We Thought It Would Be Heaven: Refugees in an Unequal America 9780520976504

Citation preview

We Thought It Would Be Heaven

a naom i sch n e i de r book

We Thought It Would Be Heaven refugees in an unequal america

Blair Sackett and Annette Lareau

university of california press

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Barbara S. Isgur Endowment Fund in Public Affairs.

University of California Press Oakland, California © 2023 by Blair Sackett and Annette Lareau Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sackett, Blair, 1990– author. | Lareau, Annette, author. Title: We thought it would be heaven : refugees in an unequal America /  Blair Sackett and Annette Lareau. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, 2023. |  Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2022058926 | isbn 9780520379046 (hardback) |  isbn 9780520379053 (paperback) | isbn 9780520976504 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Refugees—Services for—United States. | Refugees—  United States—Social conditions. | Refugees—Congo (Democratic Republic)—Social conditions. Classification: lcc hv640.4.u54 s235 2023 | ddc 362.870973—dc23/  eng/20230309 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058926 Manufactured in the United States of America 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Tables

vii

Introduction

1

1.

Journeys to America: Lots of Red Tape

19

2.

Hurdles and Knots Everywhere: Honoria Kimenyerwa

43

3.

Problems Reverberate: Malu Malu and Mariamu Mahamba

69

4.

How Cultural Brokers Help: Joseph and Georgette Ngoma

90

5.

The Power of People Doing Their Jobs: Alain and Vana Msafiri

123

Conclusion: Refugees in an Unequal America

154

Acknowledgments

167

Appendix A: Tables

169

Appendix B: Key Ideas in More Depth

187

Appendix C: How We Did the Study

197

Notes

213

Bibliography

251

Index

277

Tables

1.

Defining what hinders: Institutional obstacles

7

2.

Defining what helps: Resources that help resolve obstacles

8

3.

Legal determination process for refugee resettlement

23

A.1. Summary characteristics of the forty-four refugee families in our interview sample

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A.2. Key characteristics of the forty-four refugee families in our interview sample

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A.3. Examples of key institutions and institutional interactions in day-to-day life

176

A.4. Selected examples of institutional benefits refugees experienced

178

A.5. Obstacles faced by families in interview sample

179

A.6. Racial discrimination in institutional interactions

180

A.7. Supports given to the Ngoma family by church volunteers

181

A.8. Research design: Stages of the study

184

Praise for We Thought It Would Be Heaven “This extraordinary book exposes how the gap between the American dream and its reality is, for many refugees, filled with administrative burdens. It demands both our attention and our capacity to rethink how to ensure that the most vulnerable immigrants are not lost in a bureaucratic maze.” Donald Moynihan, McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University “As the former leader of one of the bureaucracies that the refugee families in Sackett and Lareau’s book traversed, I can only hope that my peers will have the wisdom to read this book.” León Rodríguez, Former Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services “This deeply humanist ethnography explains how refugees who fled persecution confront new challenges as they resettle in the United States. It follows four Congolese families as they fight their way through bureaucratic circles of hell to make a new American life.” David Scott FitzGerald, coauthor of The Refugee System: A Sociological Approach “A must-read for anyone looking for an understanding of the dismal state of U.S. refugee admissions and for fresh ideas on what can be done to improve the outcomes.” Helen B. Marrow, Associate Professor of Sociology, Tufts University “Eloquently shows the many challenges and resources needed for refugee families in navigating different institutions in America to start a new life after having spent years surviving in refugee camps and civil wars. Captivating and often heartbreaking.” Leslie Paik, author of Trapped in a Maze: How Social Control Institutions Drive Family Poverty and Inequality

“Exposes the bewildering maze of rules and regulations that trap refugees in Kafkaesque fashion as they navigate the U.S. bureaucracies charged with their resettlement. Highly recommended for everyone, especially for scholars, policymakers, and anyone who cares about the lives of some of the most vulnerable groups in society today.” Cecilia Menjívar, Dorothy L. Meier Social Equities Chair, University of California, Los Angeles “Compelling and timely. Theoretically innovative and insightfully argued, this book highlights how institutional barriers can derail courageous struggles for dignity and stability among the ‘lucky few’ as they rebuild their lives in a new land while underscoring how federal resettlement policies and future programs might better serve the ‘worthy many’ still in search of refuge beyond our shores.” Van C. Tran, Associate Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center

Introduction

Honoria Kimenyerwa and her five children landed in Philadelphia on a sweltering summer day after a long flight from Uganda.1 Philadelphia was the latest stop on Honoria’s refugee journey that began abruptly and tragically almost two decades earlier. Early one morning in 2000, she returned home from her regular sunrise church service to the sound of gunfire. The country’s civil war had reached her town, a farming community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her child was being cared for by her husband, and they were nowhere to be found. She found a policeman, but he couldn’t protect her. Instead, as she tearfully recalled in Swahili, he “ordered me to run away very fast. He told me not to look back because I would die.” She followed his instructions, turned away from town, and started running. A few hours later she reached the eastern border with Uganda, crossed, and found a United Nations (UN) reception center. There she learned that her husband and child had been murdered. In the face of hardship, Honoria is a study in persistence and survival. After years of grieving, she established a life for herself in a refugee camp in Uganda. She started a new family, marrying again and raising five children. For sixteen years she eked out a living there, making do with meager rations, food she grew and traded, and assistance from friends. Along with 1

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other refugees, her case was reviewed by the UN. She and her children were officially designated as refugees, and she applied for resettlement to another country. The odds, however, were low: less than 1 percent of refugees around the world are resettled each year.2 Then, everything changed. Honoria and her children were selected for resettlement to the United States.3 (Her husband’s name was listed on a different identification card and he thus wasn’t eligible to go with them.)4 With the promise of support from the U.S. government, the family was optimistic. As Honoria’s daughter Grace reflected years later, “We thought it would be Heaven.” Honoria dreamed that her children would have a better life—especially Esther, her eleven-year-old daughter who relied on a wheelchair. After multiple rounds of interviews, security clearances, and health checks, they made the long journey to Philadelphia. When Honoria and her children arrived, like all resettled refugees in the United States, they qualified for limited yet essential resettlement services and access to the country’s social safety net. Her family was greeted at the airport by Zeus, a federally funded caseworker who spoke Swahili. He took them to an apartment furnished from donations. For the first few months they received temporary support for rent and basic expenses. Zeus also helped them get Social Security cards, visit the doctor, and sign up for health insurance and food benefits. He enrolled Honoria in an English as a Second Language (ESL) course and her children in local schools. As a resettled refugee she had a legal pathway to permanent residency (a “green card”) and, after five years, citizenship.5 Yet very quickly, the shining promises by the United States government didn’t pan out. Honoria discovered that refugees in the United States are given very meager resources and, unlike in other countries such as Canada and Australia, they are expected to become self-supporting after ninety days.6 Although Honoria would have liked to get a job, she had a rambunctious two-year-old at home and a disabled daughter to care for and no access to affordable childcare. On a tight budget of food stamps and a monthly disability payment for her daughter, Honoria managed to feed, clothe, and take care of her children. Despite her efforts, however, her children attended underresourced and low-performing schools, where they were bullied for being Black and African immigrants, and she worried about their safety in her neighborhood.



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Honoria also faced obstacles from unexpected sources: the very agencies tasked to help. As she settled in and tried to access services, she encountered many problems. Each bureaucracy had its own forms, its own deadlines, its own eligibility rules—all in jargon-filled English. Any misstep threatened access to important resources. Juggling a heavy caseload, Honoria’s caseworker was delayed in filing an application for summer school for her children. By the time the application was processed, many of the classes were full, and two of her children missed out. In another mishap the family’s income from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) was abruptly canceled due to a fluke in the timing of payments.7 Honoria struggled to untangle the snag. Fortunately, her caseworker caught the error and, after working hard, got Honoria’s benefits reinstated, yet again and again Honoria’s progress was stalled by tangles in the social safety net. All these knots took time and energy to unravel, jamming up access to the resources and services she was supposed to receive— resources valuable for upward mobility.8 Back in Uganda, Honoria and her family believed that being chosen for resettlement would be akin to winning the lottery. In the United States, though, the reality proved different. While Honoria considered her family better off than they were in the refugee camp, sometimes she wondered if coming to the United States had been a mistake.

what helps and h i n d e r s : g e t t i n g ahead in am e r i ca The United States is defined by its paradoxes. As the refugee families we studied will tell you, America is a land of opportunity. The families reported that their children were no longer hungry, and they had electricity and running water, unlike in the refugee camps. Yet they also discovered that the United States is a land of inequality. The refugee families, along with many other immigrants, began their journeys in America at the bottom of the hierarchy: working in grueling low-wage jobs with few opportunities for promotion and living in poor segregated neighborhoods with underfunded and underperforming schools.9 As Black residents in the United States, they were confronted with racism and the staggering

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racial inequities that mark U.S. society—in pay, wealth, neighborhood resources, schools, and violence at the hands of police and other government agencies.10 Further, they began their American journeys in debt. Just before they walked on the plane, the United States government required that they sign paperwork for a loan to pay for their flights. This was not the America they had envisioned. When refugees arrive on our shores, like other immigrants, they start a new journey as they settle in a new country. We know from prior research that after arriving in a deeply unequal United States, some immigrants make more progress than others—a pattern described as differences in “incorporation.”11 There are many ways to assess the degree of incorporation. Employment is one key way. Most refugees and immigrants find jobs, often through the help of families and friends.12 Many, however, also find that their prior education and job skills are devalued in the United States, and even those with a college degree and experience as professionals end up in working-class jobs, such as servicing lawns, washing dishes in restaurants, or cutting up cows in meatpacking factories. 13 Some immigrants are able to purchase a home and even send their kids to college—other important markers of upward mobility.14 We also know that as they settle in, many immigrants learn English, marry Americans, and make other changes signaling their integration.15 (For a more in-depth discussion of scholarly findings on immigrant incorporation, see appendix B.) In these journeys toward upward mobility, immigrants and refugees interact with institutions as they sign up for utilities, get mortgages, secure health insurance, or send their children to school.16 Compared to other types of immigrants, refugees are given special services.17 They are brought to the United States with the support of the government as part of the country’s commitment to humanitarian assistance, and they have special rights and resources.18 Because of this support, many scholars of immigration have conceptualized refugees as advantaged, particularly compared to those without legal status.19 This sponsorship matters. As we discuss in chapter 1, refugee status can unlock valuable resources in schools, social welfare agencies, and medical facilities—bureaucracies that migration scholars have demonstrated play a role in immigrant incorporation.20 Even so, as we show, the refugee families in our study faced formidable



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challenges, and few escaped poverty. They struggled, and many were bewildered by what had befallen them. They felt stuck. Researchers have also shown that these social service agencies are rife with byzantine processes and a blizzard of paperwork, which create “administrative burdens,” or costs for families seeking services.21 In these different agencies, “street-level bureaucrats,” or frontline service workers such as caseworkers, teachers, and police, dole out services; they can capriciously help or thwart clients.22 Yet scholars, with few exceptions, have tended to focus on the challenges of only one type of agency at a time.23 Much attention has focused on resettlement agencies and other organizations that serve immigrants, illuminating challenges such as overwhelming caseloads and delays in processing green cards.24 Scholars have also examined refugees’ and immigrants’ interactions with other institutions—for example, as they faced employment challenges or their children had difficulties at school.25 What has been less developed, however, is the reality that refugees and immigrants confront many institutions all at the same time as they build a life in a new land—and, for many newcomers, they do so in a new language. Many of the challenges they face are with agencies that don’t just serve immigrants, but all Americans. Navigating many agencies all at the same time, families frequently find themselves to be, as Leslie Paik terms it, “trapped in a maze.”26 Furthermore, these agencies are often interwoven but not coordinated.27 Hence, the staff at the driver’s license office expect refugees to have a green card to apply for a driver’s license; Head Start officials demand parents to present medical records, paper copies of pay stubs, and bank records. The complex web of agencies, and the ways in which the interdependency among them creates obstacles, hasn’t been sufficiently understood.28 Nor have we grappled enough with the reality that errors are routine in these agencies and, as we show, can block upward mobility.

our key poi n t s In this book we have three complementary goals. First, we provide a detailed portrait of the experiences of refugee families from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in their initial years as they adjust to life in the

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United States.29 Second, we argue that the organizations designed to help refugees and others often hinder them by creating complex obstacles, errors, and other challenges that prevent people from accessing promised programs. We show how in the United States key promises aren’t realized. Compared to support provided by other countries, such as Canada and Australia, U.S. support for resettled refugees is too short and too meager.30 Meanwhile, the programs that do exist often end up entangling refugees (and Americans at large) in obstacles that keep them from getting ahead (table 1). Our book demonstrates the role of these intersecting obstacles in creating barriers to upward mobility and thereby shaping the incorporation process of the refugees (see appendix B for more detail).31 Third, we point to the importance of public policies in helping refugees, particularly those that are streamlined and reduce eligibility constraints. Federal policies and programs, despite being limited, can be a crucial asset, and different types of helpers can make a crucial difference in the upward mobility pathways of refugee families (table 2). In this book we identify three main types of obstacles: hurdles, knots, and reverberations. First, there are hurdles to accessing resources— institutional requirements, such as obtaining a hard copy of a pay stub to file for unemployment benefits, filling out a recertification form to receive food stamps, or accessing Wi-Fi to make an online appointment.32 Life in America entails countless small steps like these that involve paperwork, deadlines, and forms. They can be simple (although tiresome) for some, but more challenging to others, such as newcomers who don’t speak the language. Second, sometimes things go wrong. A well-intentioned worker misspells a name on an application. A form gets lost in the mail. The bus schedule changes and a refugee misses an appointment. One error intersects with another, tangling together to form a knot in organizational processes.33 The precise form of knots varies, but they share some common elements: they are often triggered by one small error, the error ties up access to services, and untangling it takes significant time, effort, and knowledge. Third, problems can metastasize. A problem in one organization spreads, creating new, unrelated problems in new settings—a reverberation. A family’s investigation by Child Protective Services (CPS) leads to a

Table 1 Defining what hinders: Institutional obstacles Type of obstacle

Hurdles

Key conceptual elements

Institutional rules and requirements Often bureaucratic, involving providing documentation, scheduling, or meeting a deadline

Knots

Examples

Needing a paper copy of a pay stub to file for unemployment benefits or food stamps Needing medical records to enroll in school

Complex problems in institutions

Document lost in the mail and benefits are cut off

Often triggered by one small error

Misspelling a name on a form

The error halts the path to receiving important social services Correcting the error requires further time, effort, and institutional knowledge Reverberations

Problems in one institution “metastasize” or spread Create problems in other institutional settings

After a CPS investigation where police come to door, a landlord threatens eviction After a refugee is assured that a credit card bill was paid, a mortgage is denied years later due to unpaid bill

Table 2 Defining what helps: Resources that help resolve obstacles Type of helper

Cultural brokers

Key conceptual elements

People who help bridge families and institutions, helping navigate

Examples

Volunteers help with homework, explain customs, give children a ride to soccer games, show how to pay a bill

Have cultural knowledge of institutions Help explain cultural dynamics Can be any unpaid helpers, including family members, volunteers, or others

Institutional insiders

People in a paid role who are doing their job Sometimes go above and beyond official duties Other times, can impede and worsen obstacles (sometimes tied to discrimination)

Loan officers clarify how to get a loan Teachers instruct how to apply to high school or college  aseworkers help refugees apply C for a green card



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problem with their landlord, who threatens to evict them. An issue with a tax form with the IRS creates an issue with a college financial aid package, jeopardizing the college career of a family’s son. Because refugee families (like all families) are navigating a web of multiple social agencies, routine errors and mishaps in one agency can reverberate to create a series of entanglements in another. While scholars have studied the barriers immigrants face in isolated institutions, such as workplaces or schools, the intersecting nature of obstacles suggests that they may be more widespread, interwoven, and consequential than research has generally shown. Overlooking the nature of these obstacles also risks making invisible the labor needed to resolve them. Our conceptualization contributes to our understanding of how one seemingly small issue—a missed signature or a lost piece of mail—can trap refugees and stall their attempts to get ahead. We also illuminate how families were helped and were able to overcome these obstacles. Refugee families’ upward mobility journeys were certainly aided by their hard work and thrift, but cultural brokers (helpers with cultural knowledge) and institutional insiders (paid employees doing their jobs, and, occasionally, going the extra mile) made a crucial difference.34 They were key since their cultural knowledge of the rules of the game in U.S. institutions enabled them to help refugees overcome hurdles and resolve knots, thereby helping refugees gain access to services. In one refugee family we introduce, Alain and Vana’s, a neighbor helped their children get accepted to a local Catholic school on scholarships. Similarly, a mom from their son’s soccer team acted as a cultural broker by explaining how college financial aid worked and fixing a paperwork mishap. Other help was connected to people doing their jobs—institutional insiders. For example, educators helped Alain and Vana’s children learn English, improve their academic skills, and apply to high-performing schools and college. A bank loan officer gave Alain and Vana valuable information about how to navigate the mortgage application process in a first-time homebuyer program. Ultimately, they were able to buy a home, which they rented out for additional income.35 Alain and Vana worked hard in grueling, low-paying factory jobs. But money alone wasn’t enough to meet their goals. They also needed access to key people and programs to achieve upward mobility. In some cases, cultural brokers and institutional insiders

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wove across different agencies, creating intersections across institutions through which they gained services and moved ahead.

not just a p e o p l e p r o b l e m The problems that the refugee families faced were linked to the ways policies and programs were designed. The United States was formed around the notion of a weak central government with power placed in the hands of the states and the people. This history has led to a mind-boggling patchwork of federal, state, county, and local systems. Each locality has a different set of rules—everything from how long milk can stay on the grocery store shelf to how you sign up for unemployment insurance.36 In addition, as part of a neoliberal agenda there have been moves to reduce “big government” and strip funding for the social safety net, and fewer people are able to receive assistance.37 Despite little evidence of fraud, workers at nearly every government and private agency spend an inordinate amount of time scrutinizing applicants to see if they are eligible for— and “deserving” of—services.38 These social systems were designed, sometimes deliberately, to trim government services by establishing would-be clients’ (lack of ) deservingness. In this context, refugee families encountered a bewildering array of offices, rules, and regulations. Government agencies, for example, are worried that people are receiving food benefits (SNAP) when they don’t “deserve” to get them. In order to demonstrate their continued eligibility, families need to be “recertified” regularly, sometimes as often as every six months, by producing a complex stack of documents demonstrating financial need, work history, and expenses. With many complex rules and no “slack” (i.e., backup systems to correct errors), even one mistake can have big consequences.39 One missing piece of paper or signature can grind the entire process to a screeching halt. Despite continued eligibility, refugee families lost services, including food stamps, health care, and heating assistance, and they faced long delays in gaining benefits, such as unemployment funds or a green card for permanent residency. Moreover, in the context of cost-cutting, downsizing, and increased surveillance, a variety of American institutions have shifted the responsibility to notice,



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identify, and solve errors to clients, including refugee families.40 It is the organizations, however, that created the hurdles and set the standards. It is the organizations that failed to provide safeguards to correct for mistakes, such as requiring a caseworker to call and follow up. Nor is it the case that these barriers affect only newcomers, like refugees. We know that a significant number of poor families never succeed in getting services they are entitled to receive, including food stamps, medical help, and so forth. For example, almost one-half of eligible women don’t get “WIC” or food supplements for women and children; one-fifth of eligible people don’t file to receive their Earned Income Tax Credit.41 Too often we have looked at the qualities of individuals rather than investigating the systems themselves and examining how complying with the rules of the game can be consequential for getting ahead.42 These systems are not a level playing field. The “rules of the game” are fundamentally unequal according to social class, race, and gender.43 For working-class and poor families, scrutiny and surveillance are often tied to services.44 These standards are also deeply racialized in the ways that the rules are constructed and implemented—what scholars refer to as “racialized administrative burdens.”45 Indeed, in the United States these burdens for proof of deservingness disproportionately demand time and resources from people of color.46 Different expectations for men and women also play a role. For instance, caseworkers in Child Protection Services (CPS) investigations have racialized and gendered expectations for mothers, whether they are conscious of them or not.47 Thus, even seemingly neutral rules and requirements are rooted in inequalities. Policy design can cause problems—but it can also prevent them. Indeed, like air traffic control systems, some organizations have excellent backup plans to prevent errors, such as plane crashes.48 They build “slack” into the system so workers can take stock to see if they are doing things correctly and make changes to correct mishaps. Some social control systems, such as fingerprint identification and police records, prove that relatively easy coordination across state lines is possible.49 The implications of our research are clear. Although there are reasons for creating policies that are complex and contingent, such as ensuring eligibility, our research highlights the fundamental point that unclear, complicated policies increase the risk of errors—with the consequence that people don’t receive

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services. Simple, streamlined policies are better. Each and every rule increases the risk of knots in the social safety net.

our resear c h This book draws on intensive family observations of four Congolese refugee families and in-depth interviews with an additional forty Congolese refugee households and thirty-five aid workers and volunteers to provide a deeper understanding of the experiences of refugees resettled to the United States.50 At the time of the study, refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo were the largest nationality group being resettled to the United States. The study started in Philadelphia, a city with a long history of welcoming newcomers that had reemerged as an immigrant destination by the late twentieth century.51 As a “Welcoming City” for immigrants and refugees, Philadelphia is an important destination to study.52 Indeed, as our research reveals, obstacles emerge even within relatively favorable contexts for receiving newcomers. Three of the focal families arrived in Philadelphia during the same twomonth period and were assisted by the same aid worker from the same resettlement agency. Like all resettled refugees, these families were sponsored by the U.S. government and were helped by a federally funded refugee resettlement agency. As we detail in the methodological appendix (appendix C), aid workers for the resettlement agency were looking for volunteers to help with translation and reached out to a Swahili professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Blair, who speaks Swahili and had done research in a large refugee camp in Kenya over a number of months, agreed to help with an English as a Second Language (ESL) class. She met the focal families at this ESL class within weeks of their arrival in the United States.53 With the families’ permission and approval from various officials, Blair studied the class and visited the Congolese families regularly in their homes—two families for eight months (until they moved away together to Iowa) and the other two for more than eighteen months. Blair accompanied the families on their day-to-day errands, chatted with them in Swahili, and generally did what the families did. While her presence was felt—and, as other studies have found, inevitably shaped the



