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About The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 2015)
OPINION Page 6 n THE ASIAN REPORTER January 19, 2015 Volume 25 Number 2 January 19, 2015 ISSN: 1094-9453 The Asian Reporter is published on the first and third Monday each month. Please send all correspondence to: The Asian Reporter 922 N Killingsworth Street, Portland, OR 97217 Phone: (503) 283-4440, Fax: (503) 283-4445 News Department e-mail: news@asianreporter.com Advertising Department e-mail: ads@asianreporter.com General e-mail: info@asianreporter.com Website: www.asianreporter.com Please send reader feedback, Asian-related press releases, and community interest ideas/stories to the addresses listed above. Please include a contact phone number. Advertising information available upon request. Publisher Jaime Lim Contributing Editors Ronault L.S. Catalani (Polo), Jeff Wenger Correspondents Ian Blazina, Josephine Bridges, Pamela Ellgen, Maileen Hamto, Edward J. Han, A.P. Kryza, Marie Lo, Simeon Mamaril, Julie Stegeman, Toni Tabora-Roberts, Allison Voigts Illustrator Jonathan Hill News Service Associated Press/Newsfinder Copyright 2015. Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication. Member Associated Press/Newsfinder Asian American Journalists Association Better Business Bureau Pacific Northwest Minority Publishers (PNMP) Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of Oregon MY TURN n Dmae Roberts Migrations of Bhutanese refugees Correspondence: The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and participation. 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Back issues of The Asian Reporter may be ordered by mail at the following rates: First copy: $1.50 Additional copies ordered at the same time: $1.00 each Send orders to: Asian Reporter Back Issues, 922 N. Killingsworth St., Portland, OR 97217-2220 The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and participation. If you have a comment on a story we have printed, or have an Asian-related personal or community focus idea, please contact us. Please include a contact name, address, and phone number on all correspondence. Thank you. often meet fascinating people through my work Bhutan, but Bhutanese-Nepali people were not as a freelance writer and artist. Through the welcome. Rizal spent 18 years in the Nepali refugee “Migrations” project — a series of radio stories camp. While there, he tried unsuccessfully to get his and essays about immigrant and refugee land back. communities — I have learned a lot about and met According to Rizal, the king said Bhutan is a many people involved in the Bhutanese community small country and he didn’t want a lot of Nepalese in just the past six months. there. He also explained that the king said he had a According to Chhabi Koirala, president of the lot of bullets, so he didn’t care if he had to kill them, Oregon Bhutanese Community so it was better if they just left. It’s ironic that with this history, Organization, there are about 2,500 Bhutan, a land-locked country on the Bhutanese refugees living in Oregon. One reason for this is that the king of eastern end of the Himalayas, is now Bhutan imposed the Citizenship Act touted as the “last Shangri-la” to of 1985, which enforced a single tourists. The country espouses the national culture. It required motto “gross national happiness” and Bhutanese who were culturally the king was actually on the 2014 Nepalese to change their clothing and best-dressed list in Vanity Fair. cultural traditions. The government Rizal thinks of America as a “dream also tightened its citizenship laws. As place” because of the hardship he a result, Bhutanese people of Moti Rizal. (Photo/Nisa’ Haron) experienced in Bhutan and in the I Nepalese ethnicity — many of whom had lived there for several generations — were declared illegal immigrants. Nearly one-sixth of the population, or about 100,000 people, were expelled and ended up in refugee camps in Nepal until 2008, when the U.S. and other countries accepted them. Many Bhutanese refugees, however, like 67-year- old poet Moti Rizal, who came to Portland in 2009, are left with a longing for their former homes while adjusting to American life. Rizal has written a collection of poetry about his former life as a farmer in Bhutan and how the Bhutanese government forcibly removed him and other Bhutanese from their homes. I met Rizal through the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO). With assistance from Suprina Koirala, his caseworker and interpreter, we talked about his life and his poetry. When he was in Bhutan, Rizal said he and his fellow villagers helped build roads and structures in the country. He said the king wasn’t thankful for that and in the 1980s, the king wanted them to change their culture, wear different clothes, and change their religion. It was difficult, Rizal said. The army forcibly evacuated his family, taking away all they had, and sent them to Nepal. They weren’t alone; many people lost their homes and property. Rizal said they didn’t even have time to say goodbye to extended family; they just left their property and were sent away. Rizal and his family left Bhutan in 1991 and ended up as refugees in Nepal. He felt poor and unwanted in Nepal and wanted to go back to refugee camp in Nepal. Though he could never go back to Bhutan, Rizal still misses his farm and farming. He speaks nostalgically about the crops he once grew: beans, vegetables, grains, “and all that good stuff,” he said. He still hears about people in his village who were expelled from Bhutan. Because he’s a U.S. citizen now, he doesn’t want to return. “Maybe our children will visit, but I’m here now and I’m not going back.” I asked Rizal to read one of his poems. He actually sang this one because that is the way poetry is recited in his culture. I’ll end this column with the translation of the poem: “Our Bhutan, Our Song” By Moti Rizal Translation by Suprina Koirala Because of the hardship I’m bearing till now, just thinking about the past makes me go crazy and that has turned into this poem. Our tears have now become an ocean because all of us have cried that much. All of us have left the country, crying and screaming for help. Even though we were in Nepal and couldn’t stay in Bhutan, our hearts were still left behind. Just like the waterfalls and the rivers in Bhutan, our tears never stopped leaving the country. And even though we were in camps, it didn’t stop till then. We were scared going back to Nepal. We had to migrate from one place to another. We had to walk through the jungle. Continued on page 13 Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.