The present amphitheater of Bhutanese diaspora and its literature is going through ghastly blackout and the uncertainty of finding an appropriate term to label it with is hanging like a Damocles’ sword. As it keeps dangling and swinging around, everyone in the auditorium is scared as to who the sword would fall upon. Another fear is that we have to bid a farewell to one of the audience if it falls. Therefore looking for or accumulating some know-how to supply the audience with the light again and safely remove the sword is indispensable.
Without being affected by the fact that majority of us speak Nepali as it’s our mother tongue, the letters we write now and in the days that follow is not Nepali literature. Calling the writings we pen by Nepali literature may superficially sound soothing to those who have not much avail themselves of some time in seclusion to meditate on the downsides of terming it so, as a lot of chaos in our literary arena is on progress at the moment that arrest their eyes and ears. It’s not unusual to be tossed by temporal tides and be swallowed however a drowning man should, as a last resort, try catching at a straw. Knocking next door for help is not at all a bad idea however doing it with the gauged gravity of its necessity would not only be better but wiser as well. When we have enough men of letters, intellectuals, pundits and priests sufficiently qualified and competent to christen our literature, it is no more than a folly and doesn’t worth a penny to borrow our neighbours’ time and energy before beginning to scratch our heads sitting all concerned together and exerting efforts to make our minds meet.
Is christening our letters by ourselves really a tough nut to crack? No, not at all if you ask me. When it comes to the literal sense of the term “Nepali” it represents the entire citizens of Nepal and all the languages spoken there. It also is used to define our ethnicity though. As mentioned in the earlier lines, the language, almost all of us speak, without a doubt, is Nepali. Do you think it is the only language that we speak? Apparently not. When it comes to the languages we speak or articulate our thoughts and feelings with, we have English, Sanskrit, Dzongkha, etc. in addition to Nepali. In the years to come we won’t be even surprised to see our writers writing in Danish, Dutch, French, Norwegian, etc. Let’s assume a scenario where our literature is commonly written in Dutch. Do you get along with it or have your say against? If we call our letters by Nepali literature today, we will end up with making a sharp curve in our whole history and putting a sign up that reads “black spot”.. Our literature should represent all ethnic entities, with different languages and dialects, of our diverse community and this won’t be materialized if we say that the literature we right is Nepali. Taking all these into account, we amended Nepali Sahitya Parishad Bhutan by removing “Nepali” from it into Sahitya Parishad Bhutan and now I feel that this should again be reviewed and reformed into “academy”, “society”, “institution”, or “federation” of Bhutanese Literature in diaspora.
It goes without saying that we have been struggling hard for years for coining our own identity. Identity is something that always has relation with time and space we live in. As it is as plain as one’s nose on the face that literature is one of the distinctive facets of a community or society, it is the call of the current time for us all to brood over inventing an apposite and enduring term for it so as to prevent our future generations from getting mixed up like we did for as long as until now. Making an allowance for the amalgamation of all the literary entities by the ones involved with them and others concerned is the demand of the time we are living with. I would like to underline one more time that we come together for a discussion on this common issue of our community. There is no pertinence to any extent of tagging our literature as Nepali. The term “Nepali” is now too green and wooden to be used as an adjective to add beauty to our letters. Magnificence of the name should be considered peripheral to pertinence when it comes to naming our letters. Neither can we brand it as Bhutanese literature alone. The comprehensive, inclusive, precise, pertinent and all-embracing terminology for our letters that I have come up with after zeroing in on it is literature in Bhutanese diaspora or diasporic Bhutanese literature.
The author, who is based in Adelaide, South Australia, is Editor of Bhutaneseliterature.com, and blogs at yatirajajnabee.wordpress.com.
Viewpoint: Bhutanese community grateful for welcome in Springfield
Within six years, more than 70,000 Bhutanese refugees have arrived in the United States and have joined military service, entered colleges and universities, learned civics and U.S. history in order to become U.S citizens, and are contributing toward the local economy by buying businesses and homes.
Every year the president of the United States decides how many refugees are brought into this country and welcomes them to fulfill their dreams. Not every city in the U.S. is mandated to accept those refugees. Each has the discretion to accept or reject based on local policies and procedures. Over time, some cities have enacted anti-refugee legislation on the refugee resettlement programs in their cities for different reasons.
In July 2011, Manchester, N.H., sought a refugee moratorium because Mayor Ted Gastas was concerned about substandard living conditions of refugees in the city.
He accused the federal and local refugee resettlement agencies of a failure to provide sufficient support. However, such moratoriums did not pass, and refugees continued to resettle.
Currently, Manchester has more than 1,000 Bhutanese refugees who have been resettled since 2008. Some of the Bhutanese refugees were able to form a nonprofit organization and started providing social services among Bhutanese refugees resettled in New Hampshire.
According to Tika Acharya, executive director of Bhutanese Community of New Hampshire (BCNH), the organization employs 11 Bhutanese refugees and provides integration tools to the community for faster acculturation.
Mr. Acharya says that, currently, eight refugees have become first-time homebuyers; three refugees have opened businesses; nine students have entered four-year college, five refugees received graduate diplomas and one student, Ganesh Sharma, received a scholarship from the Bill Gates Foundation.
In August 2013, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno was concerned that refugees were living in poverty and substandard housing and not getting enough help and follow-up services from service agencies. He urged the State Department to stop the influx of refugees into the city of Springfield.
On the other side of the coin, not every resettled refugee is successful in all walks of life.
Suicidal ideation rates have become the more common in the U.S., and there are various theories about it. Some say it is because of teenagers’ difficulty getting into colleges without their parents’ financial support; elderly and uneducated people are said to have hanged themselves because of social isolation and a mismatch of their expectations v. their actual circumstances. Some refugees experience post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological disorders. Cultural shock, language barriers, financial problems, social isolation, family role reversal are some of the stressors refugees experience.
Bhutanese refugees have not had easy lives. In Bhutan, their citizenship rights were forfeited, and they were denied basic fundamental rights. In Nepal, they were confined in the camp with no opportunities at all. The youth were at the verge of jeopardizing their career; girls were trafficked into India and sold as prostitutes.
Hundreds of refugees died in the camps due to the lack of nutritional food and proper medical care. Though the refugees have a difficult and scary transition in the United States, they are far better off than being in the third world countries.
Therefore, being a former refugee, I would like to thank the U.S. government for availing this opportunity, Nepal government for giving asylum and local communities for accepting unwanted and forgotten people and giving us a chance to learn a new language, bring diversity to the city and contribute to the local community.
Currently, Western Massachusetts has produced four small business owners, 15 first-time home buyers, two students who have graduated from four-year colleges, three from master’s programs, and 20 U.S. citizens in slightly more than five years of resettlement. Elderly people are also putting efforts toward learning English and U.S. history.
The Jewish Family Service resettled Mr.Bandhu Adhikari in 2009. A first-time home buyer in Springfield, Adhikari said, “I would like to thank the city of Springfield because it’s the place I landed as refugee in 2010, and today I have fulfilled my American dream by owning the first home in Springfield.” He further adds, “Now I work with Lutheran Social Service and help refugees to integrate into local community by supporting them with whatever resources I have.”
Refugees have been valuable employees, students, and role models in Western Massachusetts.
On World Refugee Day, I would like to thank the U.S. government, the State Department, resettlement agencies and the local community for opening your heart to give one more chance to live without the fear of persecution and violence.
Bhuwan Gautam is a former refugee from Bhutan, who lived in the refugee camp for 16 years. He came to the United States in 2008 and holds a bachelors degree in arts from Western New England University. He is currently the president of Bhutanese Society of Western Massachusetts, Inc and Managing editor of Non-Resident Bhutanese (NRB).
Editor’s note: The post has been reproduced from the Massivelive.com