Govinda Pyakurel
Background:
I was born on December 6th, 1997 in a Bhutanese Refugee Camp called Beldangi - II in Damak, Jhapa, Nepal. The school I went to wasn’t as good as the school where other Nepali citizen went. I was not the citizen of any country when i was born, neither Bhutanese nor Nepali. I always consider Nepal as my motherland and other refugee kids like me also consider Nepal as their motherland, but the Nepali citizen never accept us, they have been taking advantage of us instead of helping
In 1990, the government of Bhutan started to kick out the Nepali speaking people in Bhutan as a political threat and made plans to force Nepali people to get out of the Bhutan, Since the majority of these people were illiterate and weren’t familiar with official laws and ethics, Bhutan government started to loot lands of Nepalese people and burn their houses. This process continued for several weeks until all Nepalese people finally left the country. Bhutan government ruined lives of thousands of people just because they thought they might be danger but never saw the loyalty of those people.
After leaving Bhutan and everything my parents possess, they were shattered and hopeless. They somehow bring themselves together and struggled in hope of new lives. They later settled in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal and restarted their life as refugees. Since, my parents doesn’t belong to any country and are refugee, i was born as refugee and i was neither a Nepali nor Bhutanese. The fact that “I wasn’t a Bhutanese citizen” never affected me in any ways, but the fact that “i wasn’t a Nepali” affected me a lot.
Migration and settelment:
I came to the United States knowing little about this country with a dream of better education and ultimately a better future. In regards to why my family chose the US over other several countries offered by UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), I guess it was a partly bandwagon that America was the best country and many refugees that were being resettled were going to America. The other reason for choosing American was my relatives from the camp who came here in the early 2000's. We were offered for third country resettlement program, they were offering us that they will be responsible for settling us in America, and we would just have to pay the loan for the cost of transportation. One by one people started to leave the refugee camp and so did we; we did not wanted to miss the only opportunity to change our lives. I came to here with my father, mother and younger sister and brother. We only had a few pairs of clothes and $525, only $525 might look too less to others, but it took lots of Nepali currency to make just $525. We started a new life here with nothing, but travel loan in our heads.
Identity and race:
At first, I was not comfortable with even the attempts of people trying to talk to me. People from other race were the ones I avoided initially. In ESL class, I got connected to students who were immigrants from other countries. We had same fear and weakness so we got along. It was only in my second year in US that I actually talked those who weren’t immigrants or people who were born here without fear. I continued to avoid people who had different bringing up and culture because it was hard to relate or have a good long conversation. I still don’t really open myself up to people from different ethnic groups because I lack simple, day to day, facts and information that is natural for them to presume everyone knows. I was and still am most comfortable with people of my ethnic group or groups similar to that. When we, ethnic group similar to mine, communicate the presumption or the liberties we take are mostly justified. We share a common field of understanding or background information in most cases.