Eastern Europeans Are New Refugees

Before the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ahmet Hadzimujagic and his wife, Aida, led a charmed existence.

He was a successful architect. She was a doctor. They owned a bed and breakfast in Srebrenica, then a popular resort town famous for its mineral springs.

But today, the Hadzimujagics (pronounced Ha-jee-moo-jah-jick) and their two young daughters, Selma and Jasmine, are penniless refugees living in this small city thousands of miles from home--their sole means of survival a $730 welfare check and $191 worth of food stamps. They arrived in Orange County two months ago from a refugee camp in Split, Croatia. “Step by step, we are getting used to life here,” said Aida Hadzimujagic, 36, during an interview at the county welfare office in Anaheim. “But the biggest problem is money. What we get from welfare is not enough.”

The Hadzimujagics are among a small but growing number of Eastern Europeans in Southern California who came to the United States as political refugees and now depend entirely on public assistance.

In January, 1989, there were just 289 cases of former Eastern Europeans and Soviet citizens on a variety of welfare programs in Orange County. In January, 1994, there were 738 cases. In many instances, each case represents three people, and sometimes more.

According to social services officials, the increasing visibility of Eastern Europeans and citizens of the former Soviet Union on local welfare rolls--there were virtually none 10 years ago--is one barometer of a shift in U.S. immigration policy. With the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, immigration slots that once were automatically reserved for Southeast Asians are now gradually being redistributed among Eastern Europeans.

One result of the new immigration quotas has been an unprecedented flow of Russians, Romanians, Armenians, Poles and others into county welfare offices, according to social services officials.

Although Eastern Europeans still make up just 1% of the 40,000 Orange County families receiving Aid to Families With Dependent Children payments, social services officials say they are monitoring the numbers closely in an effort to prepare for the possible impact on future caseloads.

“In the coming years, we’re going to be seeing different groups than what we’ve been seeing over the past 15 years,” said Angelo Doti, director of financial assistance for the Orange County Social Services Agency. “We’re trying to plan ahead and think about things like our language capability and staff recruitment.”

Social worker Darek Gartska, a Polish native who was himself a refugee four years ago, has been called upon numerous times to act as an interpreter in Russian, Polish and Czech. Gartska’s Eastern European clients run the gamut: Ukrainians, Armenians, Lithuanians, Bosnians and Russians, among others.

Like Ahmet Hadzimujagic, some of Gartska’s clients are highly skilled professionals. But because they can communicate only in their native languages, he said, their chances of finding work here are virtually nil.

Those with children can collect AFDC until their children turn 18. Single people and couples without children are eligible for the federal government’s Refugee Cash Assistance program, which contributes a small amount toward their living costs for a maximum of eight months. Refugees are also eligible for MediCal.

They include people like Oleg Pinkevich, a 21-year-old from the former Soviet Union, who says he left his native country last September to avoid serving in the army.

“I was afraid because they can send you to strange places far away from home like Afghanistan,” Pinkevich said through a Russian interpreter. He also said he feared that he would be mistreated in the army because he is a Baptist.

Pinkevich said he left his mother, father, brother and sister behind five months ago to come to live with an uncle in Brea. He attends a technical school and, because he is unemployed, receives $299 a month from the Refugee Cash Assistance program plus $102 in food stamps.

According to immigration officials, more than half of the 120,000 people admitted to the United States as political refugees this year will come from Eastern European countries--mainly the nations of the former Soviet Union.

About 10,000 will gravitate to California, most because they already have family, friends and business contacts here. Although most will settle in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Francisco will also be popular destinations, said Bruce Kennedy, chief of the state Department of Social Services’ refugee and immigration bureau.

“The largest percentage--primarily Soviet Jews--will go to New York. But the second largest number will come to California,” Kennedy said. “They tend to go where the previous settlement patterns have been.”

Many times, however, the relatives who promised to help them get on their feet renege when they actually arrive. Many, Gartska says, are left in the lurch.

“It’s very common where the relative says, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” Gartska said. “When people come over, it’s not an easy job. They have transportation problems, they need to find schools. A lot of the times they can’t speak English.”

Other refugees end up in Orange County because several international sponsorship agencies have branches here. The agencies process the necessary immigration forms but often do little to help the new refugees find work once they get here.

“Some volunteer agencies abhor anyone coming here to be a public charge whereas others almost encourage it,” Doti said. “Plus, a lot of the people from communist countries view government differently. They view public assistance as a right.”

But some are ashamed to be on public assistance.

“I want to work,” said Alma Ibrahimovic, a 35-year-old urban planner from Sarajevo who now lives in Yorba Linda with a Muslim family that sponsors her. “I have applied for 18 positions, but unfortunately, almost every day, I receive a letter that says I’m not accepted.”