Clare Willardson and Dr. Gregory Thompson, Anthropology Department
Introduction
Approximately 1,200 refugees are resettled in Utah each year, adding to the 50-60,000 refugees (speaking more than 40 languages) accepted here since 1970. Ninety-nine percent of resettled refugees still live in Salt Lake Valley, the majority of whom are initially placed in West Valley and South Salt Lake due to its affordable housing (see Figure 1 and Figure 2 for reference). Upon resettlement, each family is assigned a case worker through their non-profit resettlement agency that enrolls children in a local public school, and mediates for medical, employment, financial, and other concerns that adult refugees experience post-resettlement.
Methodology
My research consisted of a 10-week ethnographic study of two recently resettled Iraqi refugee families in the South and West Valleys of Salt Lake. One family consisted of Amira, a 40-year-old single mother and Raheem her 17-year-old son (names have been changed for anonymity). When Raheem was a young child, they were driven from Iraq into Syria for six years, then Turkey for another six before they were accepted asylum and resettlement in the Utah. The other family consisted of a young couple in their early 30’s, Ahmed and Fatima. They have a 10-year-old daughter named Nawal. A formerly well-off family from Baghdad, they lost everything and waited five years before being accepted for resettlement in Utah. I met both families four months post-resettlement. Through participant observation, I sought an understanding of the unique experiences and challenges of being a refugee in the Salt Lake Valley. I became intimately close with both families as I spent time with them in their homes, offered help with English, and took trips with them to different places within Salt Lake Valley including parks and libraries, grocery stores, banks, car dealers, their resettlement agency, the mall, a farmer’s market, and other local areas.
Results
From my research, I found that certain obstacles to integration exist within the Salt Lake Valley, largely as a result of the resettlement process, which include: 1) A deprivation of interaction with the dominant community, 2) A lack of financial resources to become autonomous, and 3) A failure in part of the local school system.
Discussion
The first obstacle to integration includes a deprivation of interaction with the dominant community. I found that both families quickly formed friendships with neighbors and made connections to greater (typically Iraqi) networks of refugees in their local areas. These refugee enclaves were beneficial in many ways. For example, Amira and Raheem both have Arabic friends that they’ve utilized for activities like learning to drive, borrowing money to buy a car, celebrating Ramadan, apartment and car repairs, latenight emergency room runs, etc. However, these enclaves create challenges to integration into the more dominant community. For example, Amira and Raheem rarely have opportunities to expand relationships (or get help) outside of their neighborhood and social/cultural networks.
The second obstacle to integration includes a lack of financial resources to become autonomous. The budgets of both families put them in a precarious situation. With limited funds, Raheem is expected to work during school. Fatima, formerly a homemaker, has left her comfort zone to work at a thrift store for additional income. Because both of her parents now work, Nawal attends after-school programs until one of them can meet her at the bus stop to walk her home. Ahmed cannot get a loan to attend school for accounting because their family needs an income to afford rent. Amira is frustrated as car insurance costs have risen, and she has twice been denied financing for a new phone. She worries she will not be able to afford Raheem’s college tuition. Both families would like to move to “better” neighborhoods, but cannot afford it.
The third obstacle to integration includes a failure in part of the local school system. Unable to afford to move to a higher-income school district, Nawal and Raheem’s only option for public schools consists of densely populated refugee and immigrant students who are similarly limited in resources. This drastically limits their ability to build networks with people who have connections to resources, jobs, local cultural knowledge, and cultural capital. In addition, they are both performing poorly in their studies and receive little to no help from teachers and school administrators. This lack in support from the local school system could poorly affect the future of both of these refugee children.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I found that these obstacles lead to a de facto practice of redlining refugees into low-income areas, thus making it very difficult for these families to become integrated into the larger community and prosper.