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family’s dynamics—the families relaxed and adjusted to her presence over time.54 In addition to the families met through the class, we also added another family—Joseph, Georgette, and their children—to the study because they received support from a forty-person volunteer group in addition to U.S. government sponsorship. As a result they had a different adjustment process, as volunteers prevented and solved obstacles by providing financial support and helping navigate red tape. Five years after these families had arrived in the United States, Blair was able to reestablish contact. All the families enthusiastically agreed to follow-up interviews; in three families, she was able to interview not just the parents but also their teenage children. This type of intensive family study research is rare, offering an unusually in-depth look at the experiences of refugee families shortly after their arrival as well as five years later. We focus on the family household rather than individuals, which provides a fuller picture of how obstacles intersect within the family as members navigate institutions. Indeed, it was the intensive observational research of the entire family that proved to be crucial since it showed the ways in which family members were bombarded by demands from many different organizations, the intricate interweaving of obstacles across organizations, and the “near misses” when families narrowly dodged obstacles. The four case studies also revealed ways that families were helped by organizations, yielding advantages over time. Our findings are also rooted in our broader research sample. With the assistance of three Swahili-speaking undergraduate research assistants who grew up in Kenya, we completed interviews with an additional forty resettled Congolese refugee families living across the United States. Blair also conducted interviews with thirty-five aid workers and volunteers who had worked with refugees resettled from the Congo. For additional information about the refugee families in this study, see appendix A, table A.1 and table A.2; for an in-depth discussion of how we did the study, see appendix C. Scholars have raised complex questions on the position of researchers doing research as “outsiders.”55 As White women born and raised in the United States, we are outsiders in terms of race and nationality.56 We also don’t have experience as refugees. Although an outsider, Blair was deeply familiar with eastern and central Africa and had done research in a

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refugee camp in Kenya for more than a year for her graduate school dissertation. She spoke Swahili, which participants commented showed her commitment to and respect for their culture. The refugee families gave her a friendly welcome; they were surprised to meet an American with these experiences and appreciated discussing life in the refugee camp with her, analyzing the qualities of different refugee camps in the region. Reasonable people disagree about the legitimacy and desirability of researchers’ different positionalities. One common position in the social sciences, however, is that both insiders and outsiders have valuable perspectives to bring to the research process. Insiders—in this case, Congolese refugee researchers—would have intimate knowledge of the refugees’ experiences that could likely more easily build a trusting relationship and enhance interpretation of their experiences. Outsiders can bring fresh perspectives too, however, and they can ask questions that might be inappropriate for insiders to raise.57 Still, there is always the risk that outsiders will misunderstand key issues, and researchers shouldn’t presume to have a special rapport with those they study. We wondered, for instance, if Blair’s position as a White American might have affected the families’ comfort discussing issues of racism. However, the interviews conducted by Black Kenyan research assistants, which used the same interview guide, produced similar reports, and throughout our data collection and analysis we discussed our understandings of racism with the Black researchers as well as other scholars. The results were also consistent with those of other researchers.58 Is it possible to gain useful insights from an intensive study of four families, along with interviews of forty additional Congolese families and thirty-five aid workers? We believe that it is. The research offers valuable depth and illuminates the world as experienced by at least some refugees to better understand the obstacles they face in a new country. By designing this study to follow families, we capture mechanisms that produce inequality. We hope this work will help a wide variety of people—from social scientists to aid workers to policy makers—improve their understanding of the factors that block upward mobility. In addition, we situate refugees’ lives in a broader context to highlight how their opportunities are structured by social forces beyond their control. We cannot, of course, empirically generalize our findings as representative of the experiences of



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all refugees. Instead, our work deepens our conceptual understanding of the social mechanisms through which refugees can make progress in their new country.

a note on te r m s a n d na m e s To convey the refugee families’ worldviews as accurately as possible, we draw on the language that the families themselves use in their day-to-day lives. This approach has crucial advantages in that it helps us to understand their experiences more deeply. It also means, however, that sometimes we use concepts and terms that academics (among others) might not choose. For example, although many scholars of immigration use terms such as “incorporation,” our respondents discussed their adjustment in terms of establishing their economic footing.59 Thus, we talk instead of their hopes and progress toward upward mobility (which, of course, is also central in scholars’ conceptualizations of incorporation). In addition, almost all of the refugees received government assistance for food, a program currently called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Most respondents, however, didn’t call it SNAP; along with many other Americans, they called it “food stamps” (an earlier name of the program), or sometimes “government food assistance.” We use their more colloquial terms here. In another example, our respondents most often used the term “the Congo” in describing their country, including when referring to the period from 1971 to 1997, when it was officially called “Zaire,” and during colonialization, when it was called the Free Congo State and later Belgian Congo. In keeping with their words, we refer to the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo as “the Congo” (distinct from the Republic of the Congo, a separate country). We also follow the lead of the refugees we studied in their use of the term Africa. We fully recognize that others have critiqued the use of the term as homogenizing diverse countries and cultures. Since most of the refugees in our study had lived in multiple African countries as they fled the Congo and had friends and relatives in several different countries on the continent, they were also aware of this complexity.60 However, since the refugee families used the term Africa to refer to these cross-country experiences, we follow their lead.

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We also strove to maintain the origin, character, and meaning of each participant’s name in our choice of pseudonyms.61 More than 95 percent of those in the Congo are Christian, and names derived from the Bible, such as Rebeka and Samuel, are common.62 Additionally, due to its colonial history, French is one of the country’s national languages and a lingua franca, and many Congolese have French names, such as Antoinette and Jean. Other Congolese have names typical to their ethnic group, such as the Bembe, with names like Mlasi and Nyange. Other common names are Swahili words such as Amani (peace), Daudi (beloved), and Furaha (happiness).63

what f ollo w s Chapter 1 sets the stage. We briefly review background information by defining features of refugee legal status, as well as offering a short history of colonialization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its impact on the present day. We describe the long pathway to resettlement in the United States—from fleeing war to spending decades in refugee camps and navigating years of bureaucratic interviews and screening. To put the four family case studies into a broader context, we also briefly report on our interviews with forty refugee families and thirty-five aid workers and volunteers, showing how the results of these interviews mirror the patterns of the case studies. Chapters 2 through 5 each feature a case study from our four focal families, detailing how the institutions designed to assist refugees both helped and hindered them. First, we show how obstacles stalled refugees’ progress, beginning with Honoria and her five children in chapter 2. Honoria had to navigate many institutions at once, and each bureaucracy had its own rules and requirements. We show how minor missteps tangled into knots, blocking resources and delaying progress. Sometimes institutional problems metastasized. In chapter 3 we demonstrate how obstacles in one institution reverberated, creating new problems for Malu Malu and Mariamu Mahamba and their eight children. Faced with obstacles in Philadelphia, the family abruptly moved across the country in search of better jobs and lower rent—but they didn’t realize that Malu’s Social



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Security disability payments, food stamps, and medical care wouldn’t automatically transfer. Even though they legally qualified for these benefits, the obstacles to reinstate them were overwhelming. Their problems reverberated, and their American dream stalled. But not all refugees experienced the same trajectory. In chapters 4 and 5 we introduce two families who achieved upward mobility. In chapter 4 we show the importance of cultural brokers for the journey of Joseph and Georgette Ngoma and their five children. They were welcomed by a group of more than forty American church volunteers. In addition to providing donations, these volunteers helped the family overcome obstacles with schools, banks, welfare agencies, and in other settings, which was crucial in helping them get ahead. However, even the savviest volunteer can’t change social and structural forces like the quality of jobs refugees can get, the resources available in low-performing schools, and the enduring impact of racial inequality. Chapter 5 shows the pivotal role of wellresourced institutions and helpful institutional insiders in facilitating upward mobility. Here we introduce Alain and Vana Msafiri and their eight children and show how helpful officials in well-resourced programs were crucial in explaining how to apply for a loan, helping their children fill out financial aid forms, and securing educational opportunities. Despite many setbacks, Alain and Vana ended up becoming homeowners and sending their son to college. In the conclusion we return to the big picture: institutions can open or close pathways to upward mobility for refugees. Although some refugees make progress, others are stalled by the obstacles thrown up by the very agencies designed to help them. The hurdles, knots, and reverberations that families experience can dash their dreams of economic progress. Our findings show that mobility is not just about individual effort. Instead, individuals face obstacles, which in some cases, cultural brokers and institutional insiders can help resolve. More importantly, policies matter. Since this book is written for a wide audience, we have focused especially on providing a detailed account of the journeys of four families to illuminate key patterns that we found throughout our study. We have also included an appendix with tables providing details about the refugee families we interviewed (appendix A); a longer discussion of the scholarly debates that inform this book, particularly other valuable studies of

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immigration (appendix B); and a methodological appendix on how we conducted the study (appendix C). More detailed information on the forty-four families, including the obstacles they faced and the benefits they received, appears in an online appendix (www.ucpress.edu/go/wethought-it-would-be-heaven). The next chapter provides background on what it means to be a refugee and follows our study participants as they fled war in the Congo and sought safety in refugee camps.

1

Journeys to America lots of red tape My town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a good town, and that’s how life was: good. My parents were farmers. When I was about twelve or thirteen, the war escalated. It all happened suddenly. An emergency. Fighters lit our house on fire. We all fled in different directions. While we were running away, our parents went back to look for food. On their way they met soldiers, and they were both killed. I fled with my aunt, one of my brothers, and one of my sisters. First, we fled on foot. Then, when we reached Lake Tanganyika, we took a boat to cross. When we arrived, the United Nations was receiving refugees. They took us to a refugee camp, Nyarugusu. I arrived there in 1996 and left the camp in 2015. Nineteen years in the camp. . . . Then I reached here, America. Baraka, Congolese father of five

Baraka’s traumatic experiences of violence and years in a refugee camp were common among refugees we interviewed. Their journeys were connected to both the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the broader historical context of colonialism. In this chapter we provide background on these critical issues and share the stories of Congolese families, like Baraka’s, at the onset of fighting as they fled to refugee camps. We provide an overview of the institutional steps required to become a legally designated refugee and show how refugee resettlement is different from the experiences of other immigrants. Once migrants are 19

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legally designated as refugees, they are entitled to special rights and resources, which offer the promise of making their adjustment easier. These promised rights and resources, however, are often not realized.

who is a re f u g e e ? Refugees are a type of migrant who, like Baraka, typically migrate across borders fleeing war and persecution due to ethnic violence, hostility to one’s sexual orientation, political persecution, or other factors, including, increasingly, environmental disasters such as drought.1 Refugees cross international borders in their search for a safe haven and are no longer protected by their own government. Instead, the United Nations Refugee Agency (also known as the UNHCR) steps in as a “guardian.”2 Refugees are granted special legal status by the UNHCR and by local governments after they successfully pass through a series of institutional steps.3 This authorization is based on the legal definition of refugees in the 1951 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, which was established in the wake of World War II. It defines a refugee as a forcibly displaced person who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”4 Nation-states assess if migrants are “deserving of asylum and assistance,” and often these policies are rooted in foreign policy and national interests.5 Indeed, the established definition has been contested as overly narrow by practitioners, policy makers, and scholars.6 For instance, at the time of this writing so-called “climate refugees” don’t qualify for refugee status, despite rising displacement due to climate change.7 Migrants may also flee their home countries to escape violence, such as crime and gang activity, without being recognized and classified as refugees by international organizations and governments.8 Official refugee status comes with rights and can qualify families for humanitarian assistance.9 Under the principle of non-refoulement in international human rights law, states cannot expel or turn away refugees, returning them to a country where they would be in danger. Refugees with



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recognized status are also eligible for a process known as refugee resettlement. Thus, while there are important parallels between the experiences of refugees and other types of migrants, refugees have distinctive institutional status and rights, with a pathway to resettlement and access to key services in America.

resettlemen t t o t h e u n i t e d s tat e s : services at a rr i va l Less than 1 percent of refugees are resettled globally each year. Others are eventually able to return home, while many remain in displacement in refugee camps, cities, towns, and host communities. In recent years only thirty-seven “resettlement countries” have accepted refugees for resettlement.10 All of these countries have quotas, which fluctuate with changing political tides. Years ago, during the second half of the twentieth century, the United States was considered a leader in resettlement, admitting more refugees than the rest of the world combined.11 For decades U.S. refugee and asylum policy was ideologically motivated by Cold War geopolitics, and the country opened its doors to refugees fleeing communist countries such as the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Cuba.12 In the post–Cold War era, policy makers’ priorities have continued to be influenced by perceptions of “worthiness,” which are tied to refugees’ race, ethnicity, politics, and, increasingly, whether they can demonstrate that they are not a threat to national security.13 For almost a decade, from 2014 through the time of this writing in 2022, refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been the largest resettlement group to the United States. As a predominantly Christian group with limited ties to U.S.-labeled terror organizations, the Congolese have been seen as a relatively uncontroversial group for resettlement.14 While the number of refugees worldwide has skyrocketed, the number of slots in the United States has dropped. Admittance plummeted during the restrictive policies of the Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching a low of 11,814 in 2020.15 In the last few years resettlement has rebounded somewhat. The Biden administration increased the annual quotas to previous levels (setting a ceiling of 125,000 slots in

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2022), but at the time of this writing the number of refugees admitted has remained well below the ceiling.16 Compared to U.S. refugee admissions in previous years, such as 1980, when 207,116 refugees were admitted, annual refugee resettlement remains low. The U.S. federal government has an agreement with the United Nations to offer humanitarian assistance to refugees. Once refugees arrive in the United States, the federal government provides special but limited services.17 Usually, the United States contracts with independent nonprofit organizations that have expertise in resettlement to provide these services. Some of these organizations have a religious mission. Refugees are met at the airport by staff from these resettlement agencies (including a translator) and are provided temporary housing or moved into apartments that the caseworkers have furnished from donations. Since the families are projected to have modest incomes, caseworkers typically find housing for them in low-income neighborhoods, some of which have high levels of violence.18 U.S. guidelines also mandate that resettlement agencies (which are given a flat fee per person received) help the families with certain tasks, including applying for food stamps, enrolling children in school, and securing other government benefits, typically for the first three months after resettlement.19 Since many of the jobs refugees secure pay low wages, many families qualify to receive food stamps even after they are employed. Caseworkers make doctor’s appointments, accompany the family to get additional vaccinations, and also help them get jobs. As noted, the expectation is that after three months the family will be independent and no longer need services provided by a caseworker. (If the family is considered “high need,” they can qualify to continue receiving help.) In the United States, refugee families move through a series of legal steps, each one requiring a great deal of paperwork. For example, when they enter the United States, they receive a special work permit for one year (table 3). After twelve months all refugees are required to apply for a green card. Once receiving it, they become a legal permanent resident. After five years, if they fulfill a long list of requirements, including passing the citizenship test and paying fees, they can become citizens. U.S. citizenship is the culmination of a long journey that usually began decades earlier.



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Table 3 Legal determination process for refugee resettlement Steps

Legal status after step

Notes

Flee country; registered by UN worker or designee

 nter refugee status E determination process

Given a card with name and birthdate to be used for rations and eligibility to accompany the refugee on resettlement

Complete Refugee Status Determination interview

Refugee

Often in the refugee camp

Selected for resettlement after clearing multiple steps; arrive in U.S.; signed up for social services; expected to be self-sufficient in 90 days

Resettled refugee

Allowed to work; given a specific temporary form (currently called I-94)

Within 12 months after arriving in U.S. must apply for permanent residency

Legal permanent resident

Leads to a “green card,” which permits working

After 5 years from entry, eligible Citizen to become a citizen if requirements are filled

Right to vote, can run for public office, cannot be deported

fleeing war : t h e f i r s t a n d s e c o n d c o n g o wa r s , 1996–2003 All of the adult members of the families discussed in this book fled from the violence of the First Congo War (1996–97) and the Second Congo War (1998–2003). According to a study by the International Rescue Committee, more than 5.4 million people died in the First and Second Congo Wars—more than in any other conflict since World War II.20

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Another two million people were displaced from their homes.21 (Some estimates put the population of the country to have been around fifty million in 2003; by 2022 it had grown to around ninety million.) The cause of the fighting is complex, but it is rooted in a history of brutal colonial rule by Belgium.22 Early International Intervention: Trade, Colonialism, and Exploitation The region now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which was called “Zaire” from the 1970s through the 1990s)23 has a long history of invention and international trade dating back as early as the 1400s.24 During the Atlantic slave trade (from roughly 1500 to 1850), the Portuguese, British, French, and Dutch bought and transported an estimated four million people from the Congo coast, accounting for almost a third of all persons trafficked in the entire slave trade.25 Later, King Leopold II of Belgium gained control over the territory at the Berlin Conference in 1885. For twenty-three years Leopold was the complete and absolute ruler of the Congo Free State—a land area as large as Western Europe—treating it as his own personal territory.26 Leopold extracted riches from the Congo, including ivory, rubber, and copper, to fund castles and buildings of national pride in Belgium. As a result of Leopold’s violent and punitive policies of taxation, forced labor, and exploitation, local trade was crippled. Historians have documented how the Congolese people suffered from poverty, injury, malnourishment, and disease under Leopold’s rule.27 When the Belgian government took over the colony in 1908, the colonial state continued these extractive policies, but it also became increasingly bureaucratic, as official policies were put in place and the state became more hierarchical and centralized. For instance, freedom of movement was curtailed, and a system of internal passports was introduced.28 Even after the end of colonialism in the middle of the twentieth century, its legacy lives on in the persistence of tension among some of the country’s more than two hundred ethnic groups and the conflicts over the Congo’s abundant natural resources, including gold, diamonds, rubber, and coltan (an ore used in the manufacture of cell phones and other electronic devices).29



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Independence: Nationalism, Exploitation, and International Ties After decades of brutality and unrest, the Congo transitioned to self-rule in 1960. Early in its independence, leftist Patrice Lumumba, a promising young leader, was elected as prime minister. Yet, in a coup backed by the American CIA and Belgium—who feared Lumumba’s ties to the Soviets— Lumumba was assassinated.30 In 1965, Western-backed Joseph-Désiré Mobutu became president of the Congo, which he renamed Zaire in 1971. Mobutu consolidated power and ruled for decades as a dictator, torturing and buying off his enemies. A member of the Ngbandi ethnic group, he stoked ethnic tensions within the country. Although he enacted a program of “national authenticity” to purge colonial cultural influences, he also drew on the extractive colonial economic systems, nationalized mining industries, and embezzled an estimated $5 billion for himself and his loyalists. Many of the Congolese we interviewed recalled economic hardship, limited government services, and instability under Mobutu’s rule. As one of the refugees in our study, Joseph, reflected, “Congo is a rich country. There are so many minerals. Yet, for the Congolese people, it is a poor country.” Toward the end of Mobutu’s rule in the 1990s, the country’s GDP per capita declined from $250 to $100, ranking it among the poorest countries in the world.31 Wealth and poverty were distributed unequally. Many Congolese were farmers, planting maize, beans, and fruits. As there was plentiful fertile land, another refugee, Delphin, reminisced, “There was plenty. . . . If not for war, we had a good life.” Some found work in government offices, as tax accountants and bureaucrats, while others were teachers, but by the 1990s only 5 percent of the population worked in the formal sector (compared to 40 percent in 1955).32 Indeed, as Baraka recalled, “You went to school and earned your certificates, but once you graduated, there was no job.” For many, school was out of reach, either too far away or too expensive.33 Hamisi, a Congolese father of seven, emphasized, “Our government did not take care of us.” Simon, another refugee, concurred: “If you did not hustle, you would live a very difficult life.” Reflecting, Joseph concluded, “There are three kinds of war in Africa. There is a war where a soldier will shoot you dead. And there is a war

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where people lack medication and die. The third type of war is hunger. In Congo, there were all three.” Civil Conflict and International Meddling: The Eruption of War Most of the families in this book originated from the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which borders Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania. The region was a patchwork, controlled in different areas by four different groups: the ethnic Hutu militia, the ethnic Tutsi militia, the Mai-Mai local militias, and the Congolese national army. Fighting emerged between these four factions vying for power in localities in the eastern region, as well as in other parts of the country.34 In part, the conflict was a spillover of fighting from across the border. Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, persecuted Tutsis took control of the government. A million Hutus (the ethnic group that had previously been in power) fled the country, with many seeking refuge over the border in the Congo. The UNHCR set up refugee camps for the Rwandese Hutu in the eastern region of the Congo.35 This influx shifted the local balance of power between the Congolese Hutu and Tutsi, inflaming tensions between the two groups.36 Rwandese troops (under a Tutsi government) crossed into the Congo to provide support to the Congolese Tutsi, attacking the Rwandese Hutu refugee camps. Other countries, including Uganda and Tanzania, quickly gave their support to the anti-Mobutu forces. Backed by Rwanda and other foreign interests, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the Congolese leader of anti-Mobutu forces, led his militaries to Kinshasa, the capital city of the Congo, and eventually overthrew Mobutu to become the country’s third president in 1997.37 As tensions built, Congolese civilians faced increasing violence. For example, Hamisi lived with his family in a quiet rural region in South Kivu. As suspicions of the opposition movement led by Kabila spread, Hamisi recounted how “the police started killing people, claiming that it was our brothers, our relatives, who had formed the opposition group.” Meanwhile, Kabila, also increasingly worried about arrest, began killing suspected traitors. Villagers like Hamisi were caught in the middle. Then Hamisi started seeing foreign soldiers passing through the area: “Rwandese, Burundians, Tanzanians, what is this? How come we have all those nationalities coming here?”38 The Mai-Mai, a local militia, gained



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momentum and fighting escalated. Government police officers, soldiers, and then villagers started fleeing. Local and international institutions failed to protect Hamisi and the other refugees in this book. They fled across the border to neighboring countries on difficult and dangerous journeys. 39 For instance, when Marie’s husband was taken hostage by the Mai-Mai (and later killed), she fled with her parents on foot to Lake Tanganyika, where they took a boat to Tanzania: “If you are not lucky, you might all die in the lake because of the waves. It’s all about praying for God’s mercy. Those who were in front of us all drowned because their boat was overturned by waves. But God granted us the grace, and we arrived safely.” Nor did making it across the border always lead to safety. Sifuna and his family were some of the first to flee to Tanzania, where they received pushback from police: The first people were turned down. The Tanzania police told them, “No, go back home. There is no war.” When we arrived, the elders told them, “We are not leaving this place. If you kill us, then go ahead and kill us. War has erupted in Congo, and we are not going back there! If you say there isn’t war, then grab your boats and go confirm.”

The police boarded boats, binoculars in hand, to find that “the lake was full of people—some swimming, and some rowing boats. Men, their wives, and children.” The police returned to shore and took Sifuna and the others to a government protection area. As the war escalated, the UNHCR and governments in neighboring countries began preparing refugee camps. In the period after the families in this book fled, the Congo remained in turmoil with shifting political alliances and patterns of periodic violence.40 Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated in 2001, and his son, Joseph, was instated as the new president. As conflict has continued, economic motivations have become increasingly central, particularly linked to resource extraction by companies from the Global North (such as European companies’ pursuit of coltan, which is used in cell phones).41 The Norwegian Refugee Council declared the situation in the Congo to be the world’s most neglected refugee crisis in 2021 and 2022.42 Due to the continued fighting and displacement, the refugee families in this book remained in camps, unable to return home. Fleeing to refugee camps brought respite from a war zone but introduced new challenges.

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“a tent in t h e j u n g l e ” : r e f u g e e ca m p s While the majority of the world’s refugees live in cities and towns, most Congolese refugees reside in camps and settlements.43 In this section we discuss some of the key features of the refugee camps where the families in this book sought safety. Almost all of the forty-four families we interviewed lived for years in refugee camps, most in countries neighboring the Congo, such as Burundi, Uganda, and Tanzania. Some of the adults met and married in the camps; most of their children were born in the camps. While a few of the families later moved to another refugee camp or to the outskirts of local urban areas, most stayed put. Many would have preferred to have returned to their homes, but political circumstances did not permit it. Refugee camps vary, but most are run by the UN with the help of nongovernmental agencies (NGOs) and international aid organizations, with the permission (and oversight) of the host country’s government. Some camps grow large, with some even hosting more than two hundred thousand residents. In some camps refugees can move freely, but often movement is greatly restricted—“kind of like being in a cage,” as Pierre, a Congolese refugee displaced to Tanzania, put it. In the context of extremely limited aid and scarce resources, there is often tension between refugees and aid workers.44 Like many refugees, when the families in this book arrived in the camps, they were registered by the UN. (Today refugees are often fingerprinted and their irises are scanned.)45 Subsequently, they were interviewed by a UN designee. After their cases were approved, they were given the legal status of refugee (table 3). After being registered at the refugee camp, they were eligible for basic assistance. Food rations were typically provided once or twice a month.46 Rations were basic; as Sifuna remembered, “It was all about njegere [green peas] and ugali [a cornmeal similar to polenta]. Njegere and ugali each and every day.” Ndabe laughed, “If you mention njegere to any refugee from Tanzanian camps, they will have butterflies in their stomach just thinking about it.” In many camps, budget shortages led to rations being cut.47 Parents, like Pastor Jean, cringed remembering their children crying of hunger.48



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Aid organizations assigned the families a small plot of land and provided basic housing materials, such as a tent or materials to build a mud hut. (In other regions of the world, organizations sometimes provide shipping containers.) When Pierre and his family first arrived, They took us to the camp and then measured a certain space and allocated it to us: “Do you see this?” “Yes.” “This will be your home. This is your tent.” Back home in the DRC, even though our houses were destroyed, we had good homes. Now, we had to live in a tent in the middle of the jungle.

Water was available at central pumps. Makeshift latrine pits were often put up behind housing and covered by tin or scraps of fabric. Some betteroff families paid other refugees to use their generators for electricity a few hours a day. Churches and mosques were also common. Many refugees had cell phones they brought or purchased (but camps do not typically provide Wi-Fi). Although medicine was often available for life-threatening conditions, such as malaria and tuberculosis, treatment for other medical conditions was limited. Dental care was usually nonexistent, and family planning services were scarce.49 Many of the camps had high crime rates and suffered from theft, rape, assault, and, less commonly, murder. Some camps provided limited police security, either from local police forces or refugee groups.50 In many camps primary education was provided for free, and adults could also attend school. Fewer children continued to secondary school, which in some camps required paying an annual fee. Class sizes were sometimes eighty students or more.51 Students crowded into shared desks and huddled over shared textbooks while others sat on the floor. Austin remembered his friends being discouraged by the lack of post-secondary educational and professional opportunities: “You don’t have a chance to continue your education to become a doctor. You are not dreaming.”52 Economic opportunities for refugees in the camps were also limited. In many countries, like Kenya and Tanzania, refugees are not allowed to work. (Uganda is a notable exception; here refugees are given the right to work and freedom of movement.)53 Some refugees in camps received remittances from friends or relatives abroad.54 Sometimes they sold food rations for cash.55 A few were able to get jobs at the UN and NGOs in the camp for a small monthly stipend—often around $60 a month. Some, like

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Zainab, worked as nurses at the camp hospitals, where they treated fellow refugees. Others like Grace worked as counselors helping other refugees process their trauma. In some camps refugees were given small plots to farm or raise livestock.56 Some started small businesses, selling single-use quantities of soap or working as tailors.57 Delphin and his wife eked out a living selling green peas, sorghum, salt, and beans bowl by bowl to local Tanzanians for a profit of five cents per bowl. Refugees reported forging very close social ties with others in the camp, and other research has shown that since there are perennial food crises, refugees turn to each other for food.58 Since most cannot return to their homes, many families live in camps for a long time. Even so, most hope to find their way out. As Austin reminisced, “Everyone in the refugee camp always dreamt of going to America or Australia or Canada. We wanted to move out of the camp.”

lots of red ta p e : t h e l e n g t h y resettleme n t p r o c e ss The resettlement process is long and rife with institutional hurdles. Usually it takes years.59 Any obstacle threatens to delay or even derail resettlement. Institutions, including the UN and government agencies in the receiving country, play a central role in selecting and processing refugee cases for resettlement.60 Despite being “registered” when they arrive at the camp, refugees must be evaluated again later to determine if they qualify for resettlement.61 The decision about who is to be relocated is linked to a complex set of issues. For refugees, this complicated process is a “black box.”62 Families may fit within priority processing categories, such as families with disabled members, that make them somewhat more likely to be selected for resettlement.63 As a result, it’s common for refugee families in the United States to have a disabled member in need of health care services.64 In some instances—due to bureaucratic priorities, a desire to close camps, and other factors—resettlement workers might select thousands of refugees from the same camp. For example, in a refugee camp in Tanzania that held around 64,500 registered Congolese refugees, the UN resettled 15,000, or around 25 percent of camp residents (includ-



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ing Malu Malu and Mari; see chapter 3).65 Hamisi, who was resettled with his family in this wave, recalled, “We had been in the refugee camp for nineteen years when we heard the American government wanted to resettle 32,000 refugees to America. Refugees who had arrived in the refugee camp from 1996 to 2002 were eligible for resettlement.” This mass resettlement from one camp increased the likelihood that extended family or neighbors might qualify for resettlement too; it also helped aid workers meet their quotas. After all, if resettlement workers do not fulfill a quota for resettlement of refugees, the resettlement slots vanish rather than being added to the quota for the following year. Aid workers are eager to resettle as many refugees as possible, but budget cuts can lead to insufficient staff to process refugees through the complex pipeline. The United States has more extensive screening than other countries. Refugees to the United States are screened by eight different U.S. agencies, five security databases, six background checks, and three interviews to determine the truthfulness of their claims.66 The U.S. also scrutinizes refugees for links to terrorist organizations. After refugees have been identified, there is a health screening to confirm that the refugees don’t have tuberculosis or other serious diseases. In some cases families are told that they are going to be resettled, but then they fail to clear a particular hurdle and the resettlement process is paused—sometimes for years, or even indefinitely. For instance, women who are pregnant can be delayed, and this would delay the resettlement of the entire family. When Austin found out his family had been accepted for resettlement to the United States, their happiness was tempered by worry that their process could be derailed: We knew this family that was supposed to be resettled to America. But on their moving day, they had problems with their plane ticket, so they couldn’t travel. They had to stay in the camp. If something happens and you have to stay, it usually means staying in the camp—if you are lucky, three or four months, but if you are unlucky, it can be another five years. It happens.

As a result, he was anxious: When we were scheduled to leave the camp to travel to the U.S., we were waiting for the bus to come and take us to the airport. We waited for like

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four hours, which wasn’t normal. Usually, you wait for like two hours. We thought, “Maybe they are not going to come today. Maybe we will just have to stay behind.” Then, just one bus came. We were like, “Three buses were supposed to come! Not just one.” I thought bad news was coming. And then they called our names to get in the bus, and we were like, “Ooh, we are going! We are really going!”

Resettlement is processed on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes different family members are part of different cases. Cases are determined by who is registered together on the identification cards in the camp. Sometimes family members each have their own card. For example, a married couple may not have joint ID cards. In this instance, their resettlement case would be processed separately. As a result, families are sometimes split up in resettlement. Zainab, for example, was resettled on the same case as her daughter and granddaughter but on a separate case from her son and his family, who were “left behind.” After the entire family clears the screenings, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) helps them get visas and passports, books airplane flights, brings them to the city where they will depart, and ushers them to the airport. Refugees do not choose their destination and are often not assigned to a city or town until soon before the day of departure. For instance, Hamisi hoped for resettlement to Tennessee: “There were some friends in Tennessee who wanted me to come to Tennessee to offer music services in their church . . . but I personally can’t assign myself a state in the U.S. It doesn’t work that way.” Instead, Hamisi and his family were sent to Chicago, Illinois. Once in the United States, however, many refugees later move to a location of their choosing.67 Out of the forty-four families in this book, eighteen (41 percent) reported moving within the United States. Before departure, the IOM leads a cultural orientation with information such as the logistics of flying on an airplane, the proper way to manage the airplane bathrooms, and basic information about the receiving country. Before boarding the plane, refugees entering the United States are given a paper to sign that states that the cost of the flight is a nointerest loan that has to be repaid in forty-two months.68 In sum, for refugees the journey to resettlement in a new country is a long process, rife with institutional obstacles.



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an official w e l c o m e Resettlement agencies (nonprofit organizations contracted by the government) welcome refugees to the United States, but faced with limited funds, heavy caseloads, and high levels of need, they often face challenges in providing services.69 Over the years government funding levels have decreased, and at the time of this writing they were 50 percent of what they were in earlier decades.70 The resettlement assistance period has also become shorter and shorter, while agencies and refugees have to get by with less. One caseworker, Wendy, reported having eighteen current cases, five of which she described as “high needs.” Zeus, another caseworker, was balancing fifteen cases. Because many of the families were large, he estimated he was supporting sixty to seventy people across his cases, many of them with needs that surpassed basic service requirements. He explained, “As a case manager, you may find yourself going beyond your assignment. In your assignment, it doesn’t say you have to teach refugee clients how to write a check—you just have to take them to the bank. But since they don’t know all this, I have to go beyond to try to teach it.” To fill in the gaps, some resettlement agencies work with volunteers who sponsor refugee families.71 Many sponsorship groups are formed from members of local religious groups. Resettlement agencies provide basic training and guidelines for sponsors and limited assistance from caseworkers to troubleshoot. Sponsors are required to sign a contractual commitment to help the family. About one-quarter of the refugees we interviewed (ten families) received help from volunteers, often in teams that were formally set up by resettlement agencies. Volunteers were different than the contractually obligated, federally paid resettlement agency workers.72 Volunteers provided tutoring, brought dinner, made doctor’s appointments, and helped manage bank accounts, providing a wide range of services to facilitate a family’s adjustment to America (see chapter 4). They called schools, attended meetings, filled out paperwork, and worked to teach refugee families these skills. According to Kari, a volunteer coordinator and volunteer herself, “It’s a lot. The first maybe three to six months are a lot of hand-holding, a lot of time commitment.” Joann, another volunteer, emphasized, “You have got to bring in other people. If I was alone, I

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couldn’t do it. You get so much from talking to everyone [and] pitching in.” Whitney, the lead volunteer in one group, worked forty hours a week at the beginning; Michelle, in charge of managing medical care for another family, spent ten hours a week; Kathleen, on the education committee, put in at least twenty hours a week. As Kathleen explained, “If I wasn’t on the phone or advocating or going to the school, then [I would just be] at the house. Sometimes just showing up when parents were getting home from work and calling the Swahili interpreter and just being there trying to sort things out [or] going through the mail.” Some volunteer groups also raised significant donations for the families, subsidizing rent or purchasing items like clothes or even a car. Marie, a Congolese refugee resettled to Colorado, remembered how when they first arrived, volunteers “picked up the children to buy them shoes and coats for the snow.” A year later, when Marie’s son was in the hospital for surgery, Nicole, a volunteer, arranged food and rides to the hospital every day. When Beatrice, a Congolese mother of three, was having trouble fetching her children from school due to her conflicting work schedule, volunteers pitched in, as she explained: By good luck the volunteers we had would help me to pick him up from school every day. I was very grateful. . . . At first, I really suffered. After I shared it with the American volunteers, they volunteered to be picking him up from school. They made a schedule to pick him up so that I can have that time to go to work.

One common theme in the interviews with volunteers and aid workers was the satisfying nature of the work. Volunteers emphasized how deeply gratifying it was to work with the refugee families. Joann professed, “You get more than you have ever given.”

multiple in s t i t u t i o n s , d e p e n d e n t bu t uncon necte d When refugees arrive in the United States, they begin the process of starting a new life in a new country. With the help of case workers and volunteers, they begin setting up a household infrastructure of utilities, bank accounts, and schools. Most researchers and policymakers have focused



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their attention on one type of institution or another, but, as appendix A, table A.3 reveals, the reality is that families interact with many of these institutions all at the same time.73 In this section we briefly preview our findings, drawing on the resettlement experiences of the broader sample of Congolese families we interviewed, as well as the aid workers and volunteers, to show that they revealed very similar patterns in the four focal families featured in the following chapters. Additionally, as the Congolese families were seen and treated as Black immigrants, we discuss how racism and xenophobia compounded these obstacles. Resources and Support in the Social Safety Net Like American families, refugees are eligible for many beneficial services and programs, such as Head Start and childcare programs, medical insurance, food stamps, emergency cash assistance, tutoring, college financial aid, and first-time homebuyer programs. In interviews, the refugee families in this book reported that these supports helped them, and especially their children, get ahead (see appendix A, table A.4). A number reported reductions in hunger, like Zainab, who enthused: After arriving [in the United States], we were never hungry. They gave us food stamp assistance. We were still new with no jobs. . . . They told us, “You use food stamps when you go to the store.” . . . We used it to buy groceries, and just like that we never went hungry. No kids were complaining of hunger.

With her comment, “just like that,” Zainab credited the speedy, transformative government resource for providing sufficient food for her children. While food stamp assistance was limited, Zainab’s comment also underscored the skills that many of the families developed from many years of scrimping, making do with meager resources in the refugee camps. Children in these families also benefited from access to free public education for elementary school through high school as well as the provision of books, educational materials, and transportation—resources less common in the Congo and refugee camp settings. As Kasumba remarked, “I was amazed by the fact that children are picked up to go to school and

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dropped back home by a bus. Secondly, children are given food at school, and therefore they cannot learn on empty stomachs. Thirdly, learning is free. There are no fees that parents need to pay.” Many of the children also attended free summer school programs for immigrant children with curricula for English-language learners. Some were admitted to college-prep programs with mentorship. For instance, Austin attended a two-week summer program before his first semester of college “where they run you through the whole college experience.” In a few families, young adults like Austin even received full-ride scholarships to cover the cost of attending college. Overall, eleven of forty-four families (25 percent) reported that their children had enrolled in college, including community college. Some agencies also provided benefits to compensate for shortcomings in other institutions, creating an institutionally interwoven safety net. When Beatrice’s hours were reduced at the nursing home where she worked, she, a single mother, couldn’t pay her bills. She explained, I visited a certain caseworker who normally helps us. I told him, “I only work for three days and the money I get is not enough. What do I do?” He said, “Let me send in an application.” He sent in the application for me, so now I receive an extra $500.

This cash assistance from government social welfare agencies helped her family avoid new problems, such as eviction, unpaid bills, or penalties to her credit score. Thus, when resources from one institution (the workplace) were reduced, Beatrice and her family benefited from resources from another (social welfare agencies), which helped her family get by. Obstacles in Accessing the Safety Net Since refugee families needed to navigate many institutions at the same time, there were also many opportunities for complex challenges to arise. In interviews, all of the families reported a large number of obstacles in accessing institutional benefits, some of which are detailed in appendix A, table A.5, and the online appendix (www.ucpress.edu/go/we-thought-itwould-be-heaven). Similar to the focal families, these families revealed they had experienced hurdles (routine rules and requirements), knots (complex institutional tangles triggered by a mishap), and reverberations



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(problems that spread across institutions). These obstacles were common and widespread: every family in the study reported obstacles that spanned a wide range of institutions. Moreover, the obstacles proved consequential: some blocked access to critical resources, resulting, for example, in food stamps terminated or being double charged by an unscrupulous landlord. As families navigated many institutions, the consequences could multiply. Several refugee families reported running into problems with immigration status—even with a legal pathway based on their refugee status. Refugees are required to obtain a green card after one year. With the help of a caseworker, Beatrice and her three children applied for green cards, but the process tangled when the post office didn’t properly process a change of address and a key document failed to arrive. This mishap with the post office created endless complications and required multiple meetings with her resettlement agency, the post office, the government immigration office, and other social workers. Managing each required extra labor. The snag took eight months to resolve—a delay that threatened to create new problems. Due to federal requirements, workplaces require workers to provide evidence of their legal eligibility for employment.74 Refugees, like Beatrice, reported that delays in receiving their green cards created the risk of reverberating problems, such as putting their jobs at risk if their employer asked for documentation. Similarly, many refugee families detailed obstacles they encountered as they navigated financial institutions. For example, Abedi hit a snag when he tried to cancel a credit card while attending college. He called to cancel the card, but he didn’t know to get a written confirmation of the cancellation. He received notices, but when he called the credit card company, officials assured him the account was closed. Despite Abedi’s attempts the problem reverberated when, years later, he was surprised to be turned down for a home mortgage: When I went to buy a house, they pulled my social security number. And it came up that I owe $1,500. . . . When I called [the bank for the credit card] that day, they said, “You are supposed to go to court for this charge because you have not been making payments and we already sued you.” What? . . . I think the mistake I made was when I talked with the bank to close my account. I did not get the confirmation letter or anything like that. I didn’t know. . . . It took me time to build my credit back because of that.

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The credit card problem became a knot and then reverberated, preventing him from buying a home until years later. Nor were these financial institution errors, which tangled into knots, unusual among our interviewees.75 Some obstacles couldn’t be overcome, even with help from caseworkers and volunteers. Zawadi, a single mother of three children, was welcomed by a fleet of American volunteers headed by Whitney, who got involved through her Episcopal church. Volunteers tutored Zawadi’s children, drove them to soccer practice, went to medical appointments, and paid their tuition for private school. However, they couldn’t solve a key paperwork problem: Zawadi’s first and last names were reversed on her Social Security documentation. For adults born in the United States, changing a name on a Social Security card requires bringing in a birth certificate, but Zawadi, like many refugees, didn’t have a birth certificate (the identification form from the resettlement card was used instead). In an attempt to fix the error, Whitney spoke to Zawadi’s resettlement agency caseworker. The caseworker was herself a refugee. As Whitney explained: On her original documents, Zawadi’s name is backwards, and I tried to get that fixed. And [the caseworker] said, “They got my birthday wrong when I got here. They [recorded] me as three years younger than I am. I literally have to work three more years before I get Social Security because it cannot be changed.” She is like, “[the name] cannot be changed, her name is going to be backwards forever.” I am like, “That is impossible.” She was like, “Do you think I want to work three more years to get Social Security?”

Thus, even with the help of an experienced caseworker and a determined American volunteer, not all institutional obstacles could be overcome.

racist rule s , ra c i s t o u t c o m e s When refugees and immigrants come to the United States, they enter a country marked by historical and contemporary racial inequality intertwined with anti-immigrant sentiment. The Congolese refugee families in this book were seen and treated by others in the United States as Black, and through their interactions over time, many learned about racism in the United States and gained a greater awareness of the American racial



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hierarchy—more specifically, where they stood as Black immigrants.76 We summarize their experiences in the appendix (appendix A, table A.6).77 For the refugee families in this book, racism and xenophobia made matters worse, prompting more opportunities for institutional obstacles and making them harder to overcome. Schools, workplaces, courts, banks, and many other everyday institutions in the United States are marred by long-standing racial inequities.78 Scholars have extensively demonstrated that many institutional rules are rooted in racist conceptions of groups and disproportionately disadvantage people of color, thereby creating an uneven playing field.79 Historically, policy makers designed Social Security to exclude Black Americans by restricting eligibility for farm workers and domestic workers—jobs commonly held by Black people—thus preventing them from being eligible for these benefits in old age.80 In education, many colleges and universities consider SAT scores for admission, scores that have been shown to measure educational opportunities more than college preparation, thus disadvantaging Black students compared to White ones.81 Child Protective Services disproportionately opens investigations against Black families, with 53 percent of Black children experiencing such an investigation before their eighteenth birthday compared to 23 percent of White children.82 Even when institutional gatekeepers lack racist intent, the enforcement of these unjust rules has the outcome of disadvantaging Black families and reinforcing racial inequality. Within institutions, frontline workers play a key role: they can enthusiastically help clients overcome obstacles or drag their feet, making things harder. Extensive research has found racial bias in how institutional gatekeepers treat clients; workers are less polite and helpful in interactions with Black clients compared to White ones. Employers are half as likely to consider hiring Black job seekers compared to White ones.83 Hotel concierges are less polite and provide less information to Black guests compared to White guests.84 In welfare offices, bureaucrats are more likely to punish Black welfare recipients than White ones by closing their cases or reducing their benefits.85 Studies have also found that educators are more likely to treat Black children harshly than White children, to refer Black students for severe punishments, and to be unresponsive to the concerns of Black parents, including middle-class Black parents seeking educa-

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tional advantages for their children.86 Police disproportionately stop Black drivers compared to White drivers, speak less respectfully to Black people, are more likely to arrest Black drivers, and are more likely to shoot and kill Black people.87 Black defendants are punished more harshly, receiving longer sentences from the same judge than White defendants.88 In short, institutional agents have been found to treat clients in a racially unequal fashion, thereby increasing the risk that Black clients, including refugees, face obstacles in their interactions with agencies. Indeed, the refugee families in this book reported that they encountered racism and xenophobia as they interacted with institutional gatekeepers: bosses, school administrators, real estate agents, and social service workers. This discrimination created and compounded obstacles. For example, Kashindi, who was a machine operator in a car factory, remarked that some White people at work discounted that “Blacks are normal human beings.” Bahati, who worked at a manufacturing job, lamented that “some even say that Africans stink. Such things [like] we do not take a shower.” Amani, who worked for a university dining service, saw himself as receiving inferior work assignments due to his race and immigrant background: There are White people I see who seem to look down on Black-skinned people. They hide it, but it’s there. Our colleagues at work are contemptuous towards Black people—maybe because they think we are not bright, or they believe we come from very poor countries. If [my White colleague] is given a task to do, he will pass it to us. Because we do not understand the language well and to keep our jobs, we just do it.

