Refugees Celebrate New Life in U.S.

Their tales were as varied as their origins: a Somali woman trapped by war, the son of a former South Vietnamese army officer branded for life by the Communists, and an Iranian couple persecuted under religious laws.

They all escaped, and today they are members of a vibrant Orange County refugee community that gathered Friday at the annual Orange County Refugee Day, sponsored by the Refugee Forum of Orange County.

The event, which attracted nearly 200 people to the Garden Grove Community Center, celebrated the accomplishments of those who prevailed despite incredible odds.

Four years ago, the Iranian government condemned Katayoon Sinbari to four months in prison and 35 lashes; her husband received 65 lashes. Their crime was throwing a graduation party for Sinbari where popular music blared and women failed to don the requisite hijab to cover their heads.

Both are considered violations of rules imposed by the country’s conservative Islamic rulers.

“It was just a family gathering,” Sinbari said while Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music White Boy” played from the center’s speakers.

“They accused me,” she said, “of helping the American cultural invasion.”

Sinbari, 32, and her husband, Babak, 26, posted bail and fled to Syria, leaving their families and a comfortable life that included a two-bedroom apartment and a weekend villa. They arrived in Anaheim in 1999: “We had to start from zero.”

Like the Sinbaris, Hien Nguyen also started from scratch. The Garden Grove resident fled his native Vietnam by boat in 1989. He languished in a refugee camp in Malaysia for seven years before being forced back to Vietnam when the camp closed.

Because his father had been an officer in the South Vietnamese army, Nguyen and his family were considered outcasts by the Communist establishment, he said.

“You can’t get an education. You can’t get a job.”

Nguyen, 35, moved to Orange County in 1998 after he was sponsored by a refugee organization.

“At least here we have a fair opportunity to develop our futures,” he said.

Nguyen works full time ferrying fellow refugees to jobs and services for St. Anselm’s Cross-Cultural Community Center in Garden Grove. He also attends night school and hopes to get a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

Offering support services such as job placement and English classes for the exiles is critical to their success, said Dolores Mejia, a refugee coordinator for the county’s Social Services Agency.

Although the numbers have decreased because of stricter Immigration and Naturalization Service guidelines, the county still receives about 400 refugees every year. About 600,000 refugees live in the county.

The nationalities and ethnicities of the latest arrivals are posing new challenges, Mejia said. For two decades, Vietnamese refugees and immigrants have set up a thriving community in Westminster’s Little Saigon and neighboring cities that offer services for their members. Natives of other countries cannot count on such a vast network.

“We get a lot more people now from Africa and the former Soviet Union,” she said. “One of the things we are trying to do is help create more community-based organizations that can help with their settlement.”

The diversity of the local refugee community was evident at Friday’s gathering, which included native dances and songs. A showcase of native costumes included colorful examples from Bosnia, Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan, Singapore, Russia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Kenya.

For Kadija Qaal, a young woman wearing a Somali shawl in earthy tones, life in the United States is bittersweet, she said. The 27-year-old fashion student at Brooks College in Long Beach said she left the African country because of the war.

“It was all about fear, not knowing what’s going to happen the next day,” she said. Still, “it is hard to leave your family and make a new life.”

For the Sinbaris, leaving loved ones behind also weighs heavily on them. They worry about retaliation against their families and insisted that they do not intend to make any political statements.

Their attentions now are focused on a new house they bought recently in Garden Grove and their son, Sina, who was born in June.