How Refugees Feed Their Longing for Traditional Cuisine

Kate Sheehy, NCC News

Food for Thought
March 26, 2009 Syracuse--We all can connect some type of food with a feeling or a memory; a favorite dish you ate with your family, grilling hot dogs and hamburgers in the backyard, eating pizza late at night with friends. American food is a mixture of influence from all over the world. Refugees living in Syracuse are part of this influence. They bring culinary traditions from home to remember the life they left behind.

A Taste of Home
Ayad Alnassiry and his family fled violence in Iraq and came to Syracuse almost a year ago. Ayad said he misses his friends and family, and the traditional food of his country. But his wife continues to make her own spices and cook many meals from Iraq. Ayad said they are able to get many of the foods they used back home, although not exactly the same, here in Syracuse.

“We miss the fresh greens we used to eat that don't grow here,” said Ayad.

A New Way of Life
The Donzos from West Africa are a family of 15, and all of them work to help with money. They were happy to find the African and Caribbean Store in Syracuse. They get a lot of the ingredients to make traditional dishes like Water Soup. Fanta Donzo said it makes her feel good to cook African food for her family. However, she said the way food is prepared and eaten in America, differs greatly from her African customs.

“In Africa we would cook outside, never inside, and we would all sit together and eat with our hands,” Fanta said.

She said she misses these customs and sometimes she feels weird eating with her hands here. Fanta said now her family is so busy working and going to school that they rarely eat together like they used to.

A Global Market
Driving up and down Eerie Boulevard or North Salina, it is easy to miss the small ethnic grocery stores. But they provide an essential need for refugees starting a new life in an unfamiliar world. Roselinda Abbey is from Ghana and owns the African and Caribbean store on North Salina. She said when she moved here in 2001 there was no store that sold African food, so she opened one.

“I choose the foods that I like to have in the store, but my customers tell me what they want too,” Abbey said.

Cooking food from home is one way refugees can recreate a significant part of their culture here in America.

“Food is the footprint of each culture, and each one is different from one another,” said Ayad.

You can see these footprints in Syracuse, just take a look.

Willing and Able

Refugees and the Workforce

Freedom

Syracuse, NY- February 19, 2009 Francis Murabi is one of around 500 refugees that have come to Syracuse in the past year to make a home. Refugees leave their homeland in search of freedom. A major benefit of the freedom they find here is the ability to work and support their families.

However many refugees, like many Americans, are losing their jobs because of the economy. Francis is now one of those without a job and a family of ten to feed.

Reflections of Home

Francis had been working in the cider mill at the Beak and Skiff Apple Orchard in La Fayette. He has been laid off for the winter. He says he loved working there because it reminded him of working with plants in Africa.

Although Francis does have fond memories of life in Africa, he faced many struggles before coming to America.

Francis grew up moving from refugee camp to refugee camp in East Africa. Originally from the small country of Burundi, Francis fled civil war between his tribe the Hutus and rival tribe the Tutsis. About 250,000 people died in this horrific fighting.

“Life in a refugee camp is a big, big problem, because if you are a refugee, you don’t have any rights. Here I am very, very free,” said Francis.

The adversity he has faced makes him all the more grateful for opportunities here.

Helping Hands

Catholic Charities helps settle many of the refugees in Syracuse. They find and clean up apartments for families to live in when they arrive. They act as the go between for refugees and potential employers in the community. Volunteers help connect refugees with services like food stamps, public assistance and ESL classes.

Francis has a wife, eight children and his mother and father to look after. Volunteers like Harvey Pinyoun are part of the support system that Catholic Charities provides.

“You want them to have the best beginning they can possibly have. So that’s what we’re trying to do,” said Pinyoun.

Commitment

Pinyoun said many refugees, like Francis, have large families to care for. Three of Francis’ children are orphans who lost their parents in the camps. Pinyoun said their perseverance and commitment to one another is admirable.

“They take care of each other and they make it. They do without, they do without extras that a lot of us live with,” said Pinyoun.

Francis is hoping for his job back at the apple orchard in the spring. In the meantime he will wait, he has made it this far.