Several families also reported instances of racism at school.89 For instance, when Rosa’s son was assaulted by a White student, the administrators overlooked the incident.90 As Rosa explained, “My child went to school and was hurt by a White kid. They injured his eye, making it bleed. . . . No action was taken against that child in school. But should it have been my Black child who had hurt a White child, they would have arrested him.” Pierre, who has lived in the United States for over fifteen years, described facing discrimination in housing. He moved from Indiana to Tennessee and started searching for a new house for his family: “I would



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see an apartment for rent in the newspaper, and they will be like, ‘If you are Black, you can’t rent this home.’ ” For Pierre, it was “the first time realizing that being Black was a problem.” The predominantly White American volunteers also reported that they had observed instances of racism toward the Congolese families, including at the hands of institutional agents. For example, Nancy, a White volunteer, recounted how a worker at the Department of Motor Vehicle (incorrectly) demanded a green card, refused to help the Congolese refugee client, and was visibly irritated when the White volunteer presented documentation confirming that refugees didn’t need a green card to get a driver’s license. Struck by the bureaucrat’s hostility, Nancy concluded that there was “a little racism there.” Systemic racism could create institutional obstacles and make the obstacles more likely and harder to solve, thus threatening access to valuable institutional resources and services. These racialized institutional standards and unequal treatment by institutional insiders have implications for racial inequality, whether or not they were intentional or perceived as racist by the refugee families. Indeed, while several of the Congolese families reported that they had not directly experienced instances of racism, the outcomes of their interactions with institutions—the resources they got, the costs they put in—were impacted by these larger American structures of inequality.

the long roa d t o r e f u g e Refugee resettlement is an organizational process that spans years, and often decades. The Congolese families in this book fled war in the Congo, which was rooted in a long history of brutal colonial rule and resource extraction. These families were granted a special status, determined by international agencies and national governments. After receiving this status, they had access to rights and resources, including resettlement. Upon resettlement to the United States, the refugee families reported assistance from caseworkers and volunteers and access to life-changing institutional resources, such as food stamps. However, they also faced institutional obstacles that threatened to block access to valuable resources.

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Interviews with the larger sample of refugees, aid workers, and volunteers were highly consistent with the intensive studies of the four families. Nonetheless, the case studies provide a richer sense of how institutions are interwoven and the ways in which problems in one sphere can reverberate and cause difficulties in others. We begin by turning to the resettlement process of Honoria Kimenyerwa and her five children.

2

Hurdles and Knots Everywhere honoria kimenyerwa

Honoria Kimenyerwa sighed with exhaustion: starting a new life in a new country was not easy. Raised in a culture that placed a premium on large families, Honoria gave birth to ten children, but between the violence of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the hardships of the refugee camp, only five had lived long enough to reach the United States.1 Although she had faced significant stress and hardship, Honoria’s round face was marked only by smile lines, which deepened when she let out a boisterous laugh—and she was quick to laugh. Honoria was in her early forties when she arrived in Philadelphia, but since she didn’t have a birth certificate or any documentation when she fled from the Congo, aid workers in a Ugandan refugee camp assigned a birth date for her, estimating the year: January 1, 1974.2 She wore her short, natural hair covered with a tightly wound scarf. Because Honoria couldn’t afford new clothes before she traveled to the United States, her friends in the refugee camp pooled funds together to buy her a new outfit for her new life in America. They gave her an “African-style” long skirt made of a bright wax print fabric colored with emerald green, golden yellow, and deep maroon. The top was made of the same material, with decorative green embroidery around

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the neckline. In the United States Honoria wore this outfit frequently. It was one way she remembered her past. Of Honoria’s five children, Peter was the oldest. Just twelve years old and without a father present, he was seen as the “man” of the family. He was short for his age, and his frequent smile revealed some lingering gaps, space for his adult teeth to grow in. He loved to draw, and Honoria hung his meticulously colored pencil sketches of action figures prominently on the refrigerator. In Philadelphia he was placed in the seventh grade. Honoria depended on him to help her read, write, and manage the family’s technology (their secondhand TV, DVD player, and Honoria’s smartphone). Next was Esther, who was eleven years old. Esther had significant physical disabilities and was unable to walk.3 At home she often sat in her black metal wheelchair in front of the TV, wearing her favorite red striped spaghetti-strap tank top. Moving around the family’s cramped apartment was a challenge for her. She relied on Honoria to take her to the bathroom and carry her up and down the four concrete stairs leading to the outside every time she came and went. Grace and Alisa, who were nine and eight years old, were nearly inseparable. With Esther in a wheelchair, Grace, the next born, stepped into the older sister role. In the early evenings she cooked chicken and rice for the family’s dinner, standing in front of the stove with one hand waving a spoon and the other resting on her hip. Alisa was shy in comparison. She would help her sister, stirring the pot or soothing the youngest, Daudi. Daudi was an energetic and rambunctious twoyear-old—the kind of kid who knew no stranger. Honoria spent much of her day chasing after him, worried that he might get lost or hurt. Daudi loved to confidently repeat words in English from the TV or his siblings: “Good!” “Pen!” “Me!” When refugee families like Honoria’s are resettled to the United States, they face many hurdles, or institutional expectations and requirements that must be met to receive services. Social services are more limited in the United States than in other wealthy countries and are characterized by cumbersome paperwork and strict scrutiny for clients to demonstrate deservingness—rules and expectations that scholars argue are rooted in racism.4 The everyday procedures of the many bureaucracies that families must navigate—reading documents, filling out forms, making and attending appointments—create hurdles. As we show in this chapter, these mul-



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tiple and sometimes overlapping hurdles threatened to block families from receiving services they were entitled to and thwart their efforts to move ahead. Hurdles created complexity, and complexity created opportunities for things to go wrong. A misstep in one agency could create a knot, or tangle in procedures that brought everything to a screeching halt. Like a tangle of wires that needs to be slowly unraveled, these knots took time to sort out. While Honoria had grown and sold food, made friends, and drawn on her skills to survive and support her family before coming to the United States, in Philadelphia she was met with new institutional obstacles, and navigating them required English-language skills. For some refugee families like Honoria’s, the learning curve was especially steep. Challenges with literacy, the language barrier, and limited transferable institutional knowledge made it hard to overcome hurdles, increasing families’ precarity and threatening to block their upward mobility.

fleeing the c o n g o Before war-related violence forced her to flee the Congo, Honoria lived with her husband and their young child in a small town near the border with Uganda. They were farmers, like Honoria’s parents were as well. At the time, many Congolese, especially women, had no formal education.5 Honoria was able to go to the market, sell goods, attend to her child, and comfortably manage daily life without literacy skills. Furthermore, in the face of life-threatening challenges, the skills Honoria possessed, along with luck and her own persistence, ensured her survival. Then, one morning in 2000, Honoria heard gunfire. The Second Congo War, which started in 1998 and is considered the deadliest conflict since World War II, was raging across the region.6 Honoria and her family were caught in this violence. In Swahili, she recounted to Blair that early that morning she had been at a local Christian church.7 Her habit was to walk to the church in the predawn darkness, attend the service, and return home by sunrise. Her husband stayed with their child. This particular morning, however, was different: “After praying, the sun had already come out, and on our way out we met people running. They were carrying luggage. And they were many.” The situation was chaotic, and “there was no

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one you could ask” what was happening. Honoria headed home to find her family and get some belongings, but at the sound of gunshots nearby she knew she was in danger: When I was at the door I heard gunshots. People were being shot dead. I just ran away with only the clothes I had on me. We were near the border, so I just ran straightaway to the border. I met the police, who ordered me to run away very fast. He told me not to look back because I would die.

The local police were unable to offer protection. Following the officer’s instructions, Honoria ran and didn’t look back. The border was less than an hour’s walk from her town and she knew the path. Others, however, didn’t make it: Those who did not listen were killed. They were going to look for money but were killed in the process. . . . There were some who did not run to Uganda but chose to run to the town center and they were killed. . . . But those of us who ran to Uganda were safe.

She found her way to a refugee reception center, where humanitarian aid workers registered her arrival. But, as Honoria recalled tearfully, in Uganda she met others from her area who had devastating news: Some were coming on foot and others were being brought by vehicles. I didn’t know who it was killing people. I didn’t see. I just heard that many were killed. Then, I heard them saying, “Your child and husband have been killed, and your mother and father have been killed. Your goats were slaughtered.”

Honoria was alone. She had neighbors and cousins in the camp, but she felt that they were not very helpful: I don’t have a family. When I got to Uganda, I didn’t have a family, like brothers. You know . . . your real brother can help you with anything. We share the same blood. The others have different blood. . . . I was just alone.

She remembered sleeping outside, side by side with children and other women. It rained all night. In the morning, humanitarian workers took the elderly and the pregnant in vehicles to a refugee camp more than fifty miles away. Honoria and other recently arrived refugees had to walk the



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distance to the camp. In this difficult time, as a widow and mother of a murdered child, Honoria managed to survive.

living in a u g a n da n r e f u g e e ca m p Soon after, Honoria was transferred to another Ugandan refugee camp, where she built a new life. The conditions were difficult. “It used to rain the whole day,” Honoria recalled. “From morning to evening. For like three or four days, it would rain continuously.” At first, she had to sleep in an empty school, but at least she didn’t go hungry. The UN started distributing things like food, and after a few days she was given a small hut with a plot of land. Using her skills and previous experience as a farmer, Honoria planted seeds and tended vegetables and cassava on her new plot. When she was able to grow more food than she needed, she sold the small surplus in the camp’s market. She didn’t have much, but with her small farm, she managed. Over time she settled in, attending church and creating a robust social life. As she explained, she “had many neighbors and friends. And we used to like each other.” Some of these folks were former neighbors from the Congo who had fled at the same time. Others “did not know me and neither did they know my home. We just met in the camp. . . . We became friends.” Eventually she married Kiza, an older Congolese man who had another wife and children who also lived in the camp.8 Honoria became his “second wife” (with lower status than the first wife), and they had five children together. For Honoria, having children was an essential aspect of a good life: “A woman with five children . . . she is someone to be respected.” In the camp, Honoria managed the family’s scarce resources. Kiza, she told Blair, was a “no-good father.” He didn’t give her money to take care of their children. He “loved beer” and the local home-brewed liquor, and he would spend the family’s scant cash on alcohol rather than on food or shoes. Honoria began hiding the coins she earned selling her vegetables. Although she and Kiza were married, Kiza’s name was listed on his first wife’s ration card and documentation with the aid agencies in the refugee camp. Because Kiza was not formally documented as Honoria’s family member by camp agencies, when Honoria was selected for resettlement to

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the United States, Kiza was not included.9 After she and the children had settled in Philadelphia, he began calling and pestering her for money. Talking with him on speakerphone during one of Blair’s visits, Honoria rolled her eyes. Given his lack of help, she found it galling that he still called her, pleading for money. When the call ended she turned to Blair and lamented, “How am I supposed to support these children on my own and send him money?”

settling in a m e r i ca When Honoria and the children arrived in the United States, they were met at the airport by Zeus, a caseworker at Refugee Family Services (RFS). Zeus was also a Congolese refugee who had come to the United States years ago. In addition to speaking English and French, he also spoke fluent Swahili. Zeus took the family to a cramped two-bedroom apartment that the agency had rented and furnished with donations. Malu, Mari, and their children (chapter 3) lived in the same three-story building in an apartment one floor above Honoria’s.10 The building was on the corner of a quiet one-way street in a low-income area of Philadelphia.11 The neighborhood was mostly a mix of Black Americans and Asian and Latino/a immigrants, but young White families had started moving in and renovating the area’s row houses.12 The apartment building had four steep concrete stairs leading to the front door.13 The front door opened onto a dim, musty hallway. Honoria’s apartment was on the first floor. The family spent most of their time in the apartment’s kitchen, which also served as the dining room and family room. Off-white cabinets lined two of the walls, and a worn, black leather couch was positioned against the far wall. The family dragged one small, round table from place to place in the room, using it as a coffee table, dining table, and desk for doing homework. In the evenings, Honoria and her children gathered around it and watched TV as they ate. On either side of the kitchen were two bedrooms. The front bedroom was crammed with two sets of metal bunk beds for the children. The back bedroom had a full bed, often piled high with the family’s clothes. Honoria lamented the apartment was “rotting,” with “mice and all sorts of insects.”



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With no air-conditioning, the apartment was unbearably hot in the summer. During the first summer, Honoria’s ankles swelled from the heat. Pausing as she used a washcloth to dab away drops of sweat rolling down her cheek, Honoria joked, “During the winter, I was afraid of the cold. Now I miss it!” After a year, Wendy Maina, Honoria’s caseworker (who took over after Zeus), gave the family a fan, but it was no match for the intensity of the heat in the apartment. One summer day the fan was buzzing quietly in the background while Blair and Gladys, a translator for a medical appointment, were visiting the family. With sweat running down her forehead and cheeks, Gladys exclaimed to Blair in English, “I don’t know how they do it! How they live in this heat!” Motherhood was a central, defining feature of Honoria’s life. She enjoyed being a mother, and she beamed at the accomplishments of her children, such as when they came home from school with stars on their papers. Given her financial situation, she would have liked to work outside the home, but both Esther and Daudi needed help. Wendy sighed, concluding, “Childcare is too expensive! It’s not worth it until Daudi starts school.” Plus, who would help Esther after school? Honoria frequently lamented the difficulties of managing a household in the United States without a salary. Shaking her head, she sighed, “Life here in America, no husband, no job! It’s not easy!” The six-member family lived on a combination of food stamp (SNAP) benefits, free school lunches, a monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payment of approximately $650 for Esther’s care, and, for the first eight months, Refugee Cash Assistance (a special form of welfare administered through states for recently arrived refugees).14 Honoria carefully budgeted and stretched the family’s limited funds. She skillfully managed many aspects of household daily life. While the older children were at school, she stayed home with the youngest, Daudi. She did housework, walked to the store to get groceries, and cooked. After school, she cared for all the children. Each month she scraped by, stretching their resources as far as possible, cooking only inexpensive foods like dark chicken meat, rice, and beans. Honoria was determined to learn English. She attended more English as a Second Language (ESL) classes than the other Congolese refugees enrolled in the same course, placing her preschooler in the childcare provided by the class. When Blair asked her what she wanted to learn in the

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ESL class, Honoria replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “To write my name.”15 At home, she sat at the kitchen table working on alphabet worksheets, studiously tracing the letter “H” again and again. Her older children all learned to read and write at schools in the refugee camp, and sometimes they helped her. One sunny spring afternoon, Blair sat with Honoria and her nine-year-old daughter, Grace, as they worked on one of Honoria’s worksheets: Honoria pulled the kitchen table up to the couch, and I set the worksheet down on the table. We started going through the letters and the basic words, such as “Mama” and “Baba.” Grace started reading the words off excitedly, smiling. Honoria looked at Grace, captivatingly watching and beaming with pride. Then, she repeated each word after Grace.

Honoria took similar pleasure in her youngest child’s expanding language skills and savored the idea that one day he might “speak English like an American!” Yet, after more than two years in the United States, Honoria herself still struggled with the basics.16 Research suggests that it is very difficult for adults to learn to read and write and to master a new language.17 Refugees who, like Honoria, have experienced trauma may have an especially hard time.18 In the Congo Honoria was not unusual; around one-third of women her age faced illiteracy.19 However, in navigating American institutions, Honoria’s own struggles to learn English and to read and write were an additional challenge despite her best efforts. In addition to the many other challenges of resettlement, Honoria didn’t know anyone when she arrived in Philadelphia. While in the refugee camp, Honoria developed a strong network of friends, women with whom she remained in regular phone contact. In Philadelphia, however, she had few social ties. She arrived as a single mother and she alone had to meet the daily needs of her children.20 She was from a different ethnic group than many of the other Congolese families in the area, who were from the opposing side of the war in the Congo. Malu, her Congolese neighbor, was also home during the days, but as a single mother Honoria saw it as inappropriate to visit a married man alone, remarking, “What would I have to talk with him about?”21 Every Sunday, she and her children walked five blocks to a church with a Swahili service (“There is nothing that can make me happier than listening to the Word of God,” she told



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Blair), but Honoria rarely socialized with other members except at church. Similarly, despite being friendly toward other refugees when she attended the RFS-sponsored ESL class, she didn’t pursue friendships outside of class. Honoria’s social network was too small and fragile to yield resources such as childcare exchanges, adult companionship, or insider information about the schools her children attended.22 Despite these challenges, Honoria regularly emphasized that she felt “blessed.” During one of her frequent chats with her friends in Uganda, who called her to catch up whenever they had money to call, she learned that her friends and family in the refugee camp were hungry due to a drought. In contrast, her own children were adequately fed and enrolled in better-resourced schools.23 Nevertheless, in the United States Honoria faced new hurdles—hurdles she had to navigate without the social support and valuable life skills that she had had in the Congo and the refugee camp. Yet, she remained optimistic about the better opportunities she believed her children would have in the United States.

many instit u t i o n s , m a n y h u r d l e s Although Honoria had managed capably in the Congo and Uganda, she quickly found it difficult to navigate her new country. As a newcomer to the United States she was expected to interact with many institutions at once—the bank, government offices, her landlord, Social Security, doctors’ offices, dentists, and three schools (an elementary school, a middle school, and a separate school for Esther). There was a lot to learn, and the demands came quickly. Each of these institutions had hurdles—confusing forms, complicated rules, and unspoken expectations. While sometimes these routine processes moved smoothly, the complexity and volume of the demands meant there was a lot that could go wrong. Snags in procedures formed knots, which threatened the family’s progress toward getting ahead. At home and in informal settings, Honoria was lively. She was an animated narrator of entertaining stories that she shared with Blair and in ESL classes. In formal settings though, Honoria’s demeanor was reserved. For instance, when Honoria, accompanied by an interpreter, met with a

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doctor for stomach pain, she was quiet, allowing the interpreter (who, after all, knew the rules of the game) to speak on her behalf as she didn’t want to do things incorrectly.24 In the United States, she was overwhelmed by the dizzying rules and complexities of banks, schools, and welfare offices (which were staffed by professionals, divided into specialized departments, open some days and not others). Her caseworker, Wendy, was aware of her discomfort and described her as “a client who really needs constant check-ins and finding out how they’re doing and what’s happening in their lives.”

Banks and Financial Management Back in the refugee camp, Honoria had managed her household’s finances, carefully kept the family’s cash, and maintained their budget, but she had no experience visiting a U.S. bank, opening a bank account, writing a check, or using a credit or debit card. She had to learn all new skills for financial management. She reliably paid her rent thanks to help from Zeus and later Wendy. Despite her caseworkers’ coaching, however, she struggled with other transactions, such as signing forms, writing checks, scheduling appointments. As Zeus explained to Blair almost ten months after Honoria arrived in the United States, she still “doesn’t understand the financial management. She doesn’t understand the concept of paying the bills.” Honoria’s caseworkers provided crucial assistance, but they were busy, overwhelmed by large caseloads and limited resources. Honoria had to wait for them to help, and waiting entailed its own risks. Sometimes a delay could lead to late fees or other penalties—and to new hurdles. For example, one cool spring afternoon Honoria brought in her mail. The day’s delivery included a bill from a utility company for $83, which included $34 carried over from the previous month’s unpaid balance. She asked Blair to read the bill to her. Listening, Honoria leaned back in her chair, sighed, and said, “OK, $83? Not bad. Yeah, we didn’t pay last month. It takes so long to pay now, to go to the building.” Confused, Blair follows up: “You can’t just send a check or money order?” Honoria shakes her head with certainty and concludes, “I’ll wait for Wendy. She helps me with it.”



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Rather than calling Wendy to ask her to help, Honoria waited for Wendy to come to her—a strategy that resulted in the previous unpaid bill. A few days later, while Wendy and Blair were traveling on the subway to a client’s home, Wendy brought up the issue of Honoria’s bills: I didn’t make it over there last month to pay the bill. You see, we had this problem, because a few times her checks for [the utility company] bounced—there wasn’t enough money in her account. And once that happens two or three times, then you have to pay the bill in person, at the [company’s] office. . . . The office is far from Honoria’s house, especially by public transportation. So, I went to her house and got her and took her there a few times, showed her how to get there and how to do it all. Last month, when I couldn’t get there, I tried to get her to go by herself. But you know, she won’t do it! She worries Daudi will run off.

This additional hurdle—traveling across town to pay the bill in person— brought yet another challenge: navigating Philadelphia’s complicated subway system. With her eyebrows raised and stress edging into her usually even tone, Wendy explained that Honoria “worries about getting lost. She’s not confident she’ll take the right bus or train.” Without literacy or the ability to speak English, Honoria couldn’t read the subway signs or ask for help. Moreover, without childcare or relationships with people who could reliably care for her children from time to time, Honoria had to take Daudi with her to appointments while Esther and the other children were in school.25 She was afraid that he would run off while they were taking public transportation and then be taken into foster care by Child Protective Services—a fear rooted in her previous run-in with CPS. Honoria’s situation illustrated how small problems so readily became large ones—how minor hurdles often came to feel insurmountable. Because she was still unable to pay her bills by herself and Wendy was too busy to reliably help her, they sometimes went unpaid—which caused some companies to levy burdensome penalties. As her caseworker noted, after instances when the check did not clear, the utility then imposed more onerous requirements on how Honoria could pay. For people in Honoria’s position, paying in person required clearing yet more hurdles, namely successfully using public transportation to reach the company office and interacting effectively with utility company staff once there. Each mistake also rattled Honoria’s confidence.

