Two advocates are sharing refugee stories, including their own, and stressing the benefits immigrants can offer to their communities.
Hagir Elsheikh and Palina Louangketh visited central Illinois to speak about their experiences with the Peoria Area World Affairs Council. They spoke at Bradley University with a program titled, “Refugees, Immigrants and the Impact of Diverse Perspectives in Building Strong Communities.”
Elsheikh is an activist, entrepreneur and motivational speaker. She hosts her own talk show, wrote a memoir and advocates for autism awareness as the mother of a nonverbal child with autism.
She is also a survivor of torture and gender-based violence. She left Sudan as a refugee, where she was one of very few female spokespersons for the Sudanese Democratic Front, in opposition to the Al-Bashir regime.
“From the day I came to [the U.S.], I changed my career from electrical engineering to healthcare. I started with a [healthcare staffing company,]” she said. “But, more importantly, going and talking, speaking as a keynote speaker or motivational speaker to bring light into the journey of refugees, especially political refugees, to give people a chance to know that there is a world out there.”
While Elsheik’s refugee journey happened in 2001 as an adult, Louangketh’s family left the country of Laos when she was a child in the 1980s. Louangketh says her family fled a communist government through a cooperative organization of churches called the Christian Coalition that rehomed them in Idaho.
In 2018, Louangketh worked with stakeholders from around the state to found the Idaho Museum of International Diaspora, an organization based in Boise. She says the organization collects refugee stories through storytelling, food, film, photography and more.
“We’ve held public cooking classes. We’ve been part of the annual refugee celebration and people want more,” said Louangketh. “We’ve created documentaries that have been in six film festivals and are up for an award coming up this year. So it is exciting.”
Both women say they use their platforms to try and communicate the benefits refugees, migrants and asylum seekers offer their new communities.
“For example, looking at what Palina can bring to the community, not just rich stories, she can bring people together. She loves cooking, we all love to eat. You know, you’re going to try different food and different cultures,” said Elsheikh. “She helped people’s healing through art, science, storytelling, all of that. So she’s enriching the community.”
Louangketh says, in the way that no two people are alike, no two communities and cultures are alike either. She says her platform when she’s traveling is focused on storytelling and stories bring benefits for community building.
“We all have stories to share, and all of a sudden, we are not looking at our religious affiliation, our political affiliation, but we are one human to another human and we are connecting through those stories,” Louangketh said. “And if our stories help to heal others, to empower others and enrich others, imagine that voice being shared, being carried over from one individual to another to another throughout a community.”
Both women say it’s a difficult time for refugees in the U.S. Elsheikh says levels of anti-immigrant sentiment following the election and eventual re-election of President Donald Trump remind her of the mood towards immigrants following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which happened shortly after she found asylum in America.
“I came here and I was labeled and looked at as a threat and that is an issue, not just for me, but for many,” said Elsheikh. “September 11th was a change; it created a huge shift in the United States and the world in general, and we felt it. I felt it personally, especially the people who were wearing, say for example, Muslims who were wearing hijab. The struggle is still the same.”
Both women also say the key to overcoming these sentiments and benefitting from immigrants in communities starts with breaking down the stereotypes surrounding refugees.
“Now, with the current political climate, people look at refugees as criminals and, for the majority, people are fleeing from violence, just like myself,” said Elsheikh. “[People] look at refugees as someone who’s either coming to take your job, which is not true, or coming to live off the government. And when you hear those two things, as someone who’s listening, just think of those, they are two different things.”
Elsheikh argues both can’t be simultaneously true.
“We all come from different cultures and backgrounds,” she said. “Some of them could be violent, some could be lazy, just like anywhere else. But you can’t generalize.”
Louangketh says a part of the immigrant experience is having to navigate chaos and uncertainty.
“You have people who are coming in from a very distinct, very different culture, different language, different environment and it is foreign to them,” she said. “It’s coming into a different world. So surviving and navigating that chaos so that way, there is a sense of familiarity, a sense of normalcy, so that they can live and be part of the community that is now part of their new life.”
Elsheikh says bridging the gap between stereotypes and biases and fully embracing immigrants as beneficial parts of communities starts with frank conversations about the experience.
She says it doesn’t necessarily mean “being in somebody’s shoes,” having to survive the violence, uncertainty and pain that Elsheikh, Louangketh and countless other refugees experienced on their journey to asylum.
“I don’t want anyone to go through that, but as a human, you can relate to someone by having empathy, by being willing to learn and say ‘how can I help?’ Or just lending a listening ear,” she said.
