Friday, November 2, 2012

RSS Text Size Print Share This Refugee numbers swell, and Tampa area is a hot spot

A year into his new life in the Tampa area, Reuben Hrang already has put 35,000 miles on his used Honda CR-V.
Hrang, 51, ministers to the region's small but growing population of refugees from Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. His congregants are scattered from St. Petersburg to Brandon to western Pasco County.
"No need for GPS," Hrang said in heavily accented English. "After six months, I know all of Tampa Bay."
Florida has the nation's largest refugee population, and Tampa is second in the state only to Miami as a refugee relocation site. Since 2007, the state has absorbed more than 137,000 foreign residents from Cuba, Somalia and 95 other countries, according to the Florida Department of Children & Families.
In Tampa, those refugees add to an international population fed by foreign students enrolled at the University of South Florida, foreign workers meeting demand for jobs in technical fields and even members of foreign militaries serving at MacDill Air Force Base.
Together, more than 15,000 people moved to Hillsborough County from other countries in 2011, according to statistics released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. The number also includes service members who are U.S. citizens returning from overseas deployment and American citizens moving to the mainland from Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and other overseas territories.
Also in 2011, Hillsborough County recorded nearly 200,000 foreign-born residents, up nearly 20 percent from the previous five years. Less than half of those immigrants were naturalized citizens. About two-thirds were from Latin America.
Since Vicente Martinez-Ybor founded Ybor City as a cigar-making center more than a century ago, Tampa has been a magnet for immigrants. Immigrants today are young, and they come from around the globe, but that historic trend shows no signs of abating.
What gives it a modern twist, though, is the growing proportion of white retirees in the overall population. Against these shifts, one question is whether diverse cultures will thrive independent of one another, clash or find ways to blend at the edges.
"We're at this unique period in history where we have all these baby boomers that are retiring and all the high levels of immigration that we've had for decades have increased diversity among young families," said Mark Mather, a demographer with the Washington, D.C.-based Population Reference Bureau.
"Florida's kind of a test case as to whether or not these groups can actually make it work."
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Hrang lives at the cutting edge of that change.
He arrived with his wife and five children last year in Town 'N' Country after spending four years in refugee camps in Malaysia. He joined a growing population of people fleeing religious and ethnic persecution in their home country.
Many have found a spiritual home at the First Baptist Church of Temple Terrace, where Hrang is a part-time minister. During the week, the church also offers English lessons to a mix of students from around the world.
"Our goal is to do what we can to make life better for the people that come here," said Pastor Joe Germain, who emigrated from the Caribbean island of Dominica in 1990.
Aside from its regular English-language services, the church also has services in Chinese for students from USF. Hrang leads services in Burmese for 150 parishioners, representing the kaleidoscope of ethnic groups fleeing Myanmar.
On Sunday nights, Hrang serves a second congregation, this one composed of about 100 members of his own Chin ethnic group. That group meets wherever it can find space in Town 'N' Country. Hrang dreams of finding a piece of property the group can call its own.
Christianity came to Burma in the 1880s when the country was part of the British Empire.
Hrang grew up a Baptist. His parents gave their children biblical names rather than traditional Burmese ones to reflect their faith, he said.
After working as a minister in Myanmar for 17 years, Hrang fled with his family in 2007 when the military junta ruling the country began pressing the country's tribes to conform to the language and religion of the majority Burmese group, Hrang said.
Four years later, the family landed in Hillsborough County, where Clearwater-based Gulf Coast Jewish and Community Services helped them settle in.
"Refugees are incredibly resilient," said Ann Marie Winter, the nonprofit center's program director. "Their focus is on getting their kids in school and building credit and getting a car."
 
 
Hrang has done all those things in the past year. He also has obtained a green card, allowing him to work in the United States. It was one of nearly 9,000 green cards issued every year in the Tampa area. In five years, he and his wife can join the 7,000 or so Tampa-area residents who become naturalized citizens each year.
In the meantime, Hrang travels hundreds of miles a month across Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties, ministering to his fellow immigrants from Myanmar.
"I'm translator and driver and pastor and chaplain," Hrang said. The police call him to interpret when necessary. Once he helped translate during the birth of a baby.
As political repression recedes in Myanmar, Hrang faces a dilemma that he shares with many refugees: Return to his old homeland or embrace his new one.
"It depends on God," Hrang said.
Hrang's sisters still live in Myanmar, but the rest of his family — including his brother David — lives here. He and his wife Mary, a Publix sushi chef, have green cards. His children, like so many young immigrants, have increasingly Americanized.
Then there are his congregants.
"I'm the only Myanmar pastor in Tampa," Hrang said. "I prefer to stay here and go back to Burma on a mission."

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