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Indeed, sometimes processes tangled, developing into a knot. In an interview with Blair, Wendy offered an example. Under an intricate and restrictive rule intended to limit beneficiaries, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits are terminated if a recipient has more than $2,000 in the bank.26 Recipients like Honoria are expected to know this rule and to monitor their bank account to ensure the balance stays below—hurdles that require knowing how to check one’s balance and remembering the account password. Once, in a rare confluence of events, an unusually high balance accumulated in Honoria’s account. Several one-time funds (such as government funding for the first three months of rent) intersected for a brief period before funds were withdrawn to pay bills. This complicated institutional error endangered the continuation of a key source of income for the family. Wendy fretted that the government agencies “almost discontinued her benefits because she had so much money in the account.” Honoria needed to learn not only how to manage routine hurdles, but also how to overcome new hurdles to untangle knots. To prevent future problems, Wendy began to monitor the cash levels in Honoria’s bank account. She explained, “She gets a check from the SSI and she needs to deposit it. I take her there. And the cashier can deposit [it] for her. . . . So, I usually go with her, so that she can withdraw if there’s something that’s making the account look too high.” Receiving government benefits required overcoming institutional hurdles in financial management. With many hurdles, there was a lot that could go wrong, and missteps can be especially costly for Black recipients like Honoria, as social service workers are more likely to discipline Black than White aid recipients.27 A complicated error threatened to destabilize the family’s main income and Honoria’s confidence in her navigation skills, making future routine hurdles more challenging to overcome. School System In the United States school administrators and educators have requirements and expectations for families—for example, that parents fill out forms for summer school, check their children’s test scores and grades, make sure their children finish their homework, and meet with teachers and school administrators. School officials reward active help seeking and



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parent advocacy. Research also shows, however, that it is harder for Black parents to gain advantageous accommodations, despite parents’ advocacy, and Black children disproportionately face harsh discipline and special education placements.28 Overall, the onus is on parents like Honoria to know about and advocate for personalized services and accommodations, such as extra English tutoring or discounted school uniforms.29 As a newcomer with no formal education, Honoria had a lot to learn. Hurdles became barriers to resources, and opportunities were missed. Honoria’s children Peter, Grace, and Alisa attended Lindwell School, a public elementary school about a ten-minute walk from their home. Although the school had been improving over the last few years and students and parents tended to be relatively engaged, test scores were significantly below the state average. In their neighborhood it was not unusual for better-off families to bypass the public schools and send their children to private schools. Indeed, almost 90 percent of students at Lindwell were considered “economically disadvantaged.”30 Much like the population of the neighborhood itself, many of Lindwell’s students were Asian or Latino/a.31 Many were immigrants, and nearly 40 percent were Englishlanguage learners. Peter described the students as “mixed” but stressed that as the only African in his classes, he “felt like it was only White.” Honoria greatly valued her children’s education and described it as an important motivation for wanting to be resettled. According to Honoria, her children did not miss a single day of school during their first year in America. Each morning she woke early and got Esther ready for the bus to attend a specialized school for children with disabilities. Honoria celebrated all of her children’s school accomplishments, proudly displaying any gold-star work or certificates from school on the family’s refrigerator. Despite her commitment to her children’s education, Honoria struggled to overcome hurdles to comply with school requirements. Two months into the school year, Honoria told Blair that she was unsure of the school’s name—a difficult, new English word—or where to purchase the school uniforms, khaki pants and bright blue polo shirts that were embroidered with the school’s name and logo. After three months of Peter, Grace, and Alisa attending school without uniforms, Zeus, Honoria’s caseworker, bought them each an oversized set. Not knowing where or how to get more uniforms with the school’s logo, Honoria painstakingly washed the

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shirts by hand several evenings a week and hung them to air-dry before school the next morning. At school, Honoria’s children were struggling. School officials placed the children in classes based on their ages, expecting them to keep up with the grade-level instruction in English. At age twelve Peter was placed in seventh grade, and as he remembered, “The teachers were teaching [in English, and] I’m just sitting there knowing nothing at all about what they’re talking about.” In follow-up interviews seven years later, both Grace and Peter recalled extensive bullying, a lack of support from teachers, and academic challenges at their schools in Philadelphia.32 Grace cringed describing the discrimination she faced for being Black and African: First, they were nice to me. . . . But then, the bullying started. . . . They made jokes about Africans, saying that I smell like food. . . . They called me an African booty scratcher. . . . And then, people look at me weird, sometimes because of [the color of] my skin.

Peter had similar experiences. As a newcomer and the only African in his classes, he “felt like an outcast.” He described the other students in one word: bullies. They taunted him, singing his name: I’d be just standing in line. And I’d hear them, singing my name. I was trying to control myself because I didn’t want to fight. . . . I told the teachers. The teachers would hear it happening, but they wouldn’t say anything. . . . They didn’t do nothing. That kept going for one year.

The bullying wore Peter down, affecting his grades and his well-being. He stopped speaking at school: I’m a good student from my country. I was doing great. . . . But the more I went through here, the more things started turning bad. Them singing my name, fighting, people starting fights with me and stuff. The worse it became, the less I cared about schoolwork. . . . My scores were real bad. I’d be graded and I wouldn’t get even one right. . . . So after my first year at that school, I think I got depressed or whatever. I couldn’t talk. Like, I’d be quiet. I couldn’t laugh, I couldn’t smile.

Without support from teachers, the bullying took a toll on Grace and Peter, both academically and emotionally. While the children found refuge



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from the bullying at home, they were silent about their issues at school. Honoria didn’t know about her children’s mistreatment and thus wasn’t able to step in to help. When school officials noticed Peter had quit talking at school, they intervened. Their intervention created new obstacles for the family. The school’s first conclusion was that his behavior was caused by a troubled home. As Honoria recounted with frustration in a follow-up interview: I would be called in for a meeting almost every day. Peter would say nothing. He was mute. He would be asked stuff and he never responded. They would ask me, “What did you do to him at home?” “I didn’t do anything.” He would leave home in a good mood, but he wouldn’t say anything to anyone. Reaching school, he kept quiet. He would be given a paragraph to read . . . nothing.

School officials pointed blame at Honoria, a Black immigrant mother; Honoria blamed the students at the school for their racist remarks and discrimination toward her son for being Black and African; and Peter blamed the teachers for not intervening. Rather than solving problems and providing help, the school created hurdles for the family—hurdles infused with racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Honoria wanted her children to have every educational opportunity possible. At the end of their first school year in the United States, her children were eligible for a free summer program intended to strengthen their English skills and help them make friends, yet hurdles such as required forms and paperwork stood in the way of these opportunities. Attendance required the completion of a form to sign up. Unable to read and unfamiliar with bureaucratic forms, Honoria couldn’t complete the form by herself and waited for her overburdened caseworker for help. As Honoria explained to Blair, with a shrug and a sigh, Alisa and Esther were not enrolled: “Wendy filled out the form to apply, but by the time the form was filled, some of the classes were full. So, only Peter and Grace could go.” Unresolved hurdles became barriers to educational opportunities. Sometimes the school system’s complicated procedures, announcements, and required documents led to misunderstandings, and Honoria wasn’t sure what was expected of her. Trying to figure out and satisfy the school’s expectations cost her significant time and stress.33 For example,

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in September of Peter’s second year at Lindwell, during one of Blair’s visits, Honoria vented about a recent concern. As Blair wrote in her notes: Honoria exclaimed, “Peter is so angry.” She was more riled up than I’d ever seen her. Her story was muddled. From what she was saying it sounded like the school wanted Peter, who was starting eighth grade now, to be bumped up to ninth grade. Several times I asked, “Wait, last year he finished seventh grade, right? He’s starting eighth grade now?” I asked if she meant that the school wanted to hold him back and send him back to seventh grade, but she continued to insist that they wanted him to be moved to ninth grade. Several times I asked her to clarify, but she stayed with the exact same explanation. Continuing, she told me that they had needed some form signed regarding the issue and now it was late. She exclaimed, “But they need to understand, his mother doesn’t speak English—she doesn’t understand these things!”

A month and a half later, Blair learned from Wendy that the form was announcing that parents of students currently in eighth grade needed to select a high school for their children to attend the following year. High school selection in Philadelphia, as in many large cities, is a complex process, and selective high schools are overwhelmingly seen as superior to neighborhood ones.34 Honoria wasn’t able to decipher the announcement from Lindwell, and she didn’t know any other Lindwell parents to ask for clarification. The system expected that parents knew the rules of the game for high school selection and could comply with the bureaucratic requirements. While Wendy translated forms and helped get Honoria’s signature, Peter ended up at his Philadelphia neighborhood’s local high school, Redding, rather than the local magnet school with a specialized program for immigrant students or a selective, high-performing high school. At Redding, 100 percent of students were from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and less than a quarter had grade-level reading and math proficiency. Peter “hated” Redding, concluding that “nothing changed from middle school to high school.” The complicated high school selection process in Philadelphia placed hurdles for parents to secure access to high-quality schools for their children, which were not only costly for Honoria, demanding time, stress, and mental attention, but also ultimately blocked opportunities, including access to well-resourced schools, which might have promoted upward mobility for Honoria’s children.



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Government Agencies While battling obstacles with financial institutions and schools, Honoria also had to navigate hurdles related to government agencies. After arriving in the United States, Honoria received food stamps, disability payments, and help from government-funded resettlement caseworkers. This assistance was essential for the family. Yet, each form of assistance had its own hurdles, including a wide array of routine requirements, procedures, and interactions, such as filling out forms for continued SNAP benefits, scheduling appointments, and visiting government offices. There were complex rules about how much money could be kept in a bank account at one time, as well as forms to recertify eligibility for services. Honoria, as a resettled refugee, needed to apply for a green card after one year of residence in the United States. Getting citizenship was another process. Despite help from Zeus and later Wendy, Honoria had negative encounters with American government institutions, which slowed her precarious efforts to get ahead, leaving her feeling frustrated and helpless. With so many hurdles, there was a lot that could go wrong. Mishaps happened. In some instances, mishaps developed into a serious knot. For example, six months after Honoria had arrived in the United States, Honoria’s children were taken by the police, turned over to Child Protective Services (CPS), and put in foster care for around two weeks. Both Honoria and her caseworker, Zeus, gave Blair a similar recounting of the episode. Honoria shuddered, “It was bad. It was really bad.” One afternoon in mid-January, Honoria, without access to childcare, left all of her children at home supervised by Peter, her twelve-year-old son, while she walked to the grocery store. In the refugee camp it was common for children to run around independently, and any adults around the area kept an eye on them. The United States, though, was different. While Honoria was gone, Daudi, who was two years old, slipped out of the house. The police found him running around outdoors by himself without a coat. When they took him back to Honoria’s apartment, they identified that there was no adult at the home to supervise the children. They also discovered that the heat wasn’t turned on and the apartment was cold. In the United States, government agencies have expectations and rules that children should not be left unsupervised, and that parents

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ensure a safe housing environment, including heat in the winter—hurdles that the police deemed uncleared. These hurdles and mishaps intersected, becoming a knot. This knot unfolded within the broader institutional context of classed, racialized, and gendered patterns in the child welfare system.35 The knot also triggered new obstacles. When Honoria returned from the grocery store, she found the apartment empty. She ran upstairs to Malu and Mari’s apartment and knocked on the door. When Malu answered, he told her that the police had come by his apartment and asked him where she was, but since he didn’t speak English very well, he didn’t understand what was happening. The police returned later, without the children, and tried to talk with Honoria, creating another hurdle. Without the institutional knowledge of American laws or the Englishlanguage skills to get to the bottom of the situation, she was at a loss. The situation intensified as she struggled to deal with the police. They asked her for the children’s names and to sign some documents. She didn’t understand the documents (“I did not even know what I was signing!” she agonized later to Blair). In her increasingly frantic and confused state, she signed anyway. According to Philadelphia’s Parent Handbook, during disputes and other encounters with CPS and family court, parents are “asked to sign many different documents [and] it is important to carefully read and understand any piece of paper you are asked to sign. If you don’t understand something you are asked to sign, ask your lawyer to explain it to you.”36 Honoria didn’t know any of this; she had never heard of CPS before, and she didn’t have a CPS handbook on hand. Nor was she in any position to hire a lawyer. What she did do was call her caseworker, Zeus, and ask for his help. He rushed to her apartment, but by the time he arrived Honoria had already signed the papers. He told her, “You have already signed. Let the children go. . . . There is nothing I can do. Everything is beyond [my] control.” The children were placed in foster care. After successfully protecting her children for years in the refugee camp, they had been taken away from her in her new home. Honoria stayed at home worrying, each long day stretching into the next as she waited, unable to sleep or eat. She was outraged that the children had been split up, each in a separate foster care home:



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I took care of all of them on my own. . . . But now you have distributed them into different homes, the way you would dish out vegetables. . . . They were stressed because they didn’t know where their siblings were. “Where is our mother?” They will not be happy because their mother is not around. . . . They refused to eat food.

Years later the children also had vivid memories about being separated into different foster homes. Grace, who was ten at the time, recalled, “I missed my mom. I don’t like being far with my mom, not even a few hours. . . . I really wanted to see my mom face to face, breathe the same air as her.” To untangle this knot, Honoria had to navigate yet another new institution: the courts. She was unfamiliar with the American court system and struggled to understand what she had done wrong. As was standard procedure, within the first seventy-two hours there was a shelter care hearing at the family court to decide whether the children could safely return to their home until the next hearing (when a final decision on the case would be made). Although Zeus couldn’t avert the immediate disaster, he did help Honoria navigate the court procedures. Even with Zeus’s help, Honoria missed an opportunity to get the children back quickly. The children were not returned to their home for the interim period.37 Honoria was beside herself. Each day her misery increased. She was terrified that the children might never be returned to her. A week and a half later Zeus took Honoria to her court appointment and advocated for her with the judge. With assurances from Honoria and her caseworker, the judge released the children. Finally, after two weeks, Honoria’s nightmare was over: “It took a long time,” but her five children were home at last. Honoria later told Blair that the judge asked her if there was anyone she could leave her children with while she did errands. She cried, “I do not have any neighbor I can leave my child with!” The judge told her that in America, “when the children come back from school, you should stay with them and not leave them.” Honoria was outraged to feel the judgment from the caseworkers and court officials who questioned her abilities as a mother. She was also frustrated by the impossible expectations of the system: You claim to be empathetic, and you don’t want my children to get hurt, but how are you helping me? Did you pay for my daycare? I have one disabled

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child and one very young child. I have to push this one in a stroller and the other one in a wheelchair. Do you expect me to push both at the same time? How many hands do I have?

For Honoria, a spouse or another adult in the house might have alleviated these childcare issues and helped her meet officials’ expectations. Her experiences were shaped by the reality that she was a single mother, just like many other immigrants and refugees who arrive in the United States as single parents.38 Gendered expectations also played a role in limiting the helping relationships available to Honoria. Although Honoria was friendly with her neighbor Malu Malu, who stayed at home with his children while his wife worked during the day, she thought it would be inappropriate for her, a single woman, to spend time with him, a married man. When she needed childcare, she did not lean on him for help. Since her motherhood was a core feature of her identity, her inability to clear these hurdles and prevent her children from being taken away from her was completely devastating. Yet the problem didn’t end there. More than six months later Honoria continued to have to visit family court to meet with court caseworkers and the judge to ensure the children’s ongoing safety and well-being. Even when the case was finalized, Honoria’s anxiety persisted. “I am still worried because that case is still here. It has not been deleted.” She feared their “names are still with the police.” Although she wished she could go to the courts and “plead with them to delete” the record of the case, she didn’t know how to start that process. With resignation, she concluded that even “if I go and report, who will come out to say that they should delete it? No one.” Indeed, information from child welfare investigations, including investigations that find allegations unsubstantiated, remain in government databases and can be used in future cases.39 The CPS case threatened to reverberate and cause problems in other areas of her family’s lives (a point we return to in chapter 3). This incident made Honoria increasingly wary of and nervous about dealing with American government institutions, including the police. With her CPS case still on file, she feared the police and tried to keep her distance, saying that if there were a knock on the door, “and if I know it is the police . . . I



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will not open it!” She also was concerned that the open CPS case would affect her ability to get a green card. “I still do not have the green card,” she said, the stress evident in her voice. “How will I get it? They say if you have a police case then you cannot get a green card.” Trouble with family courts, including the kind of run-in with CPS that Honoria experienced, can destabilize families’ housing situations and may even lead to eviction.40 Six months after the foster care incident, Wendy, who at that point had replaced Zeus as Honoria’s caseworker, told Blair that “the landlord [wanted] her out” of the apartment. Now Honoria or her caseworker needed to navigate a challenge with the landlord. Although he formally took issue with the upkeep of the apartment, complaining about the smell of food, Wendy suspected that the landlord wanted Honoria to move out “only [because] Honoria had this CPS [issue] and the landlord found out about it.” When the landlord called and spoke with Wendy, he gave her “a date that he [was] going to kick them out.” Month by month, Wendy cajoled him into extending the date. However, she confided that she was “still continuing to look for housing for them,” in case the landlord changed his mind. American institutions have requirements and expectations for families—hurdles that families struggle to clear. When Daudi slipped out of the house, the mishap became a knot, which triggered additional requirements, rules, and procedures to solve. The combined effects of Honoria’s lack of literacy and the challenges of learning to navigate complicated government policies and agencies, such as the police, family court, and welfare office, made their progress toward upward mobility very slow. Problems loomed large and solutions were slow to appear. A minor incident in misunderstanding U.S. childcare laws morphed into a nightmare that, even when legally resolved, had significant lingering effects—ones that Honoria feared would threaten her eligibility for a green card and destabilize her housing. Furthermore, the event was traumatic for the family. A follow-up interview seven years later revealed the memory of it was still devastating, as Honoria anguished, “You grow children in your stomach. Children need their mother. All the time in Africa, the children were always with me. I should have never left the refugee camp.”

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moving f orwa r d, m o v i n g b a c k wa r d Years later, Blair visited Honoria in a rented row house in a small city a few hours outside Philadelphia, seven years after she and her children arrived in the United States. Honoria explained that her Congolese neighbor and best friend from the refugee camp, Gloria, had been resettled there, and she helped Honoria’s family make the move four years prior. While there were no other Congolese families in the area, living close to Gloria was a comfort. They helped each other.41 Gloria also introduced Honoria to an American pastor who spoke Swahili. Honoria was surprised by and grateful for the devoted help he and his wife provided. The couple visited Honoria often, tutored her in English, and helped her family get situated. The pastor also accompanied her through institutions such as immigration offices, helping her to get her green card more than three years after her arrival (a point we return to in our discussion of Joseph and Georgette’s family in chapter 4). Before the family had left Philadelphia, Kiza, Honoria’s husband and the children’s father, was also resettled to the United States with his first wife and their children. He later moved to join Honoria and her children, but the arrangement was tenuous. Grace angrily described her father as coming and going with several “baby mamas” and as making no financial contributions to their household. These days, she had no contact with him. Honoria, however, remained emotionally attached to him and was visibly saddened by the situation. Resettled to the United States as a single mother, Honoria’s first years here were very difficult, but the arrival of her husband had not dramatically improved her quality of life. Honoria also reported that she had gotten a job processing electronic orders at a packing facility for $20 an hour. She emphasized that she was “happy because I’m able to pay rent and do everything else on my own.” When she could, she sent money to family back in the Congo and the refugee camp. While Honoria was at work, Daudi, now age ten, went to school all day. Esther had graduated from high school. Peter, now age nineteen, worked at the same packing facility as his mother. After taking a year off to work after high school, he had been accepted to a nearby college. With help from the local church, which included contributions to the family’s rent, Peter was able to finish his last



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few years of high school at a well-resourced, top-performing public school. The school changed his trajectory. While he no doubt worked hard, he also attributed his success to the school’s resources, such as its strict notolerance policy for bullying and a learning center for tutoring. He also learned strategy. Aware of his potential for low test scores as a non-native English speaker, he did not apply to any colleges that required the SAT, instead applying based on his grades and college essay. It worked, and he was accepted to four colleges. He chose a small private college nearby so that he could continue to live with his family. At the college, over half of applicants are admitted and most receive need-based financial aid. With financial aid and the money he saved from his year working, he had enrolled for the fall. Grace, now seventeen, had one more year left of high school at a different school, a low-performing school with predominantly low-income students. She stressed that she “hates school,” which she attributed to the bullying she (and Peter) experienced in Philadelphia. In a recent incident, she and another high school student got into a fight, and a teacher emerged with a broken leg. Grace pleaded guilty to an assault charge to avoid time in a juvenile detention center.42 She felt bitterly disappointed by the failure of the United States to live up to the promise: “We thought it would be Heaven. . . . When you come to America, Africans think this is like Wonderland.” Grace stressed that in reality, “No, it’s real life. . . . America has a lot to offer, but money doesn’t grow on trees.” Instead, she emphasized American racism and xenophobia, particularly at the hands of the police. Grace pointed to the police murder of an unarmed Congolese man, Patrick Lyoya, in Michigan as revealing what “America really is like.”43 A lot of people get shot because they’re African or they’re Black, like [by] police. . . . There was this Congolese guy who got shot. . . . I’m glad that some people [back in Africa saw that] Congolese guy, what happened. I’m glad that some Africans saw what America really is like.

hurdles and k n o t s e v e ry w h e r e Honoria had a stable life in the Congo as a farmer and devoted church member when she experienced the sudden disruption of civil war. It was

