At home in a foreign land: Somalian refugees adjust to a new life

from The Greeley Tribune

Chris Casey, (Bio) ccasey@greeleytrib.com

The four Somalis moved into the apartment last August, six floors up in a downtown Greeley building. The living room is furnished with only a metal folding chair and small table covered in papers and a laptop computer. A Somali flag, a white star against light blue, is the only wall hanging, draped behind the table.

A 25-year-old man identifying himself as Mohamed Mohamed sits on the floor helping Nafiso Mohamed Abdi, 20, fill out a rental application form for another Greeley apartment complex.

It's noon on Wednesday, and in three hours they will be working along with scores of Somalis at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant.

Mohamed, who speaks English, is a trainer for new employees, making $12.10 an hour, while Abdi, in the hijab headscarf worn by Somali women, works in packaging.

"It's a good place to work," Mohamed said. "It's a hard job, but it's good."

While they eat and sleep in the two-bedroom apartment, the Somalis mostly direct their energies outward into this new community half the globe away from their war-torn homeland.

They stroll Greeley's supermarkets, banks, video stores, and motor vehicles office, and they are frequently seen walking downtown streets. Many congregate at a south Greeley restaurant that serves Somali dishes.

"It's a really unsafe place," Ibraham Mohamed said of his native country. "There are warlords. There's no government existing, so everyone has a gun. You never know when you're going to die."

Abdullah Mohamed, 54, works the second shift -- roughly from 3 p.m.-midnight -- at Swift. The job is physically taxing but worth it, allowing him to send money to his wife and children in Seattle. He hopes they will be able to join him in Greeley.

A resident of a refugee camp for 16 years, Abdullah Mohamed likes the feeling of safety in his new country. Here, he is a legal refugee, enjoying United Nations protection and eligibility for employment.

"I can sleep at night," he said.

20 EACH DAY

Ibraham Mohamed is a Greeley caseworker for Lutheran Family Services, which provides refugee resettlement services. He estimates that about 300 east Africans are in Greeley, and that "every day, 20 or 30 people are coming to get started at Swift, maybe 15 (a day). It depends on how they get the job."

He said many hear about plant openings from friends and relatives.

They come for opportunity and safety. Jobs on the recently added second shift at JBS Swift & Co. offer a living wage for Africans accustomed to extreme poverty.

The east Africans, mostly Somalis, who've arrived in the past year are further diversifying Greeley, which has long been dominated by Anglos and Latinos. The city, with its agricultural roots, has historically attracted waves of immigrants, from Swedes and German-Russians to Japanese and Latinos.

This arrival represents Greeley's first distinct ethnic wave of the 21st century, and it follows patterns seen in other U.S. cities and towns, particularly in the Midwest.

A 2003 study by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire found that almost 30,000 Somali refugees had resettled in the United States, with the majority in Minnesota. The largest numbers in the Midwest, as in Greeley, work in meatpacking plants and other places that use unskilled labor.

"It does seem to be work that doesn't require a lot of English and that is not contrary to any of their customs or any part of their religion," said Christine Marston, an economics professor at the University of Northern Colorado. Swift pays $12 an hour to starting workers, "and Greeley doesn't have that high of a cost of living compared to some parts of the U.S., so I think it's an attractive place of employment for those reasons."

Doug Schult, who heads employee and labor relations at Swift, said refugees are coming from several east African countries. They are working at Swift plants across the nation, from Greeley to Kentucky.

Their numbers have "probably grown in the last year and a half (at Swift in Greeley), and I would say that's probably universal across the country as these refugees come in," Schult said.

Swift is coming off a year in which 270 Latino employees were stung in a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The number of Latino workers at the plant has dropped from 90 percent of its total work force to about 80 percent. The disruption of the raid, coupled with the addition of 1,300 jobs on the second shift, has opened the doors for African refugees, who are legally here and eager to start their lives anew.

"I like so much the U.S.," said Abdiqadir Jama, 20, another Somali refugee. "A lot of opportunity. You can do anything you want."

'VERY VOLATILE'

Inside the high-rise apartment, Taher Mame, one of Mohamed's roommates, stirs soup in one pot and spaghetti in another.

He said he'd like to go to college, but he can't afford it just yet. He cuts meat full time at Swift and sends $400 a month home to relatives in Africa.

Mame, 22, said the meatpacking plant work is hard. He hopes to get an office job someday.

Mohamed Mohamed, meanwhile, takes classes at Aims Community College while working full time at Swift. He wants to become a physician.

He was 7 when he left Somalia, which has been gripped by civil war since 1991, when its dictator was overthrown. His family resettled in Kenya. Eventually, along with thousands of his countrymen, Mohamed came to the United States under the United Nations resettlement program for refugees.

Mohamed said he knows people in Somalia -- which has produced hundreds of thousands of refugees -- who've been maimed, tortured and killed.

"It's a very volatile place with no law and order, no cops, no government," he said. "Dangerous. Any moment things can change. The next moment you never know."

The United States, meanwhile, is peaceful but highly structured -- one of the many adjustments the Somalis face here. Most of them are Muslim, and daily prayers take place at prescribed times around the clock.

Mohamed said Swift doesn't allow breaks at set times for prayers. He said the company has explained that certain groups of workers can't be treated differently than others.

"Sometimes you have to pray at specific times but you're on the production line, so you miss the prayer," he said.

The Somalis try to work around it by praying during normal breaks.

Tamara Smid, Swift spokeswoman, said the company is making accommodations for the refugee workers.

"We respect the religion of our employees and comply with the laws to provide reasonable accommodations," she said.

