Former refugees eager to build life, raise family

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

After 5 years apart, couple from Myanmar reunites in Milwaukee

Lian Mung Naulak hugs his wife, Zam Lian Sang, at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee on Thursday, after not seeing her since 2008.

The last time Lian Mung Naulak held his wife in his arms, it was to say goodbye. The couple had been married just five months when he was forced to flee their village in western Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, for a refugee camp in Malaysia.

This time, after five years apart, they held one another to say hello.

Naulak clutched his wife in a tearful embrace during an emotional reunion at Mitchell International Airport on Thursday, and she buried her face in his arms.

"I'm very excited. I cannot sleep for two days," Naulak said at his modest south-side apartment the evening before her arrival. "Last night, I'm crying," he said, wiping his tears with the hem of his T-shirt.

Naulak's success in Milwaukee and the couple's reunion have been an uplifting experience for staff and volunteers at Lutheran Social Services' refugee resettlement office.

"He really illustrates what refugee resettlement is all about," said Mary Flynn, who directs the resettlement team. "That if you give someone a chance, they'll work hard and give back."

Naulak, 42, and 30-year-old Zam Lian Sang are Chin Burmese, among the most persecuted minorities in Myanmar, according to Human Rights Watch. Abuses of the primarily Christian Chin by the Burmese army and government include forced labor, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, religious repression and other restrictions on fundamental freedoms, it said.

Zam Lian Sang's journey to Milwaukee began, much like her husband's, with a dangerous trek into a neighboring land.

Naulak had fled to a refugee camp in Malaysia in January of 2008, he said, after government forces beat him and threatened to imprison him for refusing to tell them the whereabouts of his younger sister, who had escaped from a detention camp.

Sang stayed for awhile, living with family on the meager sums Naulak could send from his job selling mattresses in Malaysia. But she fled in 2011 to India at the urging of her husband.

Naulak had arrived in snow-covered Milwaukee five months earlier and had been laying the groundwork for her to join him from the beginning.

"After I arrived, the next day, I went to Mary's office and said, 'I need your help. I need to call my wife,' " said Naulak

Naulak found work at a hotel, settled into a small apartment and began tracking down the documents - a birth certificate, marriage license, a recent photograph and more - needed to secure a visa.

On one of their visits to the filing agency, Flynn said she asked Naulak what he liked best about Milwaukee.

"He said not being beaten on his way to work. We take so much for granted," said Flynn, "until you hear something like that."

Naulak and Sang began their new life in Wisconsin on Thursday.

Their relationship these five years has subsisted of sporadic phone calls, and photographs exchanged via email. In the weeks leading up to Sang's arrival, they've dared to dream of something more.

They talked of "walking together peacefully," something so simple, yet impossible in their former life. And already, they hope for two children, a boy and a girl, perhaps, who will be raised with access to education and the opportunities they never had.

"My wife says, if our first child is a girl, she will be a doctor," said Naulak, laughing."If it is a boy, I say he will be a lawyer."

"In Myanmar, we do not have the rule of law," said Naulak. "I would want my son to study law."