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this traumatic calamity that made her and her children eligible for resettlement by the UN after years in a refugee camp. Since refugees do not choose which country will receive them, Honoria might have been sent to Canada or Australia. In those countries she would have had much more generous support, including access to safer schools, better housing, and other resources. Instead, Honoria and her children were sent to the United States. Contrary to its reputation as the richest country in the world, full of glittering promise, the family was shocked to discover that the U.S. refugee resettlement program had meager resources. Caseworkers placed Honoria’s family in a low-income neighborhood and enrolled the children in underresourced schools, in which teachers were overwhelmed and children weren’t protected from assaults. Being a mother, “someone who is worthy of respect,” was one of the most important parts of Honoria’s life, but as a mother of young children Honoria received less financial help to survive and take care of her children than she would have in other countries. The family struggled. Scholars have suggested that resettled refugees receive valuable resources when they arrive in the United States, especially compared to undocumented immigrants, and that these resources can facilitate their process of settling in their new home.44 Indeed, as resettled refugees, Honoria and her children were eligible for social services and had a pathway to citizenship. But Honoria, like many refugees, faced a bewildering array of new administrative challenges as she navigated Social Security, food stamps, grocery stores, landlords, utility companies, banks, cell phone companies, bus transportation, and police. Like other refugee families, Honoria received crucial help from her caseworkers, but that help depended on her caseworker’s availability. At times deadlines were missed and time-sensitive opportunities, such as summer school, slipped out of reach. Social scientists have used the term “administrative burden” to highlight complex paperwork and opaque processes which impede access to food assistance, health care, and other services.45 Hurdles and knots created burdens for refugee families and, at times, blocked access to resources valuable for getting ahead. Other refugees in our study also reported hurdles and knots (appendix A, table A.5; see also the online appendix, www.ucpress.edu/go/wethought-it-would-be-heaven).46 Five other families in our study were



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ensnared in cases with CPS, which threatened that their children could be taken away. Problems surfaced in obtaining green cards. For example, Ndabe sought help from a lawyer in applying for a green card, but there was an error in the process and after four months he was sent forms for a passport, not a green card; the lawyer “just vanished” and the process stalled. Even unusual events, such as car accidents, could create hurdles which then tangled into a knot: Hamisi’s car was hit by another driver. Although he was not injured, a police officer came and asked Hamisi for his “identification.” Since the police officer asked for identification (not his driver’s license), Hamisi provided his state ID card. Due to the misunderstanding, the police gave him a ticket for driving without a driver’s license. The case was ultimately dismissed, but the event was time-consuming (he had to take off work to go to court) and stressful. These knots blocked access to valuable resources—as refugee families lost food stamps, did not receive unemployment despite being qualified, were unable to schedule translators for doctor’s appointments, and could not get their health insurance applications finalized—and derailed refugee families’ dreams for upward mobility. Nor were the rules and requirements neutral: they disproportionately burdened minorities, including Black people and immigrants, and further deepened inequality.47 After the catastrophe of her children being taken away, she became, as Leslie Paik has described it, “trapped in a maze” of Child Protective Services and family courts.48 As is well documented, the institutions in the United States are not all the same. Some schools are safer, have more rigorous curricula, and offer individualized attention to help students get to college. In other schools, teachers and children are barely hanging on in poorly supported environments. Honoria and her children started their journeys to upward mobility at the bottom of the social stratification system in America. This meant that not only was their journey steeper and longer, but they received less help since the institutions designed to help them were often failing. As we discuss in the conclusion, all Americans and all immigrants face these kinds of hurdles and knots. The problems that low-income families face in complex bureaucracies have been well documented. But being an immigrant creates new complexities, even for refugees, who receive more institutional resources and help compared to undocumented migrants or

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asylum seekers. Like Honoria, some refugees are also more isolated compared to other types of migrants. Many arrive in the United States without relatives and friends from their hometown who have immigrated earlier to assist them and tell them the rules of the game (see also appendix B). In addition, refugees today are given dramatically fewer resources upon arrival than refugees in earlier decades—and they face steeper hurdles. Seeking to build a better life, some refugees move to another state where the rent is lower and jobs are more plentiful. However, unbeknownst to them, a move can trigger huge problems due to the decentralized design of social services in the United States. In one misstep, an effort to achieve upward mobility can lead instead to a downward slide. We turn to this common challenge in the next chapter with the journey of Malu and Mari.

3

Problems Reverberate malu malu and mariamu mahamba

During the day, Malu Malu Mahamba could be found sitting on one of the family’s couches with his crutches propped against the armrest, gazing out the window while listening to a news broadcast in Swahili on his smartphone. His right leg was amputated just below the hip, and he used crutches to get around.1 He often wore a light blue fleece jacket zipped up over dark jeans, clothes the family received from the resettlement agency when they arrived in the United States. In his mid-thirties, Malu was reserved, yet his soft smile revealed a warm demeanor. In the evenings, Malu’s wife, Mariamu (or Mari, as friends and family called her), returned from her job at a vegetable packing factory, exhausted but lively. When she grinned, her whole face lit up, and her laugh filled the room. When she was home she was often nursing her eighteen-month-old twins. She tended to dress casually, wearing plain T-shirts and flowing pants, with her short hair combed back into a ponytail. Including the twins, Malu and Mari had eight children, all born in the refugee camp. Their four oldest, who were close in age, were a gaggle of giggling girls. Makeup was their currency. On the weekends, Safi, the firstborn (age twelve), smudged glitter eye shadow on her eyelids and swiped pale pink lipstick on her lips. Victoria (age ten) was the brave one; no task 69

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was too big. She was ready to take on the world—or at least the schoolyard. Zawadi (age nine) watched Victoria with a mix of awe and nervousness, hopping from foot to foot, flashing a timid smile. At age eight, Josephine was determined not to be left behind by her older sisters, chasing them out the door to keep up. Mpenda (age six) was the oldest son. Babied by his sisters and revered by his dad, he stole the spotlight with his mischievous shenanigans. Next was Sivi, who often looked after the twin brothers. She was thoughtful with big, pensive eyes; her bright shirts and ruffled skirts were always arranged just so. At age four she didn’t talk much, but she could change a diaper like the best of them. At just eighteen months, the twins, Bilali and Amani, loved to race their siblings back and forth across the apartment. When Malu and Mari and their children arrived in the United States after more than eighteen years in a refugee camp, they were nervous but hopeful that they had reached a land of opportunity. Yet, as we saw in the previous chapter, a lot could go wrong in the period following resettlement. Upon arrival in the country, the Mahamba family, like other refugee families, had to interact with many complex institutions and deal with both hurdles (routine requirements) and knots (tangled procedures). These issues were not limited to one agency but could also create institutional reverberations, or new problems in other settings. Obstacles, like onerous rules and lengthy requirements, disproportionately burden marginalized groups, and as problems ripple their costs multiply, deepening race and class inequalities.2 When their neighbor, Honoria (chapter 2), had her children taken away by Child Protective Services (CPS), in part because of the family’s chilly apartment, Malu and Mari rethought their own unwillingness to turn on the heat in their apartment lest their children be taken away. They turned up the heat but soon were slammed with a shockingly high utility bill, which then reverberated as they sought a solution. One thing led to another, and soon they were in a slide of downward mobility.

fleeing the c o n g o The Mahamba family’s story, like that of many Congolese, is woven with war. In October 1996 widespread fighting broke out in the country—what



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has now become known as the First Congolese War. Conflict erupted in their rural community near Lake Tanganyika in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Both Malu and Mari grew up in farming households, helping their parents harvest cassava and beans from the fields. They both started primary school in their home villages, learning to read and write in Swahili. Yet, like many in the region, their education was interrupted. When the war broke out, Malu was just fifteen years old and still lived with his parents. In an interview, he recounted to Blair in Swahili, “I did not learn for many years due to war. We fled because of war. The time we were running away from war I was still a young boy. I was still in primary school.” 3 Similarly, Mari was only thirteen years old and in the fifth grade when fighting reached her village. Malu and Mari separately fled with their parents. They walked several hours by foot until they reached the edge of Lake Tanganyika. From there, they crossed the lake, huddled together with their families and neighbors on small boats. Once they reached the other side of the lake, they were met by humanitarian workers from the United Nations. From there, they slowly made their way over 50 miles to the nearest refugee camp.

living in a ta n z a n i a n r e f u g e e ca m p When they reached the refugee camp, Malu and Mari slowly started new lives with their families. Even though the United Nations worked to set up free primary schools, continuing school proved difficult. As Malu remembered, “With life in the camp, learning was quite a challenge. So that was the end. I finished sixth grade.” Neither attended school in the camp. Instead, they helped their parents around the house, farming and doing odd jobs to supplement the rations given by aid organizations. Life continued in the refugee camp, but Malu dreamed of a better future. Almost a year after he had arrived in the camp, he received word that the fighting in the Congo had slowed since the new leader, LaurentDésiré Kabila, had overthrown the previous leader and taken over the presidency. He decided to try his luck back at home, “to find out if things had settled down.” He dreamed of continuing his education. This time, at just sixteen years old, he traveled back to the border and crossed the lake

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by himself. But, when he arrived, “the situation was still bad.” Conflict and instability continued. He struggled to make ends meet. Within a few months Malu made the journey back to the refugee camp, where his family still lived. After that he did not leave the camp again for seventeen years—until he and Mari were resettled in the United States. In the camp, Malu and Mari grew into adulthood, met, married, and eventually had eight children. Life was hard, but at least they were close to family. They lived with Malu’s relatives, “my mother, father, grandmother, wife, my younger brothers and together with our children.” Aid organizations handed out meager rations. Malu and Mari farmed and did manual jobs. Mari sold surplus food from their farm and small goods in the market. As Malu reflected, “We never had enough money in the camp. Life there is very difficult. That kind of environment does not allow a refugee to have a lot of money. Like for us manual workers, you earned something small, [just enough to] go and buy soap, some vegetables, and that’s it.” For a few years Malu managed to get a job working in security for one of the aid agencies, which did not require a high school degree. All things considered, it was a good job with a dependable salary of $30 a month. Life was not easy, but by combining their odd jobs they scraped by for their family of ten.

settling in a m e r i ca After eighteen years in the camp, Malu and Mari and their children were “lucky enough” to be resettled to the United States. As the plane landed, they thought they’d made it to the “promised land”—the land of opportunity—although Malu admitted he was a “little scared.” After all, “Going to a place you’ve never been to before can be scary. You find that you are asking yourself so many questions, ‘How will my life be? What will my life look like? What kind of a person will I be?’ ” In the United States they were received by the resettlement agency Refugee Family Services (RFS).4 Zeus, their caseworker at RFS (who was also Honoria’s caseworker), met them at the airport. As a Congolese refugee who came to the United States years ago, Zeus taught them during the first few months, as Malu put it, “about life in America.”



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Along with others at RFS, Zeus helped find and furnish an apartment and gather donated clothes for the family. The three-bedroom apartment was on the corner of a quiet street in a low-income neighborhood. In nice weather, a mix of Cambodian and South American immigrants sat outside on their small stoops. The family’s apartment was on the second floor of the same row house as Honoria, a flight up the crumbling front steps and straight through a dim hallway. The front door to their unit led directly to a steep flight of old wooden stairs. Because Malu relied on crutches to get around, when there was a knock at the door, it was the three youngest children (who were home during the day)—including their eighteenmonth-old twins—who scampered down to unlock the door. From the couch, Malu called out “Hello? Welcome!” while the pitter-patter of their bare feet bounding down the stairs welcomed guests. The stairs led to a cramped kitchen with a dim banquette made of dark wood. Bookshelves lined the kitchen walls, the shelves filled with thirty or forty bright yellow paper sacks of corn flour used to make ugali. Malu called guests into the living room at the front of the apartment, up another half flight of stairs. At first the spacious room with two long, sunny windows had been used as a bedroom for the girls, the room strewn with a hodgepodge of mattresses on the floor. Later Mari decided to transform the room, moving the mattresses upstairs. Now, five mismatched couches lined the room’s walls, each covered with delicate lilac embroidered cloths. Zeus helped register Malu and Mari’s five older children at a local public school, Lindwell (the same school Honoria’s children attended), just a ten-minute walk from the family’s apartment. The school reflected the neighborhood’s racial demographics—the majority of students were Asian and Hispanic.5 Over 90 percent of students at the school were considered “economically disadvantaged,” and over 40 percent were English-language learners, or students who were not able to communicate fluently in English. From the get-go Malu and Mari worried about finding a job. Malu knew that “in America, if you do not have a job, you cannot live well. Paying for the house will be very difficult. You need to buy diapers for the kids.” Yet, because of his disability, he also knew that physical work was out of the question for him. With office jobs in short supply for those without English skills, the couple decided to focus on work for Mari. Just shy

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of three months after arriving in the United States, a new Congolese friend, Apendeki, helped Mari get a job. Having settled in Philadelphia with her family a few months before Malu and Mari arrived, Apendeki worked at a vegetable packing plant in New Jersey. One evening, when they were visiting, she told them about her work, offering, “If you want a job, come and we will show you where we work. You can get a job there too.” Apendeki helped Mari fill out and submit application forms, and with Apendeki’s help, Mari got the job. The working conditions at the vegetable packing plant were difficult: Mari was on her feet for hours at a time in a refrigerated room. The pay was only $9 an hour. With a lot of overtime hours, Mari managed to bring home around $500 a week. The factory was located far from their house and inaccessible by public transportation. Every week Mari paid $40 from her paycheck to pile into a carpool van to get to work; she was shocked to find she had to “spend money just to get to work.” Between long working hours and a long commute, Mari was often gone five days a week for eleven or twelve hours a day. In addition to Mari’s income, the family received a little over $700 a month in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for Malu due to his disability. If he were able to get hired for a job, he would lose the disability payment, and there was always a chance a job might not work out. It was too risky. Malu hated to see his wife go off to work long, hard shifts while he stayed at home. It was agonizing. He considered it his “biggest challenge” in the United States. Every day he worried what his children would think of him and the example he was setting: “In Africa, the man should provide for his household. So, it creates a very bad picture, and the children start questioning—like, ‘Dad hasn’t gone to work.’ ” Malu’s belief that “the man should provide” was a powerful gender expectation he could not meet. This bothered him deeply. Indeed, despite receiving SSI, Malu searched for a job: I have tried getting a job, but I was unsuccessful. This is because when you apply for a job they will ask you, “You are disabled; could you tell us whether you get disability income from Social Security?” If you say, “Yes, I get money from Social Security,” you are told, “We cannot employ you; you are the government’s responsibility.” That has been a big challenge.



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Since he wanted to be an economic provider for his family, Malu chafed at the expectations from SSI.6 Moreover, if Malu had been resettled to another country with more government support for language classes and employment training, such as Canada, he might have been able to find work that didn’t require physical mobility.7 The meager resources offered by the U.S. government were also an unpleasant surprise. As Malu fretted, “The money from the government is not enough.” After they paid rent ($1,200 a month) and their utility bills, their $2,700 monthly income dwindled to less than $1,400 to support their family of ten. Each month Malu and Mari dreamed of sending money back to friends and family who were still struggling in the refugee camp— even the occasional $20 could make a difference—but their income was just “too little.” During the day Malu stayed home with the kids. Since Malu didn’t have a prosthesis, he had limited mobility. Sivi, their four-year-old daughter, often helped take care of the twins, while the older children helped after school.8 One crisp winter afternoon, Blair was sitting with Malu in the family’s living room, chatting as Malu listened to the news in Swahili on his smartphone, when one of the twins ran up: Malu’s face scrunched up as he gestured down toward the child’s diaper, silently indicating that he had gotten a whiff of dirty diaper. In a staccato voice, he yelled, “Sivi!’ She came running. Malu gestured, “Diaper!” Sivi grabbed a diaper from the stack of boxes. Grabbing one of the twin’s hands, she sat on the floor in front of him. With her other hand, she pulled the tabs of the diaper off and grabbed a paper towel to wipe him. As she loosened her grip, he started to run a few feet. Sivi chased after him with the clean diaper and half-heartedly wrapped the diaper up through his legs and then around his waist—silent the entire time.

Malu could not manage the three small children outside the house by himself. One day, with Blair’s help, Malu was able to take the children to attend an ESL class five blocks away. As Blair noted: Sivi led down the apartment stairs, the twins trailing her. Next, Malu slowly hopped down the stairs, tightly gripping the rail with his right arm with each jump. At the bottom of the steps, Sivi and the twins took off running. Malu yelled at the children in Swahili, “Ah! Sivi!! Stop!” as he steadied

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himself on the wall. Sivi jerked to a stop, then darted after the twins, corralling them one by one to the end of the apartment’s front steps. Malu slowed, hopping down the last four stairs and unlocking his red bike, which was chained to the railing. I ran after one of the twins, who started to wander off, grabbing his hand. In deep concentration, Malu gripped the bike with both hands and shifted his weight up onto the seat, which was adjusted just below where his amputated leg stopped. . . . It was a careful balance, but he glided over the bumpy sidewalk with confidence. I held hands with one of the twins, and Sivi held hands with the other. . . . Malu explained that in Tanzania, an aid organization had given him a bike and he had learned how to get around the dirt roads in this way. He smiled and laughed, “It’s easy!” He paused, “Once you are used to it, at least.”

Without the help of another adult to manage the children, however, Malu was limited in his ability to shop, attend appointments, or visit friends. Some quiet afternoons Malu felt lonely; he often missed the camp, where he had friends nearby who could help support the children and he could get around more easily. Here in Philadelphia, Malu and Mari wanted more options, but everywhere they went, there were stairs and more stairs.

reverberat i n g p r o b l e m s Malu and Mari encountered many institutional obstacles in the United States. Hurdles and knots led to lost educational opportunities and financial struggles. Nor did the problems end there. Institutional obstacles had ripple effects, creating institutional reverberations, or new problems that swelled across different institutions, following the family. Obstacles to Early Head Start Malu and Mari’s children were eligible for educational services and opportunities in Philadelphia, but obstacles sometimes got in the way. For example, enrollment in an Early Head Start program presented many hurdles for the family. Although the program was established in part to improve educational opportunities for Black families, it has never had sufficient slots for all eligible children.9 The application demanded complicated coordination between several organizations and required the family



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to produce birth certificates, evidence of residence, evidence of income eligibility, and medical records, including immunizations and dental records.10 Furthermore, because spaces in Head Start filled up quickly, the timing of the application mattered; a delay in enrollment became a knot. All of these institutional obstacles were difficult to overcome for refugee families, especially for newcomers like Malu and Mari, who were not fluent in English. Through Mari’s job at a vegetable packing plant, their four-year-old daughter, Sivi, was entitled to attend an Early Head Start program for free. For months, however, no one told Mari and Malu. The family arrived in Philadelphia in the blazing heat of July, and Mari started her job before the leaves started to turn in September. Unaware of the educational program, they didn’t pursue it, and no one came to enroll Sivi. It wasn’t until the frigid cold in late January—seven months later, more than halfway through the school year—that Nevin, who worked for the Pennsylvania Migrant Department, turned up at the house. One chilly afternoon Nevin dropped by Malu and Mari’s home to enroll Sivi in the Early Head Start program. Nevin was an immigrant himself, coming to Philadelphia from India, and as he talked, hints of his accent came through. He sat in Malu and Mari’s living room with his elbows propped on his knees, leaning forward in the chair toward Malu, who was seated across from him on the couch. Nevin started on the paperwork, clipboard at his side. The enrollment process had complicated requirements. As Blair wrote in her field notes, Nevin used a Swahili translator on speakerphone, as well as Blair’s translation help, to communicate: Nevin glanced at Malu, hesitating, then back at me and said, “I have to fill out this form, but I need him to find and give me mail addressed to him with his current address to verify his residency. He gave me this [holds up electricity bill], but it’s in someone else’s name.” I nodded, turned to Malu, and explained in Swahili, “He needs a letter or an envelope which has your address and your name on it. Do you have a letter or an envelope like that?” Malu nodded. “Yeah, I’ll look.” He grabbed his crutches, stood up, and walked across the room, slowly heading upstairs, hopping up one stair at a time.

While Malu was upstairs, with the sound of shuffling papers echoing downstairs to the living room, Blair prompted Nevin,

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“So, you’re here to enroll Malu’s daughter in Early Head Start?” Nevin glanced over and nodded. “I have all of the forms—I got the doctors’ and medical records, and filled out the information, but I need proof of residency and the dental record still.”

After a few minutes, Malu returned downstairs with a paper grasped in his left hand pressed up against his crutches: Malu sat back down on the couch and handed the paper to Nevin. The paper was some kind of ad. Nevin glanced at it, holding it in his right hand, and then exclaimed, “Oh, this won’t work. It has to be an official document, like an electricity bill or even a bank statement. They won’t accept this.”

Nevin read the specifications from the form under his breath, shuffling through his papers. I turned to Malu. “Do you have any forms from the bank?” Malu nodded and tilted his head slightly to the side as he hesitatingly replied, “Yeah, but with my wife’s name.” Nevin quickly and enthusiastically nodded. “Yeah! That’s okay! It can be the wife’s name! It just has to be one of the parent’s names.”

Malu again hopped up, leaning on his crutches to make his way across the room and up the stairs, one by one. With the sound of papers shuffling yet again, Nevin turned to Blair and lamented, It can take the organizations a really long time to give them some of the necessary paperwork. Like, I’ll email requesting information and they might respond in a month, and often they don’t have the forms, all the information.

Malu did his part: he found the documentation. After five minutes of rifling through documents, Malu returned downstairs, paper in hand. Malu excitedly shoved the paper towards Nevin, who looked it over and excitedly exclaimed, “This will work! Yeah, this will work!”

Another hurdle overcome. But then, there’s a knot. Nevin had bad news: As he filled out the paperwork, looking down at the forms, he announced in a matter-of-fact tone, “So, unfortunately, the closest Early Head Start program, which is right down the street, is already full.”



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Given Malu’s limited mobility, the delay in enrollment and the resulting lack of spots in the closest program was a major setback. He would have struggled to manage his eighteen-month-old twins to walk Sivi just down the block to the Early Head Start. The distant location was even more daunting. The knot created new problems. Nevin continued, “So, the closest opening is one on Tenth and South.”11 That was almost a mile from their apartment—along bumpy sidewalks and across a busy street. Nevin persisted: “Will you be able to take Sivi?” Malu raised his eyebrows, sighed, shrugged, and then asked, “Is Nevin able to show me the school?” Nevin shifted back slightly in his seat, squinted his eyes slightly, saying, “Um, I can’t today, but maybe I can try to come by tomorrow.” As I translated, he continued, “But I can’t promise. I will try, but I can’t promise. Maybe tomorrow—but I need to know today if they want me to enroll Sivi. Otherwise these spots may fill. If he enrolls her now, they can always change their minds if they think they can’t get her there.”

Nevin cautioned that if Malu and Mari can’t get Sivi to the program a mile away, “they can just wait until September,” missing out on the Early Head Start program to enroll her in kindergarten eight months later: Malu took a breath, then replied assertively, “We want Sivi to go to school, and we want her to start now. But I don’t know if I will be able to take her.” Nevin was getting impatient, tapping the pen between his fingers, as he concluded that he would just try to enroll Sivi and would be in touch. Malu nodded with a slight shrug and eyebrow raised, as if to say, “Well, we’ll see.”

