Welcoming Arms Catholic Charities’ Refugee Center Helps Immigrants Adapt To Life In Their New Country

Two little girls, in dresses and with bows in their hair, and a young boy, wearing a T-shirt and pants, play happily on the swings in front of the duplex.

Their squeals of laughter sound like those from the other children in this quiet South Hill neighborhood, until they speak - in Russian.

They are the children of Alla and Vadim Lukin, one of scores of refugee families brought to Spokane during the past 25 years by the Refugee Center of Catholic Charities.

The Refugee Center is a collection of desks tucked in the corner of the Employment Security Building at 130 S. Arthur. There, foreign families find places to live, jobs, and enrollment in English classes.

The center provides assistance to families for six months, before its three full-time staff members must concentrate on newer arrivals.

The Lukins waited three long years before they received permission to emigrate. They came to Spokane from Kyrgyzstan, a small country next to China and south of Kazakhstan.

Alla is still learning English, but with the help of translator Tatyana Miller, she tells of her long journey.

She speaks of walking for three days to get to the airport, then spending 16 hours on the plane, not counting an eight-hour layover in Paris, among several other stops. She talks about the fear she lived with in Kyrgyzstan, where people were not friendly to Russians.

“I had heard they killed a lot of Russians there,” says Miller, who came to America as a refugee herself seven years ago.

The Lukins wanted to immigrate to the United States so their children would have a better life.

Six-year-old Llilya and 5-year-old Vladik were only babies then, and 2-year-old Vironika was born while they waited to be accepted into the refugee program.

Alla joined her parents and other relatives already living in Spokane. Alla’s grandmother was the family’s sponsor when they first arrived but could only offer emotional support.

She could not help them a lot, explains Miller, because “she was poor herself.”

Vadim now works at the Spokane Industrial Park, and Alla has a part time job at McDonald’s.

The children, learning English, sometimes mix their native language and secondary language in the same sentence.

The Lukins’ long wait is typical of others who come to call Spokane their home. Pat Black, director of the Refugee Center, says one family spent 13 years waiting in a refugee camp before receiving authorization to leave.

“The process takes a long time, while the refugee sits and suffers,” Black says.

Refugees typically, for one reason or another, lose their homes, become countryless and end up in refugee camps. Many cannot return home because of religious or political persecution, or war.

Untangling red tape can take years.

The world’s more prosperous countries, including the United States, decide how many refugees they will accept and who they are.

Congress votes on the number of refugees allowed in our country each year. Their names are entered into a database and distributed to various religious organizations that assist them, Black says.

Spokane’s center has had as much as two weeks’ notice a family is arriving, or as little as 48 hours.

“It’s sort of like working at a fire station,” Black says. “When we get an arrival notice, we have to go into full gear.”

When the fax machine spits out that notice, the staff springs into action.

Sponsors must be found.

A sponsor can be a relative, or even a church - anyone willing to help refugees settle into their new life. Sponsors have a moral rather than a financial obligation, Black says.

A family’s size determines its housing needs. A place to live must be ready when they arrive, with household items and furniture located.

It’s also a whirlwind experience for the families.

Before their first week ends, they are enrolled in English classes and their children begin school. Adults take vocational classes, learn how to write resumes, and begin looking for work.

It is daunting.

“Here in America, they have to start at the bottom, and that’s difficult for some people,” Black says. “There are college-educated people coming through here.”

Upon arrival, they receive 30-day grants to help with food and housing. Federal funds are available the first few months to help ease their financial load while they learn their new language.

But it isn’t much.

“We just really have to scrimp to get people going,” Black says.

Problems arise with refugees’ misconceptions about the reality of America. Many want a job guaranteed to be theirs for life and don’t understand that isn’t the way it works here.

“They don’t have a true picture of America,” Black says. “They’re expecting something different.”

Refugees also have problems dealing with what they have lost: their language, their culture, family, and their country.

“They all go through at least one depression,” Black says.

The center teaches the refugees the basics of survival, like how to ride the bus and obtain a driver’s license.

“It takes a while for them to be confident enough to make their own doctor appointments,” Black says.

But once they adapt, they go after their new life with a vengeance. Most are highly motivated to succeed, Black says, and are willing to make sacrifices.

“They understand that education is going to get them out of their poverty situation,” Black says.

Already this year, the center has helped more than a hundred refugees who arrived in Spokane from several countries. The center relies heavily on volunteers, especially translators.

Staff members and volunteers work together to get families employed and become self-supporting.

“Our job is to resettle them with some sort of dignity,” Black says.