Swift has interpreters who speak multiple languages in the plant, she said. Also, the company is looking into offering English classes or forming outside-the-plant partnerships to provide language lessons for the refugees.

EXTENSIVE PROCESSING

Anders Snyder, volunteer and church relations coordinator at Lutheran Family Services in Denver, said the nonprofit group has opened offices in Fort Morgan, Colorado Springs, Summit County and now Greeley.

LFS serves both refugees who have fled their home country because of religious or political oppression and asylees who've come to the United States on their own and apply for asylum.

LFS served its first clients in Greeley in April 2007, when an estimated 40 refugees and asylees were in the city. Their numbers have increased since, especially in the last two months. Refugees are mostly from Somalia, but also Ethiopia, Eritrea, Cameroon and Congo.

About 200 refugees arrived in Fort Morgan, most working at Cargill Meat Solutions, by midsummer 2007.

"That's really been the emphasis for most of the movement," Snyder said. "Folks found out there were jobs at those locations. Good wages and good benefits and so forth."

Snyder said the background checks and paperwork required by the U.S. government is extensive.

"Refugees go through more processing than any immigration group when they come to the U.S.," he said. "It all happens before they get here."

Among the refugees, many lived elsewhere in the United States before arriving in Colorado.

"Most of what we're dealing with in Greeley and Fort Morgan are people who are secondary migrants who have chosen to come here (from other U.S. cities)," Snyder said.

Somali and other African refugees can work as soon as they arrive in the U.S. They can apply for a green card after a year, Snyder said.

Upon arrival, they often struggle to learn English, find a job and navigate applications for housing and a driver's license. That's where Lutheran Family Services steps in, providing about four to eight months of assistance -- including some cash -- to help the newcomers get settled.

"We help get all the pieces in place for self-sufficiency," Snyder said. "That's the name of the game for us."

Last year, 1,085 refugees overall streamed into Colorado, according to Paul Stein, coordinator of the Colorado State Refugee Services Program.

Nationally, the U.S. Refugee Service Program will cap African refugees at 16,000 in 2008 (the number varies year to year based on a presidential determination). In the first four months of fiscal 2008, which began last October, 687 Somalis had entered the country. The African nations with the most refugees so far this year are Liberia (764) and Burundi (1,781).

"We first became aware of secondary migrants in Weld and Morgan counties about the fall of 2006," Stein said. "... I don't have a real sense of the rate of arrival, whether it's going to increase or decrease. It's really going to depend on the economy or the local environment."

So far, Greeley has been generally hospitable. The Greeley Police Department is scheduling outreach meetings to help Somalis learn rules of the road and understand other local laws. The international specialist at Aims has been meeting with African students about enrolling in English classes and other college programs.

"If communities seem to be embracing the refugee community, then more would be saying this is a nice community," Stein said.

'Happy to be free'

Ibraham Mohamed left Somalia at a young age to live in a refugee camp, along with more than 30,000 Somalis, in Kenya. He said it was a dream to come to the United States, and he spent two years in Seattle attending college before coming to Denver.

Ibraham relates to those he's helping in Greeley. He recalls how difficult it was to work and attend school, all while sending money to Africa.

"They are very hardworking people," he said. "Once they get their job, they try to keep their job. I don't think they are moving nowhere. They will be here forever, or until maybe they get school. Whenever I talk to them they say, 'Maybe I will go to college, extend my English, have a better job.'

"That's what most of their dreams are right now."

But some, including Abdiqadir Jama, are here to study. A cousin and some friends in Greeley told Jama, who had spent two years at a meatpacking plant in Emporia, Kan., about northern Colorado and its educational opportunities.

He moved here a month ago, bringing two sisters. His older sister works at Swift and the younger sister goes to Northridge High School.

His job in Kansas, where he worked his way up to being a trainer, paid $13.65 an hour, giving him the chance to save money for college.

Jama said when the plane touched down in Los Angeles two years ago -- the airfare covered by the U.S. government -- was one of the happiest moments of his life. "I was so happy to be free."

He left Somalia at age 4; his parents moved the family to Kenya, where they eventually settled in Nairobi.

Whenever he ventured out of that major city, where he attended high school and learned three languages, things got dangerous.

"In Africa, if you went to another city, some thieves they came up to me and said, 'Hey, take everything out of your pockets -- your phone, your money, everything you have.' That happens a lot."

His main concerns now are getting enrolled in college -- he wants to work in a pharmacy -- and joining a soccer league, his favorite sport. He and his older sister share an apartment in downtown Greeley, paying $460 in rent.

He understands the struggle of fellow Somalis who want to go to college but can't yet afford it.

"A lot of (Somalis), they want to come here (to Aims), but the job they're working is hard, so it's too hard to do both," Jama said. "They're cutting meat, they're taking the bone out."

He's been meeting with Alan Hendrickson, international programs director at Aims, about financial aid and classes to take.

Hendrickson has helped several Somalis enroll in English grammar and other classes. He also makes sure they can squeeze the costs of college into their budget.

"That's why they're here, because they want to improve," Hendrickson said. "And we want to help them."

Jama is no stranger to piles of paperwork. It took him 18 months of filing papers and waiting on approvals to get refugee status. Most of his large family -- 15 siblings and parents -- already have done so.

It's a tight community wherever they go. "The Somali people they go together, they live together."

The Somalis generally say they feel welcome. Some, like Amina Warsame, 20, stops so frequently at Bank of the West in downtown Greeley that she's gotten to know the tellers' names. A chorus of "Hi Aminas" greet her when she enters the bank.