Nevin did not come the following day to show him the school, nor did Malu try to follow up with him. Sivi did not start attending the following week. For some families the distance would have been manageable, but Malu, who was tasked with watching over the family’s eighteen-monthold twins, didn’t dare leave them at home, fearing a case with CPS.12 Furthermore, if transportation had been available to the family, Malu might have managed the distance alone. With crutches in both hands though, there was no way to hold onto the twins. The distance was a deal breaker.

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Obstacles to Affordable Housing and Utilities: Unexpected Bills Around the same time Malu and Mari faced another unrelated institutional knot: an unexpectedly high utility bill, which was a reverberation from learning about Honoria’s experience with her children being taken away.13 When Malu and Mari first arrived in the United States, paying rent, the electricity bill, and the water bill was new for them. In the refugee camp, there had been no electricity or running water in their residence. According to Malu, “At least there was no rent. . . . We did not have that culture of paying for water, electricity, and gas at the end of the month.” Yet here in the United States each month there was bill after bill. Malu cautioned, “You should never fail to pay rent, water, and electricity; otherwise it will be disconnected.” Zeus, their caseworker, taught them the basics: how to open a bank account, how to get a money order, how to pay bills. Although Malu and Mari could not read and write in English, Malu used his phone to slowly translate bills and forms to Swahili when they arrived in the mail. It was painstaking work, carefully translating word by word. The terms were complicated. Some days when Blair was at the house, Malu asked her to translate. Slowly, Malu and Mari learned to manage basic transactions by themselves, overcoming these hurdles. As Malu put it, “We’re now used to paying bills.” During the crisp early winter days, Malu and Mari’s apartment was often chilly. Malu wore his fleece zipped all the way to his chin, and Mari would be bundled in a knit winter hat. The kids, however, didn’t seem to notice, as the twins ran around in diapers and T-shirts. But all that changed in December. As we described in the previous chapter, Honoria, Malu and Mari’s downstairs neighbor, was out buying groceries on a chilly day when her youngest child got out of the house and was picked up by police. All five of Honoria’s children were placed in foster care; according to the families’ caseworker, Zeus, the turning point was when the police found the apartment frigid, with no heat turned on. Malu and Mari were stunned by the incident. To lose their own children—“Well,” they said with dismay, “we don’t even want to imagine it!” They cranked up the heat, and Malu unzipped his jacket. Months later, on a frigid day in February—one week after Nevin came to the house to enroll Sivi in the Early Head Start program—Blair visited.



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Malu had a stack of mail piled up on the kitchen table. As she stood up to leave, Malu called out in Swahili, “Wait—can you read this for me?” as he pointed to the stack of mail. Blair helped Malu read his mail, flipping through it piece by piece, talking in Swahili. As Blair recorded in her field notes: We sorted through the first few envelopes—all ads and junk mail, as I called out, “trash,” “trash,” “trash.” I opened the next envelope. It was an electric bill, which included the costs for the apartment’s electric heating system. Pointing at the figures as I talked, I explained, “This is an electric bill. Here it says that you need to pay $657.”

Malu leaned over, steadying his gaze down on the form, focusing on the figure. He winced silently. Blair continued in Swahili, “This bill is for this month and last month. You didn’t pay last month?” He paused, leaning back and withdrawing slightly. “Yeah, we didn’t pay last month.” I responded, “Alright, last month you needed to pay about $320, and this month you need to pay about $337 so now you need to pay $657 for both months.” He shook his head in disbelief, eyebrows raised—“Eh!”

Blair nodded, taken aback, “That’s really expensive!” Malu, exasperated, agreed. “So expensive!” As Blair left, Malu stood frozen, still clutching the bill. First was the issue with the Early Head Start program, then the big utility bill. The apartment was warm, but they had not realized how much heating it would run up their bill. What choice did they have? Turn off the heat and risk an issue with CPS? Mari already worked long hours, and the check from Malu’s SSI only went so far. At each turn they encountered another institution and another problem. They might have gotten aid for their heating bills, but aid came with its own hurdles. Mari and Malu were eligible for and received food stamps and SSI (for Malu’s disability). As a result, in another state or district, such as Washington, D.C., Mari and Malu would have automatically been eligible for assistance through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), a federal program that helps households make payments for heating and cooling, but LIHEAP is administered by states.

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States determine the rules, and in Pennsylvania an application is required.14 Mari and Malu’s annual income of around $32,400 for a family of ten was well within the eligible bracket for assistance, but to be considered for LIHEAP Mari and Malu would have had to fill out a sevenpage application. The application had complicated rules and requirements. They would have needed to answer detailed questions in English like, “Which utility company or fuel dealer do you want to receive your LIHEAP grant? Write their name and address, and your account information.” The social security number of every family member would be required. They would also have to gather and send proof of immigration status, a heating bill, and proof of household income (for example, hard copies of pay stubs for the previous month). They would then have to mail the application materials to the local county assistance office after first finding the office address. Alternatively, they would need to make digital copies of the documents and submit them online. Then Mari and Malu would have had to wait. According to PECO, the local electricity company, once the application was received, “It may take the Department of Human Services up to 30 days to review.”15 The application season started in November—months before Malu and Mari’s big bill. When Malu opened the $657 bill, they didn’t know about LIHEAP or that they could apply. Even if they had overcome the institutional hurdles, PECO’s website explained that sometimes the program ran out of funds and thus turned people away. Malu and Mari sought a different solution. They tried to find a way to overcome—or at least circumvent—the knot. A week after receiving the huge bill, Blair found Malu by himself in the dim living room as the kids played in another room: He was sitting on the couch, staring pensively out the window, the corners of his mouth slightly downturned. The room felt big, empty. He greeted me, waving me to the couch across the room. His usually upbeat Swahili “Karibu!” (Welcome!) hit flat. He sighed. . . . After a few minutes of chitchat, Malu paused. He had an announcement: “We’re moving to Iowa.” Stunned, I inquire, “Iowa?” Malu could barely muster a response, “Yes. Iowa.” He turned back to the window, gazing out over the row houses across the street. Gaze averted, he announced, ‘We leave next week.’ ” Malu explained to Blair that although they “really loved Philadelphia,” they decided to leave “because it was too expensive to pay rent and utilities.”



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Malu’s uncle, Etienne, lived in Iowa City. After years apart, they had reconnected through social media. In an interview with Blair several months after the family’s move, he concluded, We had just come from Africa, and so we did not understand the surroundings and how to handle money. So, we thought that it was too much money. So, our [relatives in Iowa] told us, “If you feel it’s too much money, then you can move, and we can get you a cheaper house.” That is why we moved.

In an interview with Blair almost four years later, Malu again emphasized the high cost of housing and utilities: I personally really loved Philadelphia, except one thing disturbed me: the lack of knowledge of the systems. When you are new in a village you may not know how things work. . . . And that is how it was in Philadelphia. . . . One thing bothered us and that was the cost for housing. It was high. . . . Then, you will get water bill; it is high. Then [you] get the power bill; it is also high.

After coming up against problem after problem—unrelated institutional obstacles that compounded—in Philadelphia, Malu and Mari hoped that their move to Iowa would lead to upward mobility for the family. Rather than contest the bill (like Alain and Vana in chapter 5) or seek assistance from an aid organization for emergency funds, Malu and Mari simply left town without paying their $657 bill.16 Malu’s uncle rented them a van, and they drove across the country with dreams of a lower cost of living and the love and support of relatives. New Home, New Problems: The Move to Iowa Malu and Mari left in a hurry. In some cases, aid workers and other volunteers help connect refugee families with agencies in their new location.17 In this case, however, Malu and Mari’s caseworkers and helpers in Philadelphia didn’t have the time (or, as we show below, the desire) to help them.18 Allison, the American pastor’s wife at the Congolese church service the family attended in Philadelphia, laughed as she remembered: When they moved, Mari came to my house, and she was trying to tell me they were moving. But [with the language barrier] I had no idea what she

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was telling me. And I was just like, “Oh, oh, okay.” Then, they were gone. After a couple of days, I found out they moved. I was like, “Oh my God! That is what she was talking about.” I felt bad. I would have at least given her a hug or something!

It was the same with the caseworkers. Lisa, the head of their resettlement agency RFS, shook her head as she remarked, “We didn’t find out until a week or two before they left!” Malu and Mari didn’t mention the big bill to the caseworkers, and Lisa was under the impression that Mari had a “decent-paying job, and they had the ability to pay their rent and utilities.” To her, the move came as “a bit of a surprise.” Lisa and the other staff at RFS “weren’t happy”: When refugees are initially approved to come to the United States . . . if they have a family member in an area, they really do try to place them in that same geographical area. So, our question to Malu, we’re like, “Why?” And he’s like, you know, “I have this relative in Iowa.” And it’s like, “Well, why are you here then? Why did you come to Philadelphia?” . . . So, it was frustrating to us to put all the effort into resettling them here, knowing that they had relatives in Iowa, and that they could have gone there from the get-go and probably have been happier. . . . We weren’t happy about it, but there’s not a lot we could do about it.”19

Overworked and overburdened, none of the caseworkers went out of their way to help Malu and Mari connect with services or a new caseworker in Iowa. At first life was looking up in Iowa City. Malu’s uncle, Etienne, and his Congolese friends lent a hand to the family. Etienne found them an apartment with lower rent than their Philadelphia place ($750 per month versus $1,200). Etienne and other Congolese from his church helped them furnish it. He showed them the public school near their house and helped Malu gather the necessary documents and register the children. Etienne’s friend helped Malu apply for a driving permit and, later, a driver’s license. Driving gave Malu new freedom. He took pride in driving the children to and from school every day. Etienne helped Mari apply for a job at Walmart. She got the job and started quickly, earning $9 an hour, the same as at her job in Philadelphia. The working conditions were better; she no longer had to work standing up in a refrigerated room.



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Nevertheless, problems emerged. Mari’s job was far away, and she still spent hours commuting. Worse, her hours were unstable. It was hard to predict how much she would bring home each week. And, as Malu emphasized, although friends and family provided essential assistance, “They cannot help with everything.”20 On the phone to Blair, Malu and Mari lamented that they had “no caseworker here in Iowa.” After hurriedly moving out of Philadelphia without help from their case manager to ease the transition, they didn’t have institutional support In Iowa. After their first month in Iowa, Mari and Malu checked their accounts. Malu’s SSI for his disability wasn’t there. Where were the food stamps? The next month, also nothing. For the Mahamba family, the complex processes to reinstate benefits in a new state was a barrier, as each benefit had its own rules and requirements. Mari and Malu were “stressed.” Without a caseworker, they didn’t know where to go or what to do. Although the family tried to apply for benefits, evidently they never were approved.21 Similar to many of the other refugees we interviewed, Malu never understood what the obstacle was. The fact that the family was not “handed off ” by aid workers in Pennsylvania to another aid organization in Iowa was likely consequential; crossing a state line meant that they were confronted by a different system. As a result, they lost access to disability benefits and food stamps. Malu and Mari didn’t know how they’d get by. They had already wiped out their modest savings with expenses from the move, even after Etienne’s help. Now, without benefits, they were scrimping to get by and barely able to feed the children. As they put it, “Thank God at least the children got food at school.” Several months after moving, Malu concluded that moving to Iowa had been a “setback” financially. Even though their rent was $450 less per month and Mari’s hourly pay was the same, her hours were unstable, and she made less each month. After paying their bills, in Iowa the family of ten had $1,390 left over each month, compared to $1,500 in Philadelphia. This was not the land of opportunity they had hoped for. Malu and Mari started to wonder if they should have stayed in Philadelphia, which started looking like a greener pasture. The kids missed their old school. Without government benefits to supplement Mari’s income, they couldn’t make ends meet. Malu started to spiral. Without entitlements, without a

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job, he wondered aloud to Blair, “I find myself thinking about going back home [to Africa]. I would rather have stayed at home, the refugee camp! Because when you do not have a job and no assistance from the government [in the United States], then everything becomes a challenge. I just get so stressed.” Similar to other refugees, Malu wondered if their life would have been better back in the refugee camp. With a sigh, Malu concluded that he would advise other refugees not to move out of state, explaining, “If you move from a state, support programs might be cut. Moving to a new place within a year is not good.” He felt that instead, “It’s good for you to get to a place, apply for documents and get all of them, including the green card. Then, once you have the green card and if you are stable enough, then you can move.” Malu and Mari and their children didn’t have green cards yet. Malu concluded, “That is really stressing me.” While they left Philadelphia to escape the institutional hurdles and knots, they were halted by new obstacles in Iowa City—and these obstacles proved costly and nearly insurmountable. In other words, their challenges in Philadelphia rippled, causing an institutional reverberation with new, unrelated institutional hurdles in Iowa. Looking back on the move, Malu and Mari separately concluded, “That was a mistake.” Just a year after moving to Iowa, unable to achieve financial stability due to the loss of safety net benefits, the family packed up the van again and headed back to Philadelphia. Malu and Mari remembered the offices for food stamps, for Malu’s SSI. A caseworker at the SSI office helped them reapply, teaching them the process for moving. As Malu recalled, When you get here, you have to take yourself to the welfare office. You go to the Human Services as a whole family, and you sign a form stating, “We are from this place, and we have come here.” “Okay, where are you from?” “This and this place.” “Do you have an approval letter?” “Yes.” So, you give them that letter. They will look at that letter and type in your names and check your details, “So, where do you stay?” “This and this place.” “Do you have some place to stay already?” “Yes.” “Okay, wait for food stamps on such a date,” and after a few weeks you will be given food stamps. That is how you are supposed to do it.

When the first entitlement check hit their account, they were “overwhelmed with relief.” While they gained back their entitlements, the insti-



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tutional hurdles continued. Every six months they had to fill out an extensive survey to recertify their eligibility. As Malu explained, they have to “establish whether you are still disabled. If you do not reapply, they will disconnect. . . . That has happened many times.” The paperwork was complicated, the deadlines strict. Although their eligibility hadn’t changed, their entitlements were cut off “quite often.” Malu usually avoided talking about his disability, but he couldn’t help but joke, “What do they think, I’m going to grow another leg?”

one problem l e a d s t o a n o t h e r The Mahamba family arrived in the United States nervous but with dreams of having reached a better place—a land of opportunity. Their dreams were quickly met with institutional obstacles. Although the family qualified for valuable resources, such as Early Head Start programs and utility assistance, they also faced blocked access. As a result the family found a land of inequality—by race, class, and (dis)ability. The expectations of institutions conflicted with the limited support Malu received for his physical disability. Disability benefits and services were not coordinated with other agencies.22 Despite some gains in Iowa, ten months after moving to Iowa and eighteen months after arriving in the United States, Malu and Mari continued to struggle to get by. In the end, moving to Iowa created a downward slide, as the move blocked them from their social safety net. As the Mahamba family navigated the land of opportunity, they discovered the power of institutions to not only provide resources but also erect seemingly insurmountable obstacles to get those resources. For Malu and Mari these reverberating obstacles led to precarity and blocked their pathway to opportunities. Refugee policies vary across countries, and American society has historically been averse to strong federal roles. For many services, funds are allocated to the states, and each state designs a customized program. Due to this decentralized nature of American policy, refugees moving to a different state can create problems for families. For instance, SSI is a federally funded program run by the Social Security Administration, which is,

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of course, a federal agency. Each state, however, is given control over the implementation of the Social Security program, as well as other federally funded programs, such as food supplements (SNAP) and health insurance for low-income families (Medicaid). The result is a blizzard of different rules and regulations and wide variation in programs across regions. Crucially, key services do not transfer automatically when people move. Families must apply again to receive services with the proper office. For the Mahamba family, the complex application process was a barrier, and, as a result, they lost access to disability payments and food stamps. In a system that offers relatively seamless transfer across state lines, the family wouldn’t have faced this setback. Similarly, if their state automatically triggered an application for heating assistance when they applied for food stamps, then they would have had more resources to manage a high utility bill. It is the ways in which social services are organized that is the crucial problem here. The complexity of social services contributed to their difficulty, and a more streamlined, simple system would have served them better. Despite their efforts to cut the cost of their rent to improve their family’s fortunes, moving to Iowa was an experience in downward, not upward, mobility. Moving is common. Interviews with additional Congolese refugee families revealed similar institutional reverberations (appendix A, table A.5).23 Eighteen of the forty-four families (41 percent) reported moving within the United States, and six of those families, like Malu and Mari, had issues reinstating their benefits. Ayubu, for example, anxiously said, “It has now been two months since we started trying to apply for food stamps and Medicaid, but we have not received any feedback.” Many processes involved hurdles that required interactions across institutions, such as a food assistance application (social welfare agency) that required pay stubs (workplace), trapping families in an institutional maze, as Leslie Paik has shown.24 Moreover, scholars show that these administrative burdens are racialized, disproportionately burdening minorities.25 Our interviews also showed that the consequences of these obstacles reverberated, leading to new problems that blocked unrelated resources, such as a credit card error (financial agency) that later resulted in the denial of a housing loan (housing) or a business loan (workplace). As a result, as we seek to understand the obstacles refugees face on their pathways toward upward



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mobility, it is important to look at the big picture—to take stock of obstacles across all the different institutions in the lives of refugee families— rather than look at only one institution or one moment. Malu and Mari had some help from social workers in Philadelphia, but none in Iowa. In contrast, some families—particularly families sponsored by church volunteers—are showered with help. These families have access to volunteers who have cultural knowledge and act as navigators in the refugee family’s journey in the United States. These cultural brokers, although sometimes bringing their own challenges, can be of enormous assistance, facilitating the refugees’ successful, albeit precarious, upward mobility journeys. To learn more about this pathway, we turn to the family of Joseph and Georgette.

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How Cultural Brokers Help joseph and georgette ngoma

Circles around his eyes hinted at his exhaustion from working long hours at a clothing factory, but as Joseph Ngoma (age fifty-three) talked, he wore a soft smile. Mary, an American volunteer who helped the family upon their resettlement to the United States, gushed that he was a “really, really smart man,” fluent in five languages: French, Swahili, Bembe, Lingala, and Fulero. A deeply religious man, he demonstrated passion, optimism, and humor that were contagious; all the volunteers agreed that he was a fun person to be around, “the heart of the family.” At age forty, Georgette, who was also deeply religious, was very reserved, but when she sang, her melodic voice carrying, her face was transformed. She wore long, sweeping Tanzanian fabric with bright batik patterns tied around her waist like a sarong. At home, she cooked for the family and did most of the grocery shopping. On occasional trips to an African market across town, she delighted in finding foods such as omena (small, dried fish) and pili (hot peppers) that reminded her and the family of home. After work or in between household chores, Georgette loved to relax on the couch, watching religious music videos from Tanzania and quietly humming along to the melodies. Joseph and Georgette’s oldest child, Riziki, was twenty years old. She took after her mom with her round face, smooth skin, and shy demeanor. 90



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After school and work she was glued to her smartphone, messaging back and forth with her sweetheart from the refugee camp. Not long after the Ngomas were resettled to the United States, he was also resettled to the Midwest. After a year in Pennsylvania, Riziki moved across the country to join him, and the couple married. The twins, Kalenga and Musa, who were fifteen years old, were both energetic and funny. They were soccer fanatics, and if Kalenga had his way he would grow up to be a professional soccer player. Steven, an American volunteer, noted with a laugh that while Kalenga was “Mr. Charm,” with a “low-key kind of trickster personality,” Musa was “obedient, the good child.” When the twins received laptops from school, Kalenga immediately handed his to Musa, sure that he would keep it secure. Amina, the youngest daughter, was thirteen years old and an engaging and expressive conversationalist. “She can keep a conversation going by herself!” remarked Cathy, an American volunteer. When Georgette was at work, Amina cooked for her father and her brothers. She also was quick to help her parents, jumping in to translate for them. Like her mom, she loved to sing and relished in participating in her school’s choir. Emmanuel, the youngest, was nine. Small for his age, he was engaged and curious, described by Diane, another volunteer, as “a delight.” Kalenga and Musa lovingly fussed over him. At home he mostly kept himself busy on the computer or with craft projects, cutting paper crowns out of yellow construction paper to show off to his siblings. When Joseph and Georgette and their five children arrived in Springdale, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, forty predominantly White, middle- and upper-middle-class American religious volunteers welcomed them.1 There is a long history of faith-based volunteer groups assisting in humanitarian relief, and each year thousands of refugees are welcomed to the United States by these volunteers.2 With the establishment of the U.S. State Department’s “Welcome Corp,” volunteer groups can sponsor refugees, boosting the role of private citizens in resettlement.3 Approximately one-quarter of the families we interviewed reported such assistance.4 Joseph and Georgette’s family received significant support from religious volunteers in two different communities: Springdale and, later, Marion, Pennsylvania. In this chapter we describe how volunteers working with the Ngoma family acted as cultural brokers, outside helpers who built a bridge between the family and key organizations.5 As cultural

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brokers, the volunteers helped anticipate and prevent complications on behalf of the family: they removed hurdles (routine requirements), untied knots (tangles in procedures), and halted reverberations (cascading problems) in a wide array of sectors, including employment, banking, education, social services, health care, and housing. As educated professionals, this group of cultural brokers brought formidable expertise to the Ngomas’ challenges. They had bureaucratic know-how to understand the hierarchies within complex organizations, lines of authority, power, and rules and regulations. They understood complex professional terms, deadlines, sequencing, and appeal procedures. They had cars to provide transportation and extensive social networks that they could mobilize. While these volunteers deployed an extraordinary array of resources on behalf of the Ngoma family, interviews with refugees and volunteers revealed similar intensive volunteer efforts for other refugee families. In addition to receiving help from the volunteers, the Ngomas brought their own skills and experiences with them. Joseph had attended college in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and his literacy and French language skills gave him advantages over other refugees, such as Honoria (chapter 2). To be sure, some of Joseph and Georgette’s progress was thanks to their skills, as well as their good luck in being selected for sponsorship. Nevertheless, volunteers were integrally involved in interfacing with institutions key to their success, even five years after their arrival. Indeed, in our broader interview sample we found that refugee families across different backgrounds—including those with more modest educational and professional experience—got ahead with the help of volunteers. Despite offering valuable assistance, the cultural brokers also made crucial mistakes and lacked knowledge in some spheres. These patterns highlight the complexity of the policies and programs refugee families encounter as well as the specialized nature of the knowledge that refugees have to accumulate. In addition, despite devoting countless hours of their time, the volunteers were unable to address some crucial challenges. The Ngomas’ family life was deeply shaped by the quality of the schools, employment opportunities, the availability of affordable housing, public transportation infrastructure, and the country’s deep racial inequality, among other factors. The volunteers’ energetic efforts could not change these critical structural forces.



