Refugee Voices of the Pacific Northwest
Stories of Healing, Loss and Resilience
British and Italian occupations of Somalia ended after World War II, and the country experienced several decades of independence and relative stability until civil war broke out in 1991. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled outside the borders, and the country was so destabilized that it was without a permanent government until 2012. Nafiso left... Continue Reading →
When the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government of Cambodia on 17 April 1975, they forced everyone from the cities into labor camps in the countryside. More than one million Cambodians died from torture, starvation, illness, or execution during the nearly four years they controlled the country. When the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia in 1979 and... Continue Reading →
Even in relatively stable countries like Mexico, people fear the government because of their beliefs or politics. Terrified by what her own government had done to her, Jacque came to the U.S. and eventually applied for political asylum. Asylees have to meet the same requirements as refugees, but apply after entering the U.S. instead of... Continue Reading →
The U.S. responded to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by invading Iraq, with the intention of toppling the country’s longtime ruler, Saddam Hussein. The invasion and subsequent occupation destabilized much of the country and gave rise to multiple militias. Thousands of refugees like Taghreed and her family... Continue Reading →
Over 500,000 Soviet refugees arrived in the United States in the years leading up to and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, making them one of the largest groups resettled here. In a politically complex arrangement, most were religious refugees, particularly after the Lautenberg Amendment of 1989 admitted Soviet Jews to the U.S.... Continue Reading →
The United States spent several decades embroiled in war in Southeast Asia, but the deepest involvement was from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s. When the governments of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos all collapsed in April 1975, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes. The passage of the U.S. Refugee Act of... Continue Reading →
Until he became a U.S. citizen when he was thirty years old, Gyanendra Subba never had a passport for any country. He was born in Bhutan, but only those born to two Bhutanese parents were automatically granted citizenship, and Gyanendra’s mother was Nepali. In 1989, when Gyanendra was 4 years old, Bhutan declared all non-citizens... Continue Reading →
Refugee Voices of the Pacific Northwest 