During my long career (approaching 39 years at the Deseret News and 43 years overall in the news business), some of the most inspiring interviews I have conducted have been with refugees.
The ones I have met have an unusual grit and determination, and a love of freedom unique to those who have struggled against oppression.
The ones I have met have an unusual grit and determination, and a love of freedom unique to those who have struggled against oppression.
It started in the late 1980s when I met Luc Pham, who had worked as a South Vietnamese intelligence officer during the long American conflict there. When the U.S. pulled out of his country, he was arrested by the communists. After three years in prison, he made a harrowing escape through the jungle and across the water in a leaky boat.
When I met him, he taught English to foreign students in Salt Lake City. Like many foreigners, he felt the occasional sting of discrimination or resentment from native-born Americans. People derisively called him and others like him “boat people.”
“They don’t realize that if there was a war tomorrow I would fight with them on their side,” he told me. “... I am an American.”
Yanh Phommahaxay endured a leaky boat to freedom, as well. “When he was in Laos, he thought America was a dream nation; everything would come easily,” his interpreter told me. “When he got here, he realized he could get all those dreams, but he must work hard. Everyone here is working so hard.”
When we spoke in 1989, he had lived in Utah for one year, was working on an assembly line for a medical company and was studying hard to learn English.
A few years later, my wife and I would frequent a Chinese restaurant and insist on a certain server we knew was a refugee from Cambodia. We would stay late while he told us stories about escaping through the jungle and sailing on a boat so overcrowded he would sit on the edge, watching the water come within inches of spilling over the side.
Eumbo Kasongo taught me lessons about gratitude and the ability to overcome incredible obstacles. A native of the Congo, he was kidnapped by rebel soldiers at the age of 9, drugged to deaden his emotions, given a gun and sent into battle. He had watched soldiers kill his father and one of his brothers.
After five years, he escaped and wandered aimlessly until Zambian authorities found him and sent him to a refugee camp. Years later, he was resettled to Utah. He was 19 and had never been to school a day of his life.
They showed him films of life here — houses, cards, computers, smartphones — but he had no idea what he was seeing. He had known nothing but cruelty for most of his life.
When I met him in 2017, he was a surgical technician at St. Mark’s Hospital, having overcome incredible obstacles. His biggest pet peeve was to hear Americans who obviously didn’t appreciate what they had.
“You should be thankful that this country is blessed, and you are blessed because you were brought up in a good country,” he told me.
I could go on. There were the Sudanese refugees a neighbor of mine was helping through a relief agency. They huddled together on a 70-degree day, complaining of the “cold weather” and trying so hard to learn a new culture and language.
Then there was Azim Kakaie, who came here from Afghanistan after his life was saved by Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, a Utah hero and one of 13 American service members killed by a suicide bomber at the entrance to the airport in Kabul during the chaotic evacuation of U.S. soldiers in 2021.
Kakaie’s wife and her family had been beaten back while trying to enter the airport to escape. Staff Sgt. Hoover saw her. But unlike everyone else, he listened and spoke to her in a friendly voice. He checked her passport and visa, parted the crowd and helped them to safety in the airport.
Minutes later, he was dead.
I don’t know what has happened to all of these people in the years since we spoke, but I fear what may happen soon. News reports say many refugees, including those who escaped the Taliban in Afghanistan and came to this country legally, are receiving notices telling them to self-deport within a week or face forced deportation and legal action.
The notices apparently are sloppy and poorly researched. According to NBC News, Lisa Anderson, a doctor in Connecticut who was born in the United States, received the same notice. So did Boston immigration attorney Nicole Micheroni, also a U.S. citizen.
I understand the worries about criminals infiltrating the country as refugees. But I don’t understand hurried deportations that don’t allow people due process and the ability to argue their innocence.
The refugees I have known tend to cling to American values like a shelter in the storm. Theirs is the story of America, renewed again and again by the world’s huddled masses.
We need more of them. And if we kick them out, we diminish ourselves and the promises that brought them here.
When I met him, he taught English to foreign students in Salt Lake City. Like many foreigners, he felt the occasional sting of discrimination or resentment from native-born Americans. People derisively called him and others like him “boat people.”
“They don’t realize that if there was a war tomorrow I would fight with them on their side,” he told me. “... I am an American.”
Yanh Phommahaxay endured a leaky boat to freedom, as well. “When he was in Laos, he thought America was a dream nation; everything would come easily,” his interpreter told me. “When he got here, he realized he could get all those dreams, but he must work hard. Everyone here is working so hard.”
When we spoke in 1989, he had lived in Utah for one year, was working on an assembly line for a medical company and was studying hard to learn English.
A few years later, my wife and I would frequent a Chinese restaurant and insist on a certain server we knew was a refugee from Cambodia. We would stay late while he told us stories about escaping through the jungle and sailing on a boat so overcrowded he would sit on the edge, watching the water come within inches of spilling over the side.
Eumbo Kasongo taught me lessons about gratitude and the ability to overcome incredible obstacles. A native of the Congo, he was kidnapped by rebel soldiers at the age of 9, drugged to deaden his emotions, given a gun and sent into battle. He had watched soldiers kill his father and one of his brothers.
After five years, he escaped and wandered aimlessly until Zambian authorities found him and sent him to a refugee camp. Years later, he was resettled to Utah. He was 19 and had never been to school a day of his life.
They showed him films of life here — houses, cards, computers, smartphones — but he had no idea what he was seeing. He had known nothing but cruelty for most of his life.
When I met him in 2017, he was a surgical technician at St. Mark’s Hospital, having overcome incredible obstacles. His biggest pet peeve was to hear Americans who obviously didn’t appreciate what they had.
“You should be thankful that this country is blessed, and you are blessed because you were brought up in a good country,” he told me.
I could go on. There were the Sudanese refugees a neighbor of mine was helping through a relief agency. They huddled together on a 70-degree day, complaining of the “cold weather” and trying so hard to learn a new culture and language.
Then there was Azim Kakaie, who came here from Afghanistan after his life was saved by Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, a Utah hero and one of 13 American service members killed by a suicide bomber at the entrance to the airport in Kabul during the chaotic evacuation of U.S. soldiers in 2021.
Kakaie’s wife and her family had been beaten back while trying to enter the airport to escape. Staff Sgt. Hoover saw her. But unlike everyone else, he listened and spoke to her in a friendly voice. He checked her passport and visa, parted the crowd and helped them to safety in the airport.
Minutes later, he was dead.
I don’t know what has happened to all of these people in the years since we spoke, but I fear what may happen soon. News reports say many refugees, including those who escaped the Taliban in Afghanistan and came to this country legally, are receiving notices telling them to self-deport within a week or face forced deportation and legal action.
The notices apparently are sloppy and poorly researched. According to NBC News, Lisa Anderson, a doctor in Connecticut who was born in the United States, received the same notice. So did Boston immigration attorney Nicole Micheroni, also a U.S. citizen.
I understand the worries about criminals infiltrating the country as refugees. But I don’t understand hurried deportations that don’t allow people due process and the ability to argue their innocence.
The refugees I have known tend to cling to American values like a shelter in the storm. Theirs is the story of America, renewed again and again by the world’s huddled masses.
We need more of them. And if we kick them out, we diminish ourselves and the promises that brought them here.
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