|
|
|
February 25, 2003
  Articles on this page: • Diversity is on the rise in Berkshire County • From Liberia to Ghana to Pittsfield
Diversity is on the rise in Berkshire County The last U.S. Census pegged the population of Berkshire County at 134,953, of which 4,946 were foreign-born. Local organizations that work with immigrants believe the official numbers are low and estimate that there are at least 10,000 to 15,000 immigrants in the county. But whether there are 1,038 county residents who came to America between 1995 and 2000, as the census recorded, or 10 times as many, what no one disputes is that the number of people moving here from places like Honduras, Russia, Ghana and India is on the rise. Until recently, there was very little in the way of organized assistance for these newcomers but during the last decade activists and local governments have begun to reach out to the various, increasingly diverse, groups. The Pittsfield office of Congressman John Olver has two caseworkers who handle social services, and "over the past four or five years, of all the different sorts of issues they handle, immigration has come to the top of the list," said Olver spokeswoman Nicole Letourneau. The caseworkers can help with immigration forms, monitor residency or citizenship status, and work with U.S. embassies abroad to assist family members. But for many immigrants, the notion of seeking help from government officials is a foreign concept. "Mostly immigrants have their own underground where they get information from each other," said Marilyn Fontana, who heads the English as a second language programs for Pittsfield public schools. "They're not as likely to access social services." Mary Leon, an emergency medical technician who moved to Pittsfield from Colombia six years ago, agrees: "That's even part of our culture. We’re extremely family-oriented. In Central and South America, we don’t have the system of support there is here. There are no welfare programs. We tend to seek help within our own network." These networks grow organically, as people move here and reunite with family or make new friends. "When you see someone from Africa, you know it," said Prospere Kodjo, who moved to Pittsfield from the Ivory Coast eight years ago because his brother was attending school in Albany. "When you see someone with an African name, you'll try to approach him or her. Africans are friendly." Kodjo said he and his African friends get together for parties and funerals, and some meet every Sunday afternoon for a prayer group. Religion is, in fact, a bond that brings many immigrants together. Pastors at St. George Episcopal Church in Lee and St. Joseph's Church in Pittsfield have recognized the need in their congregations to hold weekly services in Spanish. At St. Joseph’s, Mary Leon has emerged as a community leader, helping run Spanish language communion and confirmation classes and a weekly bulletin, as well as organizing a food pantry and Christmas gift drive for immigrant families. The Latino community, perhaps because of the strength of its numbers, has at least two formal organizations dedicated to advancing its needs and profile in the county. The Berkshire Latin American Council is based in Pittsfield. Manos Unidas is a community empowerment group headed by Diego and Anaelisa Banegas-Farrara, a husband and wife team in Lee. Manos Unidas is working to establish a center with a bilingual resource room and participatory education and arts programs. The rural landscape of the Berkshires contributes to the isolation immigrants feel coming here where, Anaelisa said, "there isn't an established network in place. Everything is piecemeal." Gonzalo Bermudez, a Great Barrington resident who studies immigration, said, "In larger cities, immigrants get clustered into their own communities because they have their own TV stations and newspapers." But in the Berkshires, central resources are necessary because, as Abby Pratt of the Great Barrington-based New World Fund said, there are "not enough immigrants from any one country. We tend to put all immigrants in the same box, but they aren't, hardly." The New World Fund provides small grants to immigrants to ease the financial burden of moving and settling in to the county, for things like resettling family members here, winter clothes and educational fees. But immigrants looking for a single resource for help with green card applications, ESL classes, community advocacy, and daycare, job and housing referrals turn to the New American Citizenship Coalition, in Pittsfield. The coalition helps between 400 and 500 clients per year, about 80 of which come in solely for help applying for U.S. citizenship, according to director Hilary Greene. The group will sponsor Immigrants Day on March 4, to provide information and bring communities together. Brooke Mead, the coalition's outreach coordinator, said social services agencies have begun to address the county’s changing demographics. In Pittsfield, for example, Berkshire Medical Center, Elder Services of Berkshire County and The Kids’ Place have hired Spanish-speaking staff members and the Adult Learning Center and Berkshire Works teach English classes. Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington has a clinic dedicated to assisting immigrants and people of limited means. Still, activists are working to increase both assistance programs like these, and area-wide awareness of the relatively silent immigrant populations. "People tend to think of the Berkshires as being a very homogenous community," Greene said. "But really the diversity is on the rise."  RETURN TO TOPFrom Liberia to Ghana to Pittsfield The five-bedroom apartment on Wahconah Street where Paul White lives with three of his children and one nephew is, literally, a world away from the refugee camp in western Ghana that was his home for a decade. White moved to Pittsfield on Sept. 1, 2003. Like many who settle in the Berkshires, he was drawn by the promise of affordable housing and a safe place to raise his small children. But probably unique among his neighbors, White is a refugee from Liberia and he landed here after a 13-year journey that was wrought with besieging war and precarious peace, forced separations and bittersweet reunions. Civil war engulfed Liberia in 1989. First, rival factions allied to overthrow the dictator Samuel Doe, then, once he was dead, they began fighting amongst themselves for political power and monetary gain. Troops loyal to both the new government, led by recently ousted President Charles Taylor, and two main insurgency groups coerced civilians to join their ranks by offering death as the only alternative. "If