“Refugees Welcome!”
“No Borders.”
Snapshots from the Baobab refugee transit centre in Rome, a temporary resting place for asylum seekers from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria amongst others countries, on the journey to Germany, Sweden, the UK… or anywhere else that they are able to make home.
Credit: Nando Sigona
This article first appeared on the 19 Million Project website
“We need to humanize the refugee crisis,” UK-based migration specialist Nando Sigona told the 19 Million Project audience in Rome during a Skype interview on Wednesday.
Sigona, senior lecturer in migration and citizenship at the University of Birmingham in England, challenged journalists to look at the stories behind the stats, rather than treating people as “generic refugees”.
What is it like to spend four years in a refugee camp? What are the issues facing the generation of children born in camps? These are some of the questions that journalists should be asking, said Sigona. “Attempts to humanize are very important.”
Sigona urged journalists to remain inclusive about their coverage of migration stories, given the inter-sectionality of refugees: “There is a risk in the representation of ‘good’ refugees versus ‘bad’ ones,” he said. “Who does deserve our protection? Syrians are not the only ones who do.”
And while data can be a powerful tool, Sigona cautioned users to keep an eye on the bigger picture. “Numbers have power but we need to pay much more attention to how numbers are used,” he said, citing the “complete conflation” of immigration with figures on arrivals by the sea.
Measures to promote integration of refugees in their host countries vary wildly. But Sigona says he is encouraged by positive actions emerging from the Mediterranean crisis, such as Germany translating its constitution into Arabic and offering English as well as German language courses, to assist incoming refugees.
A key issue for journalists to consider over the coming months, says Sigona, is the “economy of the crisis” and its beneficiaries – such as security contractors employed by EU border management agency, Frontex. “Who is making money out of it?”
Over the last year, Californian nonprofit Refugee Transitions has supported 1,750 newcomers to San Francisco, Oakland and the wider Bay Area through its education, family engagement and leadership programmes.
Originating from over 50 countries including Afghanistan, Nepal and Somalia, many of these people were forced to flee their homes with few belongings and little preparation for their new life in the US. Cooking traditional food – and sharing it with new friends – has provided some continuity amid this change.
Last year, RT launched Between Meals – a compilation of recipes and back stories from some of the refugee women it has worked with. Inspired by the success of the cookbook, RT has partnered with four Bay Area restaurants for World Refugee Day this year (20 June) to pilot a ‘dining with a difference’ experience.
For the event, San Francisco eateries Mau Viet Kitchen, Hillside Supper Club and Burma Superstar, and Oakland restaurant Bissap Baobab, are donating to RT a percentage of profits taken on World Refugee Day.
Jane Pak, director of strategy and development at Refugee Transitions says the restaurant project seemed a natural progression from the cookbook: “Food is a universal language with intimate cultural particulars. Between Meals documents the cultural foodways of our remarkable newcomer students, and the restaurant project takes inspiration from this.”
RT worked closely with its restaurant partners to devise special dishes for their World Refugee Day menus. Mau chef Khai’s take on Canh chua ca (sour soup) combines pineapple from south of Vietnam and dill from the north – a reflection of her family history as her northern grandparents migrated south in 1954.
Pak hopes the event will provide Bay Area foodies and the wider community with a glimpse of RT’s work and the vibrant communities with whom it works: “We aim to raise awareness about our wonderful refugee community in the Bay Area, our cookbook, and the work of RT through the diverse food cultures that our restaurant partners represent.”
As featured in The Guardian’s Pick of the blogs
As newly-arrived refugees and immigrants navigate the myriad challenges in their new environments, it is often food and its important cultural traditions that are the mainstay in this journey.
Between Meals collects stories and recipes from California’s refugee women to paint a picture of their lives, past and present. The cookbook chronicles the experiences of women leaving their homes in Afghanistan, Burma, Somalia, Sri Lanka and beyond, and the vital role that traditional cooking plays at every stage of the process.
From the malawah flatbread that Somali refugee Halimo cooked each day in the Dadaab refugee camp, to Afghan newcomer Arezo’s celebratory jalebi sweet, every recipe tells a story.
Cookbook author Lauren Markham sees Between Meals as both a preservation project – a recipe “memory box” from the US diaspora communities – as well as a reflection on the creative process by which refugee and immigrant women put down roots in their new homes.
It highlights the challenges that women face when adapting their food to new communities, from locating a goat farm an hour’s drive away, to tracking down galangal root at a Chinatown market.
Between Meals is a project of San Francisco Bay Area non-profit agency, Refugee Transitions, which supports newly-arrived refugees and immigrants into their new communities through education, family engagement and community leadership programs.
Funded by Cal Humanities, the cookbook was developed from Refugee Transition’s home-based tutoring program, where shared meals are often core to the student-tutor relationship.
Executive director Laura Vaudreuil says that, for those who have had to leave all behind, sharing a meal means more than just sharing food: “When all that is left are memories of home, the smells, tastes and experience of a meal recreated can take people back to friends and family.”
Arezo enjoys making her mantu Afghan dumplings for family and new friends. “Mantu is special to me because my mother made it for me the day I found out I was pregnant with my first child.
“I make mantu in California, especially when I miss Kabul and my family in Afghanistan.”
Between Meals is available to order here Profits from the book will be distributed among the cookbook contributors.
Liza Ramrayka 