Transcripts

[MUSIC PLAYING] TOM MEERSMAN Former refugees came from Illinois and other states in the Upper Midwest to participate in Refugee Remembrance Day. The majority were Southeast Asians-- Vietnamese, Cambodians, Hmong, and Laotians. And many wore their traditional colorful clothing and enjoyed a variety of ethnic music.

In addition to leaders from their own communities and from several church-based advocacy groups, the crowd heard from several officials, including State Human Services Commissioner Sandra Gardebring, Congressman Bill Frenzel, and Senator Rudy Boschwitz who was himself a refugee to this country at the age of five. Boschwitz encouraged the former refugees in the audience to set good examples, and to keep the pressure on decision-makers to accept more applicants from around the world. The US, he said, is a nation of refugees, and it's big enough to accept many more.

RUDY BOSCHWITZ: Many people argue with me, and they say, yes, you bring in refugees, and they take jobs from Americans. Now, I say that refugees come here with so little that they're marvelous consumers, that they create jobs for Americans. And by joy, they recharge the whole American system, that we set the examples.

TOM MEERSMAN US Ambassador for Refugees Jonathan Moore told the crowd that he had come to Minnesota to pay homage to those from other lands who have resettled here, to listen to their stories, and to seek inspiration, since working on refugee policy requires what he called "firm tough politics" and a kind of spiritual infusion.

JONATHAN MOORE: I came to be sure that I do not and that we do not forget those of your family and of your friends and of your fellow countrymen who are not here, who are still in Southeast Asia, and who are elsewhere in the world.

TOM MEERSMAN After the speeches, Moore went to a tent where several different delegations of former refugees were standing in line to meet with him, and to seek his help. One of them was a young Cambodian woman named Lang Heng Hong who has been in the US for five and 1/2 years, has become a citizen, and is now a full-time student and a full-time worker in Bloomington.

LANG HENG HONG: Now I have a problem. I have two sisters who just escaped from Cambodia to the border of Thailand. It's called side B. And one of my younger sister who was raped by the Vietnamese soldier, and she's became pregnant. And now, she have a baby. She got a baby girl. And I really want them to come back. I mean, I'm trying anything to bring my two sisters here, and the family. And I haven't seen them since 1975.

TOM MEERSMAN Lang Heng Hong and others know all too well that the Government of Thailand has begun closing down several refugee camps, in part because the US and other Western nations have not been accepting as many people in recent years for resettlement. Former refugees and refugee advocates are hoping for action from Congress, but that is not imminent.

Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon introduced a bill several months ago that would raise the number of refugees the US would accept from Southeast Asia during the next three years. But so far, that bill has not had its first hearing. Most in the crowd in Minneapolis seem to be encouraged, however, that Ambassador Moore and others will help them, and that their long wait to be reunited with family members will not last too many more years longer. I'm Tom Meersman.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER: Thank you.