaste Bazaar – a store serving Omaha’s Bhutanese refugee community. Here, bright orange, yellow and green boxes of spicy rice stack high to the ceiling. Behind a tiny counter, Leela Subba is making pa’an -- a leaf wrapped, betelnut-based chew, for a couple of customers who’re telling her how they’d like it.

Leela Subba sells pa'an at a Bhutanese store in Omaha. (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

The conversation is in Nepali -- the language of people whose ancestors migrated from Nepal to neighboring Bhutan, between India and China. Starting around 1990, Bhutan forced them out. (For historical background on Bhutanese refugees, click here). Many spent more than a decade in refugee camps in Nepal before coming to the United Stated, beginning in 2007.

Govin Magar was one of the earliest to arrive in Omaha. Now 29 years old, he was born in Bhutan in 1987. He moved to a refugee camp when he was five, and lived there 17 years, until he found out he could move to the United States.

“It was kind of random distribution in the United States….Okay, you are selected to go to Omaha,’” Magar recalls. So he packed his lifetime possessions in a bag and left.

At Omaha’s Eppley Airfield, Magar was met by staff from Lutheran Family Services. That’s one of three agencies, along with Catholic Social Services and the Refugee Empowerment Center, that resettles refugees in Nebraska.

The U.S. State Department, which works with resettlement agencies, says just over 10,000 refugees have been resettled in Nebraska in the last 15 years. (To find figures on refugees by country of origin, state destination, and time period, click here). The largest single group, just over 4,700, have come from Myanmar, or Burma. The Bhutanese are the second largest group, at just over 1,400. With family growth and more Bhutanese moving from elsewhere in the U.S., there are now 2,500 to 3,000 Bhutanese in Omaha, by some estimates.

Bhutan and its neighbors. (Google Earth map)

Lacey Studnicka of Lutheran Family Services explains how the process works.

“Every year, the president makes a determination on how many refugees will be allowed in the country and then from which countries. And then nationally there are nine agencies that take that number. So this year that number was 85,000 from all across the world. And so those nine agencies take those 85,000 and distribute them to their affiliate offices across the country,” Studnicka said.

Ryan Overfield and Lacey Studnicka of Lutheran Family Services. (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

Ryan Overfield of Lutheran Family Services acknowledges some people may have concerns that refugees could pose a security threat. But he says Nebraskans should not be worried.

“I think we need to be more focused on how love and the expression of humanity are our best chance to overcome these obstacles. It doesn’t say that there aren’t practical security issues. But our government is dealing with those,” Overfield said.

The Nebraska State Patrol says it’s not aware of any refugee being accused of supporting terrorism, and the FBI’s Omaha office says it has no specific information to provide about any radicalization or terrorism concerns.

The State Department’s direct assistance to refugees ends after 90 days, but other federal and private help continues. Overfield says one goal is to help refugees not get stuck.

“They have to oftentimes take jobs immediately – what we often refer to as ‘survival jobs.’ And once they do, while those aren’t the highest-paying jobs, they’re still earning money at rates they haven’t before,” Overfield said. “Because of the way they live as a community together and the way they share resources, they’re often able to feel a sense of security at that level. But then, we don’t want them to lose sight of how they can progress,” he added.

Magar says within a few months of arriving, he started as a production worker in a frozen foods plant, where he stayed more than a year. But he says he changed directions after listening to what some former refugees who had been working there 25 years told him -- they had no choice.

“We didn’t go to school. And we have family, we have house, we need to pay mortgage, and there is no choice of leaving this company,” Magar recalled them saying.

“When I hear those stories, I had to think very seriously about my life, and I thought ‘Okay, I should go back to school,” Magar said.

Magar worked for a while as an interpreter at Lutheran Family Services while taking classes, then went back to school full-time. He is now three semesters away from getting a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

Studnicka says refugee stories like Magar’s hold lessons for people who have been in this country for a long time, too.

“It’s a way to see the American dream’s still alive. Because you see people who are starting at the bottom of our culture climb to amazing success,” Studnicka said. “All of the values that we have as Americans, we see it every day refugees achieving.”