you're not in the army, if you’re not fighting for the government, the rebels would give you a gun and force you to go fight," recalled White, who taught at a day-care center at the time. "It was terrible for me. They wanted me to join. But I didn’t want to be a rebel." Had the Whites stayed in Liberia, their sons -- Eric, Onesimua, Jethro and Papi -- would have quickly become targets as well. "There were a lot of kids fighting," White said. "Nine-year-olds were holding guns and harassing people." In fact, pictures of boys with assault rifles would become some of the most enduring images of the Liberian civil war, in which Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 15,000 children aged 9 to 15 were forced to pick a side and fight. Veterans of both genders, some now barely out of their teens, have recounted being given drugs to calm their fears and amulets and body paint to protect them in battle. Fearing his family would be killed by soldiers, rebels or looters, White decided to leave the country in 1990. He and his wife, Josephine, and their four young sons abandoned their home in Maryland County, in southwest Liberia. They walked two hours west and then took a canoe across the Cavalla River into the Ivory Coast, where they boarded a westbound bus to Ghana. They finally ended up in a United Nations-run refugee camp called Buduburam on Ghana's southern seaboard. In one sense, they were lucky to be among what the U.N. estimates were more than 300,000 citizens forced to leave Liberia between 1989 and 1997. Human rights groups believe that tens of thousands of Liberians were killed during the war. Still, life in the refugee camp was not easy; the only thing they were guaranteed was safety from the fighting back home. "It is very hard. It is a tough life," he said of the camp. "You have to buy water. You have to buy everything. And everything is expensive." The Whites lived in a house they rented from native Ghanaians. Paul became a day-laborer, doing construction work after receiving training organized by the camp. The family depended on money sent by Paul's sister, who had emigrated to America in 1970. Over the 10 years they lived in Ghana, Paul and Josephine’s family grew. A son, David, and two daughters, Marzina and Edwina, were born in the camp. Then, in 2000, White was granted refugee status in the U.S. He and the six oldest children arrived in Boston on June 21, 2000. They were among 17,561 Africans admitted to America as refugees that year, according to the State Department. They moved in with his mother, Rachel, who had left Buduburam for Massachusetts in 1998. But coming to America was a mixed blessing. White had to leave Josephine and their youngest daughter, Edwina, behind. "My wife is still in Africa," White said. "It was not possible for her to come here because it was my mother who applied for me to come." Worse, after arriving Boston, White lost touch with Josephine. "For two years, I had no contact with her, I couldn't find her. I thought she was dead," he said. "There were no family members around to give me information. Friends from the camp told me she was dead." White worked as a security guard, enrolled his children in school, and continued looking for his wife from afar. "I didn't believe she was gone," he said. "I kept asking people." Finally, the pastor at the Assembly of God church, where the Whites had worshipped in Buduburam, located Josephine and gave White a phone number where he could reach her. She had been terribly ill, and had left the camp for a hospital in the interior of Ghana. Even as Josephine's health improved in Ghana, White was faced with another obstacle on this side of the Atlantic: his mother’s Dorchester home was too cramped with so many of her children and grandchildren living there. Though Eric, now 18, had moved to New Jersey, Jethro, 13, to Minnesota, and Onesimua, 16, to Roxbury, each to live with an aunt, White could not afford to rent a place big enough for him and his remaining three children. Last March, White and his children Papi, David and Marzina moved into a homeless shelter. The family of four was allotted two rooms. The kids stayed in school, White continued working, and they all tirelessly searched for a new place to live. White said his social services caseworker in Boston helped him apply for subsidized housing all over the state. When the Pittsfield Housing Authority responded last summer that there was an available, and suitable, home here, White first came west to look at the apartment and find a job and then moved his family in as soon as he could. He had no qualms about leaving Boston, but the change of pace took a little adjustment. "It was so quiet," White said. "Now, I'm getting used to the place." White works as an assembler at Protech, in Pittsfield, making military armor. He usually goes in at 3 p.m. in the afternoon and gets home by 10 or 11 at night. A neighbor helps out with the children at night, but White's schedule enables him to see the kids off to school in the morning and greet them when they get home. Five-year-old Marzina is in kindergarten and seven-year-old David is in second grade at Conte Elementary School. Papi, 15, is an eighth grader at Reid Middle School. His cousin, Randolph, is 13 and in seventh grade at Reid. Randolph's mother is still in Liberia. He came to America with his father, White’s brother, who now lives in Rhode Island. "He was facing the same problem finding an apartment," White said, "so I said I would take Randolph so he could have his own bedroom." "It's actually quite difficult for only one parent taking care of all those kids," White said. "There were so many people around before. I’m trying to establish friendships." The connections of friends and relatives are important to the survival of this family, splintered by war and circumstance. Josephine remains in limbo, waiting at the refugee camp in Ghana. She survives on money White sends her, which she retrieves by taking a 30-minute bus ride to the Western Union office in capital city of Accra. White filed for his Green Card in 2002, but isn't sure how soon his application will be approved. He is waiting to receive permanent legal residency before applying to bring his wife here. Still, White remains hopeful that Josephine some day will join him in his new hometown. "We were very happy to come," he said of moving his children to Pittsfield. "I was lucky to get a place here." What of his native Liberia? Will he ever return to the home he fled in the country founded by former slaves who had fled America? "I'm not sure," he said, and paused. "If I go, it would maybe be just for a visit." RETURN TO TOP |
) ) ) |
|
|
