Of acculturative stress and integration distress: the resettlement challenges of Bhutanese refugees in Metro Atlanta

ABSTRACT

Bhutanese refugees represent one of the most recent waves of immigration to the United States. Resettled since 2008, the community finds itself marred by what Berry et al. (1987) termed ‘acculturative stress’, which has resulted in a high level of suicide and fractured communities. This paper contributes to the literature on resettlement through an analysis of the experiences of 32 Bhutanese refugees in Metro Atlanta. The data for this project come from two sets of interviews in 2015 and 2018. The Bhutanese participants exhibited a willingness to engage in the integration process, but this has come with a cost: systematic gaps in the help refugees has created a wave of ‘integration distress’ that has affected the entire Bhutanese community in Atlanta.

KEYWORDS:

• Bhutan
• Bhutanese
• refugees
• America
• Atlanta
• suicide
• integration
• resettlement

Acknowledgements

Previous versions of this article were presented at the 2018 Politics of Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity Consortium (PRIEC) at the University of Houston and the 2018 Critical Refugee Studies Conference at the University of California at Los Angeles. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewer, conference participants, and Khem Regmi, |.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Shyam Krishnan Sriram is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Charleston, Department of Political Science, 114 Wentworth Street, Charleston, SC 29401, USA.

ORCID

Shyam K. Sriram http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2164-3550

Notes

1. Approved by the Office of Research (Application for the Use of Human Subjects) at the University of California at Santa Barbara (Protocol Nos. 13-14-0829 and 45-17-1051).

2. Wyoming has no resettlement programme.

3. This number only includes the years 1981 to 2001, and 2004 to 2015.

4. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/state-programs-annual-overview.

5. Catholic Charities operates programmes in Alabama, Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, West Virginia, Maine, Mississippi, and Nevada; International Rescue Committee in Montana; Lutheran Social Services in North and South Dakota; U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Vermont; and Jewish Family Services in Delaware and Illinois.

6. These agreements arose out of the 1984 Wilson-Fish Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act. Under this agreement, participating states do not provide cash assistance to refugees through Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Refugees are given other forms of government support ‘in a manner that fosters self- sufficiency, reduces the likelihood of welfare dependency, and fosters greater coordination among resettlement agencies and service providers in a community’ (ORR 2015, 3).

7. Three were too young at the time and were not required to attend. Their elder siblings or parents often did.

8. It is important to note here that §400.77 of the federal code does allow for refugee cash assistance to be cut if a client terminates employment within 30 days of getting hired, and does not clarify about quality of life, quality of employment, potential hazards, or any other reason why the refugee may have left employment.

9. The interviews with policy implementers in Georgia [and California] are part of a paper, also being prepared for publication.

Additional information

Funding

The second set of interviews were made possible due to a 2018 Critical Refugee Studies Grant from the Critical Refugee Studies Collective (Funded by the University of California Office of the President Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives).