‘Build a Better World’ program addresses immigration
Arngae Htway, a refugee from Thailand, tells about herself during the South Hills Interfaith Movement’s “Celebrate the South Hills” event in May. She and other students in SHIM’s Prospect Park Family Center youth mentoring program participated in a project called “Two Cultures, One Me” to illustrate their individual stories.
The vast majority of people who live in the United States have an immigration story to tell.
For example, Henry Funck left his Bavarian homeland in the early 18th century to settle in eastern Pennsylvania, where he became the first Mennonite bishop in America. Fortunately for his descendants, the family dropped the “c” in the surname shortly afterward.
The Pittsburgh area has its own immigration story, and one far more recent than the influx of folks who arrived here to work in the mines and mills.
”We lost population for 20 straight years in Allegheny County, and we only turned it around because of immigrants coming into our region,” Barbara Murock said. “If we did not have immigration, we would continue to lose population at a much greater rate.”
Murock, manager of the county Department of Human Services’ Immigrants & Internationals Initiative, spoke about the program June 21 at Mt. Lebanon Public Library as the first in a summer series of presentations with the theme “Build a Better World.”
“We have the potential to be a really thriving city,” the Squirrel Hill resident said, “and the number of thriving economic regions and metropolitan areas that have grown without a growth of immigrants in their region is: Guess how many?”
Many in the audience were correct in answering: zero.
“So it’s not just a matter of our being welcoming and seeing ourselves as benevolent,” Murock said. “It’s a matter of benefit to us, as well, to have immigrants in our region.”
The I&I Initiative actually has been in place for a decade, with the mission of supporting a services network that is capable of meeting the unique needs of immigrants and internationals throughout the county.
One of Murock’s first points in her presentation was explaining the differences in terms for people who come to the United States from other countries. “Immigrant,” for instance, refers to someone who settles in this nation on a permanent basis, while “international” describes a person living here temporarily for a specific purpose, such as education.
Among the immigrants, “lawful permanent residents” describes those who have been granted the necessary permissions, and many of them are on track to become naturalized citizens.
On the other end of the spectrum are undocumented immigrants.
“Actually, the majority of people here who are undocumented are people who overstayed their visas,” Murock said.
Others are in the United States as refugees, who have been given permission to live and work here before they arrive because of persecution or well-founded fear of persecution in their home countries.
Locally, resettlement agencies place about 500 refugees in the Pittsburgh area each year, according to the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Pittsburgh, with another 1,000 arriving annually through secondary migrations from other parts of the United States.
The South Hills is home to a fairly large refugee population that grew organically in and around a Whitehall Borough apartment complex.
“It was not subsidized housing, but it was reasonably priced housing,” Murock explained. “Many years ago, some refugees resettled there, and it just became more and more of a community. And then people sought it out as a place to live.”
Bethel Park-based South Hills Interfaith Movement has established a family center in the complex, Whitehall Place, that includes a mentoring program for high school and middle school students, some of whom were born in refugee camps and other adverse circumstances in countries including Bhutan, Thailand, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The I&I Initiative recently developed “Helping Immigrants Thrive in Allegheny County: A Community Blueprint,” created in collaboration with 173 local residents, including 88 who came here from other countries.
“Part of what we always do is to develop and foster leadership of immigrants, themselves, which helps them to integrate and keep their culture, as well as becoming civically engaged in the culture around them,” Murock said. “We think it’s a way to build resiliency, and we think we’ve been successful with that.”
For more information, visit www.alleghenycounty.us/Human-Services/Resources/Immigrants-Refugees/Immigrants—Internationals-Initiative.aspx.