Seeking a better life for children

This story tells the hardship and struggles refugee families go through to move to the U.S. Even though the adults are not happy, they sacrifice to make a better life for their children. DP

Bhutanese family works to see daughter succeed

By Melanie Asmar, Special to the Rocky

Som Baral had a good job as a math teacher in Nepal and ran a small grocery store on the side. The money was enough that his family could afford to rent an apartment outside the camp that held Bhutanese refugees.

People like Baral.

But Baral knew the future was uncertain, especially for his 8-year-old daughter, Sabina. So, earlier this year, he took the life-altering step of applying for resettlement in the United States.

Baral and his family arrived in Denver in mid-August. The transition, he says, has not been easy.

"The beginning is difficult, very hard for us," said Baral, 30, in near-perfect English from his living room couch. "But what we thought is our children will adapt in America and . . . maybe after five or 10 years, we can do something, maybe buy an apartment or have a citizenship, and maybe we can go back to our position."

Baral is part of a recent wave of refugees from Bhutan, a tiny Asian country wedged between China and India. His family fled Bhutan in 1991, as did thousands of other ethnic Nepalese living there.

The reason, the refugees say, was attempted ethnic cleansing, governmental strong-arm tactics that forced them to leave the Bhutanese land they'd worked for more than a century.

Baral was 12 when his family - suspected of aiding in a rebellion against the government - fled their farm in the middle of the night to escape the army.

His family ended up in a camp in Nepal, where poor living conditions and cold claimed the elderly and malnutrition claimed the young. But Baral survived. He got good grades in school and eventually went to college and worked outside the camp.

Outwardly, he lived a peaceful life. But inside, he was stuck between countries - effectively a citizen of nowhere.
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