Transcripts

TIM NELSON: It's January 11. Happy 2749, as in the year 2749. That's according to the calendar of the Karen, just one of the hundreds of ethnic minorities that populate Myanmar or what the US government still calls Burma. Now you're probably wondering about those other 739 years. [INAUDIBLE] explains he's a translator and one of the organizers of the Quran new year that's officially January 5 but celebrated this weekend.

SPEAKER: The Karen people, they are pretty organized with the counting of the year and the history. Thousands of years ago, we come from Mongolia. That is how they started. So it's a way before Christ.

TIM NELSON: And now the Karen are in the midst of what could be another great migration as they're being driven out of their long-adopted homeland. They're one of the last minorities with any autonomous presence in Myanmar. Attacks by the military have forced tens of thousands of Karen to flee to a string of refugee camps in Thailand. From there, they're following the trail blazed by Hmong refugees before them to Minnesota. And by all appearances this weekend, the Karen have officially arrived.

[FOLK MUSIC]

From a busload of refugees living in downtown Saint Paul, the Karen community has grown to nearly 3,000 people. It was enough to draw a standing room only crowd to Roseville Lutheran Church this weekend for a day of singing, dancing, and celebration.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

Wilfred Dunbar is Executive Director of the Karen Organization of Minnesota. It's the community's formal social organization. He was among the first Karen to reach the Twin Cities 10 years ago.

WILFRED TUN BAW: When I arrived to the airport, they brought us to the church. And then we lived in the church basement for nearly two months. We just have between the 12 and 15 Karen families only in Minnesota. It's very, very tough.

TIM NELSON: But Tun Baw and his fellow Karen had something many refugees don't, a centuries old connection with the West. Baptist missionaries were first sent to Burma in 1813 where they made thousands of Karen converts. Descendants of those converts were the first to arrive in Minnesota where the Baptist Church welcomed them again. Bill Englund is Pastor at the First Baptist church in downtown Saint Paul where the Karen first took shelter.

BILL ENGLUND: The interesting thing about the Karen is that in their own legends, they had a story of a white brother that would return to them a lost golden book. And so when missionaries showed up with a Bible and this good news, they immediately adopted it not as some kind of Western or foreign idea, but as their own book being returned to them.

TIM NELSON: About half the refugees who fled Myanmar are Christian, and now about half of Englund's congregation are Karen. And that's just one measure of how the Karen are adopting Minnesota as their new home. Their New Year's celebration this year was the biggest ever.

Karen community organizers say refugees who initially went to other parts of the US are now heading for Minnesota because translators and language services are better here. And because they're refugees and work legally, some of them are replacing other immigrants in meat processing centers, like Worthington and Albert Lea. State Senator Mee Moua, a Southeast Asian immigrant herself, spoke at this weekend's event. She says that Karen may have a very familiar story for Minnesotans who've watched her own Hmong community grow.

MEE MOUA: I could foresee where Minnesota does become the drawing point or the home ground for the community.

TIM NELSON: And it could be a significant community. The Obama administration reported last fall that 117,000 refugees live in nine camps on the border between

Thailand and Myanmar. The US has been taking in those refugees, as well as some from Malaysia at the rate of about 17,000 people a year in the last three years according to the US State Department. Margaret Burkhardt is a Program Officer with the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. And she says she expects the Karen community in the US will continue to grow.

MARGARET BURKHARDT: I can see that Karen, if they continue to come, which at least they will this fiscal year and most likely next, I think, you will see them continue to go to Minnesota because the feedback I believe to that to Thailand is good.

TIM NELSON: So far, the numbers in Minnesota are small, about 500 a year. But officials in Minnesota say half of the refugees who came to the state last fall were from Myanmar, most of them Karen. And in the last year, those refugees have outnumbered incoming Somali refugees by about 2 to 1. Tim Nelson, Minnesota Public Radio News.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]