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Nashville: World refugee day celebration
lauds courage
27.6.2005
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Event features
food, entertainment
Moving to a totally different place is usually hard
for immigrants to grasp.
Some are fortunate to leave their native countries
with their families and move to the United States,
while others aren't so lucky.
The Nashville New American Coalition wanted to
welcome those who are here and provide as much of a
familiar atmosphere as possible.
Several hundred immigrants gathered yesterday at
Cane Ridge Park in Antioch for the group's third
annual celebration of World Refugee Day. People of
all ages enjoyed ethnic foods from Somalia and
Kurdistan in Iraq and musical entertainment. High
school and college graduates were recognized as part
of the ceremony.
The event allows others to view what refugees go
through and how they sometimes travel through war
zones just to cross borders toward a better life,
said Tahir Hussain, director of the Nashville
Kurdish Forum and coordinator of the Nashville New
American Coalition.
"It's important to celebrate the courage they have,"
he said.
In 2001, the United Nations marked June 20 as the
official date of World Refugee Day that is
celebrated in Africa, the continent that has the
greatest number of refugees. Most countries choose
different dates to celebrate.
Nashville was one of three cities chosen by the U.S.
Office of Refugee Resettlement to take part in this
national celebration. The other cities were
Portland, Ore., and Lowell, Mass., Hussain
said.
Learning English as soon as they come to the United
States is sometimes difficult for some immigrants,
but Sarah Nichols, a teacher for the Refugee English
Program, wanted to fix that.
The program has existed about 20 years, and Nichols,
whose office is at Cohn Adult Learning Center, has
been the coordinator for 11 years.
"This program is to provide an opportunity for
refugees to become as fluent as possible in English
in order to get better jobs to take care of their
families," Nichols said. "Some people have the
perception that refugee kids drop out of high
school, but several hundred students were here today
to be recognized (as) graduates."
One of Nichols' former students was Jaza Hassan, a
Kurd.
He moved to Nashville 12 years ago when he wanted to
escape the dangers of an uprising that was taking
place in Iraq. He said he was a young man looking
for a better life and education and wanted to cross
borders over to Turkey.
Smugglers helped him and other refugees go to
Turkey, but they had to walk at night to evade
detection as they crossed over, Hassan said. But
there were times when the helpers had access to a
car and drove them from time to time.
After living in Turkey for two years, Hassan said he
went through an extensive interviewing process to
immigrateto the United States. On Sept. 17, 1992, he
moved to Nashville.
"When I came, I had no desire to go anywhere else —
I had no experience and didn't know much about other
states," he said.
He is now married with two children and said he
likes living in Nashville, which has 5,000-8,000
Kurdish people, the largest population of Kurds in
the U.S.
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