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fleeing the c o n g o Joseph was born into a poverty-stricken family in a remote village in the Congo. They farmed and sold palm oil and cassava, a starchy tuberous root vegetable. After high school he attended a prestigious university in Lubumbashi, the country’s second largest city, where his interest in languages led him to major in linguistics. After two years, however, his parents were unable to continue paying for his tuition. His cousin was further along in his engineering degree, and his family decided it was more practical to invest in him. So, Joseph sighed, “I deferred.” When Joseph returned home he got a job in a sugarcane factory, but he was involved in a serious accident at work: “I fell from the car. I almost died.” After the accident Joseph decided to quit his job and prioritize marriage, telling his father, “I almost died without leaving any children behind! I want to marry.” Shortly after, Joseph met Georgette at church at a village “across the stream.” As Georgette remembered fondly, “We fell in love,” and the couple had a wedding with their families in attendance. As was typical for girls at the time, Georgette had completed five years of elementary education before leaving school to help her family on their farm. With only a few years of formal education, Georgette spoke Swahili and Bembe and had more limited literacy. She moved in with Joseph’s family after their wedding, as was customary in their area. After some training, Joseph became a priest in the local Free Methodist Church. Soon, through his work with the church, Joseph met Brian, a French-speaking American missionary who was working on building a hospital. Brian hired Joseph as an accountant at the hospital, where he calculated patients’ bills and kept track of hospital funds. Joseph’s limited salary was enough to support his new family. Georgette gave birth to their first child, Riziki, and a year later to a daughter, Zawadi. Although life wasn’t easy, Georgette fondly recalled, “In Congo, you can take care of your children because we were farmers. We would cultivate crops for food and sell some for money.” In challenging circumstances, Joseph and Georgette drew on their farming and management skills to eke out a life for their family. Less than a year after Zawadi was born, war arrived at their door. In 1997 the opposition leader, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, led his army across

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the country, overthrowing President Mobutu to become the country’s new president. In Swahili, Joseph described people fleeing from cities: “War erupted. We saw people fleeing. . . . It was just shocking. People would start out in their cars. But at some point the cars were a burden, so they would get out and run. Very shocking.”6 Kabila’s rebel army pushed on and the war escalated. Joseph and Georgette were stunned as they watched: “The inhumane way people were being killed—carelessly slaughtered. . . . [ Fighters] would chop off someone’s head. . . . The soldiers would grab a woman, gang rape her, and then kill her so that she didn’t report them.” One night another leader in their area was killed, and the family heard rumors that “they were going after people who were educated, who had been to the university.” Joseph’s parents, who lived nearby, feared that Joseph might be targeted. Together, the family made a difficult decision: Joseph and Georgette would flee to Tanzania while his parents stayed behind to watch over the family’s belongings. Joseph remembered that his parents had reasoned that “they were old, and it was better that they sacrificed and risked death, and for [him] to carry on the family name.”7 That night, Joseph reported, he and Georgette “decided to leave very fast. We had to flee on foot. We would sleep on the way.” Georgette carried Zawadi, still an infant. Joseph held Riziki, a squirming toddler. They “left everything else behind,” bringing only their children and “the clothes [they] were wearing.” (Joseph asked rhetorically, “How would you be able to run with luggage?”) They walked during the day and slept in the forest at night. After a week they reached the shores of Lake Tanganyika, the last hurdle before reaching safety in Tanzania. They hid in the mountains as they waited for a boat to take them across. As Georgette painfully recalled, “Zawadi fell sick.” They got a boat and went to Tanzania, but “when we got to Tanzania, the baby died.”8 When they arrived in the camp they were met with bad news. Joseph’s parents had survived—hiding in the forest when fighters came—but the rebels had stolen everything. Two of Joseph’s sisters and one of his brothers had died. All but one of Georgette’s siblings died. Joseph tearfully recalled, “When war erupted, each one ran in different directions to save their lives. So, some . . . ran into the direction where the soldiers were coming from and they were killed.” Others went a different direction, deeper into the forest, where “most of them died due to lack of food.”



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Others made it to Lake Tanganyika but drowned while crossing. Joseph and Georgette were devastated by the conflict. They lost family and friends and all their possessions were stolen. Yet, in the refugee camp, they counted their blessings: they had been “saved by God’s grace.”

living in a ta n z a n i a n r e f u g e e ca m p In the Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania, the family received basic food and a tent for shelter from the United Nations. Joseph and Georgette reunited with neighbors and members of their church back home, who had heard about the death of their child and came to offer condolences. Georgette’s only surviving sister, Grace, also made it to the camp and lived with them, helping Georgette through her grief and taking care of Riziki. In the camp Joseph and Georgette had eight more children, including the twins. Unfortunately, four of those children died in the camp. As Joseph recalled, “Georgette would get pregnant, give birth, and then the child would die. She would give birth to another child, and that one would die as well. They would die because of the harsh conditions in the camp.” Healthcare was underresourced, and staff were underqualified. Joseph and Georgette believed that the aid organizations had failed to save their children, stressing that “The only help the organizations gave—like when my children died, they would give you a cloth to cover the dead body, before you could bury.” Reflecting back later, Joseph concluded with a sigh, “We really lost many children while in Nyarugusu. Really, really. We would have had such a big family here in America now. But that is God.” Years later the five children who perished, including the baby who died in Georgette’s arms as they fled, loomed large. They never forgot them. The family lived in the refugee camp for nineteen years. The UN provided basic food rations (usually flour, beans, and cooking oil), but, as Joseph lamented, “no tea . . . and no milk.” Firewood was scarce. Joseph and Georgette drew on their agricultural knowledge from the Congo and planted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and legumes. Georgette established a small business selling some of their produce. Through a friend, Joseph was able to secure work as an elementary school teacher for refugee children. Formal jobs were rare, coveted, and respected, though the pay ($40

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a month) was meager. After three years, Joseph was laid off due to budget cuts. Joseph found it unjust that refugees were not allowed to leave the camp to look for work, stating, “The camp is a prison.” After a time Joseph and Georgette began working for their church in the camp. Joseph had been a priest in the Congo and became a pastor. In this role the couple gained permission from the local government to travel; they organized religious seminars in the camp and the surrounding region to help families process the traumas they had witnessed, saying, “Within the camp there are some who witnessed with their naked eyes other people being shot. There are some who lost children. They witnessed that. So, when they think about some of those things, they get stressed. We used to teach them God’s word, so that they could live peacefully and forget the past.” While they found this work helping others process their grief to be deeply fulfilling, it wasn’t a salaried position, and the family struggled to make ends meet. One day Georgette checked a bulletin board and saw that they had been selected for resettlement to America. She was overjoyed. They left only a few days later. After years of waiting, the transition was “abrupt.” The family had spent years adapting to the challenges of life in the refugee camp, managing with insufficient food and income. Suddenly, in a matter of days, they left that life behind to move to the United States.

settling in a m e r i ca : r e f u g e e s po n s o r s h i p by volunte e r s Months before the Ngoma family’s arrival in the United States, members of more than fourteen different religious congregations in Springdale, Pennsylvania (a pseudonym), joined together. After seeing stories of refugees fleeing war in Syria, they wanted to help welcome a refugee family to their predominantly White suburban community. Together they formed a “welcome team” and partnered with a resettlement agency to sponsor a refugee family. Around the country similar groups were forming: the Refugee Council of America cites around one hundred thousand current “advocates” who are sponsoring resettled families through religious organizations.9 In these programs cases were processed the usual way, through



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the U.S. government and resettlement agencies.10 Once a family was close to their travel date, caseworkers assigned them to a sponsorship group (if one was available). There was also an element of chance: the refugee family didn’t have the option to select a group, and the sponsorship group didn’t select a family.11 In Springdale, as word of the welcome team spread, the group grew to nearly forty active volunteers and over 120 email subscribers who received updates and requests for assistance, including networking for jobs and filling volunteer slots. The group held fundraising events, and together the fourteen different religious groups raised nearly $23,400 for the family (which was primarily used as a rent subsidy over two years). The organization’s leader, Diane, described the members as largely middle- and uppermiddle-class. Some were retired while others worked, and many had advanced degrees. Diane herself was a retired social worker who used to run a nonprofit. Others were teachers, physical therapists, businesspeople, and information technology (IT) experts. Most were White Americans who had lived in the Springdale area for years, although a few were also immigrants from African countries such as Kenya.12 After a few months the group was notified by a caseworker at the partnering resettlement agency that there was a Congolese refugee family of seven arriving in two weeks. Would they agree to sponsor them? Two weeks later Joseph, Georgette, and their five children arrived in Springdale. Members of the housing committee found a two-story, three-bedroom row house for the Ngomas to rent. The house was in a modest suburban neighborhood where the median income was $60,000 (slightly higher than the median income in the United States). About 25 percent of residents in the area (but 50 percent in their immediate vicinity) were below the poverty line. The neighborhood was over three-quarters White, and the Ngomas were the only Black family on their block. The block was on a quiet one-way street with newly paved sidewalks, well maintained and free of debris. Joseph and Georgette’s row house was neat and well maintained, with a small grass yard leading up to the front door. Airconditioning units hung from the front windows, and the interior was simple, with older appliances. Oversized donated couches were crammed in the living room. As the Ngomas settled in and the children started school, the house was often littered with their backpacks and papers.

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None of the Ngomas spoke English when they arrived. Fortunately, two members of the volunteer group had worked in Kenya for years and spoke conversational Swahili. They helped with translation. Through friends of friends, Diane tracked down a few community members from Tanzania who also spoke Swahili, and they helped when they could. Joseph spoke fluent French and could speak with a few French-speaking team members, but Diane joked, “There’s still a lot of gesturing.” Diane marveled at the family’s patience with the language barrier. Between the good humor, clever gestures, and occasional help with translation, they got by. With the Ngomas’ arrival, there was a flurry of activity. Camilla, the family’s caseworker at the resettlement agency, filled out forms to apply for food stamps, medical assistance, cash assistance, and Social Security. For everything else, the welcome team took over. The volunteers worked on overdrive those first days. Diane, the head of the team, spent at least twenty-five hours a week helping the family, sometimes clocking in tenand twelve-hour days. Over the first two months team members worked with the family for an average of more than five hours a day. Marylin, a volunteer, got the children’s school supply lists and made a big shopping trip, writing the children’s names on their things in silver Sharpie. When the children returned home from school in the afternoons, volunteers tutored each of them, quizzing them on English vocabulary, math facts, and American culture. Some afternoons volunteers shuttled the twins back and forth to soccer games or took Amina to choir practice, or they took family members to doctor and dentist appointments. One or two evenings a week Georgette and Joseph attended free English classes that the volunteers had found for them, and a tutor came to their house on nights they worked late. Sometimes volunteers came by to fix the leaking floor in the basement or to coach Joseph on paying rent, changing a light bulb, using his phone, or buying a laptop. On occasion, volunteers drove the family to other areas of the state to visit or celebrate holidays with other Congolese refugees. Every Sunday, the Ngoma family joined the volunteers at one of their different churches. They attended Diane’s church, a Quaker Friends meeting, most frequently. The frenzied pace of life in the United States was an adjustment and had its downsides. One day Diane asked Joseph and Georgette if they had all these schedules and paperwork back in the camp, and they both burst



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out laughing. Although they were thankful for their new life in the United States and the fast gains that they were making, Joseph wistfully recalled that back in the refugee camp, “Everything was so free,” without such tight scheduling constraints. Diane chuckled, “I’m sure they’re frustrated with us from time to time. We are always, ‘We got to go, we got to go. Can you sign this form?’ ” For Joseph, Georgette, and their children, life in the United States also meant learning about American racism. In follow-up interviews four years after their arrival, Joseph and Georgette reported being stunned as they gathered around the TV and watched the video of a Minneapolis police officer murdering George Floyd, a Black American man. Similar to other Congolese families in this book, the evident racism in the police violence against Black Americans became moments of “acute racialization” for the family.13 While Joseph and Georgette were heartened by the widespread protests against racial discrimination, they remained scared. As Georgette exclaimed, “God, we ran away because of war and fear of being killed. And we come here and find the Whites discriminate [against] the Blacks!” Joseph reflected that he himself had never experienced racism interpersonally, saying, “No one discriminates [against] me, not at all.” Georgette, in a separate interview, concurred, saying, “I have not experienced that,” yet both worried about racialized police violence and expressed some hesitation about calling the police. As Joseph recounted, “We were scared when they killed George. . . . We were like, ‘Oh my God! Will all Black people be killed?’ ” The predominantly White, upper-middle-class volunteers shared Joseph and Georgette’s concerns about racialized violence. Early on Marilyn, a White volunteer, worried that the Ngomas could face trouble with the police: One of my big concerns was, OK, they’re Black and they don’t speak English, and if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, what could happen? So, we had a policeman in the neighborhood meet with them. We made sure that the chief of police knows they’re here. . . . Given that the Springdale police department is clued in, I think that helps a lot.

While Marilyn and the other volunteers drew on their own White privilege and ease in their cultural brokering with the Springdale police on behalf

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of the Ngomas, they were also aware of their limitations to insulate the family from police violence. As Marylin explained, “We did talk about having this one volunteer’s husband, who is a native Swahili speaker, give them a talk about, “OK, you will not always be in Springdale; here’s what you do. . . . If the police come, you freeze. If you run, they will shoot you.” Especially for the males, it worries me.” While the Ngomas were learning about race in America as newcomers, the White volunteers were also learning about their own racialization through their experiences helping the Ngomas. Despite being born and raised in the American racial hierarchy, they were confronted with the extent to which race permeates daily life in America—from history class to walking down the street—rendering their own privilege more visible. For Maia, a White volunteer, the most “difficult” part of working with the Ngoma family was that “it makes us all face the power of privilege. Things are easy for us.” Thus, for the volunteers, interacting closely with the Ngoma family led to a reckoning with racial inequality and their own Whiteness.14 Despite their many successful efforts to help the Ngomas, the volunteers struggled to find them employment. They spent weeks activating their extensive social networks to find a manual labor position, but lead after lead turned into a dead end. Finally, the team secured a seasonal job for Joseph at a landscaping company. One of the members talked “to a neighbor of hers. The neighbor owned a landscaping business. The neighbor said, ‘Heck, I’ll hire him! I’ll pay the same price he’d find anywhere else.’ ” Joseph was paid $11 an hour ($15 for overtime). The work was seasonal, ending every year in December. The team continued to search for jobs for Georgette and Riziki, with many false starts. Over the next year the family and the welcome team continued the same cycle: volunteers searched hard for opportunities, but they could only find part-time, seasonal work; the three adults would start the job and then be laid off when the season ended. Housing costs were high in Springdale. The cheapest rental the volunteers could find for the family of seven was a row house that cost $1,425 a month. Diane and the team ran the numbers over and over and concluded, “Ultimately, if the two parents and the twenty-year-old are employed, they can manage this rent.” But this plan depended on all three adults in the family finding stable work. Georgette was eager to work:



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“Even back at home [in the Congo], ladies also earn and manage money to support their children. One person cannot take up all the responsibility.” Still, even after Georgette and Riziki started part-time jobs as cleaners at the nearby university, the family’s total income was only $2,880 a month. The family’s budget was tight. If they paid the entire rent on their home, it would have eaten up almost half their income. The volunteers decided to use some of the group’s donations to subsidize the family’s rent, contributing $750 each month. Diane emphasized, “In the short term, we of course are going to be subsidizing [their rent] for a while. Whatever it takes, we’ll make up whatever they’re not able to do with their own income.” With the team’s help, the Ngomas could afford the rental. Joseph and Georgette were grateful for the help, but they worried about the following year. If rentals were so expensive, how would they ever manage to afford a house? The Ngomas raised the possibility of moving. As Joseph fretted in an interview: “We are paying $1,425 for this house. That is only for the house. . . . Some of our Congolese friends in other areas tell us that we are paying a lot of money—that this house is very expensive.” Soon after, Riziki married her sweetheart from the refugee camp, who lived with his family in Missouri. She moved across the country. Without her income, finances became even tighter. Joseph and Georgette liked the volunteers, and the school their children attended was among the state’s top-rated, but they wanted cheaper rent—and the hope of buying a house.

removing h u r d l e s , h e l p i n g t h e fa m i ly As cultural brokers, the volunteers quickly and efficiently removed numerous hurdles and dismantled knots, which in turn facilitated the family’s progress in their journey of upward mobility. As appendix A, table A.7 shows, the volunteers helped across many different organizations. Overcoming Hurdles: The Move to Affordable Housing Joseph and Georgette told Diane they wanted to move to more affordable housing in an area with more stable jobs, somewhere with other Congolese people. Although the volunteers could not change the availability of

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affordable housing, they helped remove hurdles in the moving process. Diane began to discuss the pros, cons, and logistics of moving with Joseph: moving expenses, security deposits, rental applications, and mortgages. The volunteers started researching. They drove the Ngomas to scout out other areas around the state. After more than six months of planning and deliberation with the volunteers, the Ngoma family decided to move to Marion, Pennsylvania, a small city just over an hour’s drive from Springdale. Compared to Springdale, Marion was more racially mixed, with White and Black Americans and immigrants from a diverse range of countries. Housing was cheaper, and manufacturing jobs were more plentiful. The volunteers helped Joseph and Georgette every step of the way. Searching online, the volunteers found an apartment with cheaper rent, took Joseph and Georgette for a visit, and helped them apply for it. The landlord accepted their application. The team found and scheduled movers, and one member volunteered to cover the costs. The team hosted a farewell reception, celebrating the family and their progress. Once the family moved, the volunteers ensured the family got their $1,425 security deposit from the first rental, prepping the house and overseeing a property check with the landlord. The apartment in Marion, according to Georgette, was “smaller” and “older” than their place in Springdale, but it was $950, saving them $475 a month. While Malu and Mari had moved to Iowa without help (chapter 3), Diane searched online for a resettlement agency in Marion, called their office, and introduced the Ngomas to a caseworker. This was a crucial advantage. A caseworker there helped with the job search, connecting them with a temp agency where they’d had luck placing other recently arrived refugees. Not long after, the company hired Joseph for a job at a factory. The job was physical and involved packing clothes for online orders for shipping. Joseph was paid $12.60 an hour—a raise of $1.60 an hour over his previous job. The work was steady, too: four ten-hour days a week, year-round, “with a lot of overtime.” He often worked sixty hours per week. Overall, Joseph found the working conditions “better” than those in Springdale. Because the work was inside, he considered it “office work.” He considered the temperature control a luxury: “They even have an air conditioner. When it’s cold, they turn on the heat. During summer,



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like now, they turn on the fans.” The workers were primarily Hispanic, and there were some Haitian immigrants with whom Joseph could speak French. Few workers—most of them supervisors—were White or American-born. The resettlement agency also helped Georgette find work at the same factory as Joseph. Thus, although the volunteers in Springdale lacked helpful networks to find work for them, they connected them with a resettlement agency that helped the family navigate their new environments. With both Joseph and Georgette employed, their financial situation was looking up. They were each paid between $900 to $1,200 twice a month, depending on how much overtime they worked, putting their total annual income for the household of six from about $43,200 to $57,600. As Georgette concluded, “Here in Marion, houses are fairly affordable compared to Springdale. And it’s easier to find a job.” Joseph and Georgette had had the idea to move, drawing valuable information from their Congolese social ties around the country, and the volunteers acted as cultural brokers, offering them help at crucial points when hurdles in the moving process might have otherwise set them back. Crucially, the welcome team connected Joseph and Georgette with a Quaker meeting in Marion. Two days before the family arrived in Marion, the Springdale team sent an email request, as Maia, a volunteer in Marion, recalled: Our Quaker meeting received an email from someone in the Springdale Quaker meeting who had been working with Joseph, just saying, “Hi, this is who they are. They have been with us for two years. Their names and ages. And we are hoping that you can help us help them get [them] to the Quaker meeting because they want to come on Sunday. And really that is all you are going to have to do.”

Some members agreed to welcome the family, but they quickly realized that the family’s needs were greater than just Sunday transportation. After meeting the family, a new team of six key volunteers formed. Although Joseph noted that he was still in touch with the Springdale volunteers (“I tell them everything. You know those people received us very well. We cannot forget their good deeds.”), the Quaker volunteers in Marion took over the role of cultural brokers for the family.

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Making Progress, Building Savings While the move to Marion brought some new challenges, Joseph and Georgette’s higher pay and lower rent meant they were able to save more toward their goal of buying a house. Their savings were cushioned by the early economic donations from the original welcome team, including rent subsidies, moving assistance, and a donated car. Buying a house, however, wasn’t only about how much money the Ngomas made, but also about overcoming hurdles with financial agencies. Since their arrival in Springdale, volunteers had acted as cultural brokers, removing hurdles and helping Joseph and Georgette navigate America’s financial systems. After all, Joseph laughed, as a newcomer, “It’s hard for me to even know where the bank is.” In Marion, Maia, the head of the second volunteer committee, helped the family avoid and overcome hurdles with the bank. Joseph and Georgette gave Maia direct access to their online bank account to help avoid any costly pitfalls and strategize savings. With Joseph and Georgette’s dream of buying a house in mind, Maia focused on helping them save for a down payment. For instance, Maia helped Joseph set up an automatic weekly $25 transfer to his savings account “so he does not have to even think about it.” Since Joseph still struggled to manage his bank accounts on the computer, Maia helped him to overcome this hurdle by setting up mobile banking: I installed a Wells Fargo app on my phone and realized how easy it was to navigate. So I downloaded it onto his phone, and he can mostly get it. He is able now to transfer funds from checking to savings and can keep the balances as they should be. And I think that is a huge step for him.

But managing the phone application required logging in—remembering and typing the correct password. Since Joseph sometimes forgot his password, this was a challenge for the family. With access to the family’s accounts, Maia also acted as a safeguard against any mistakes. Sometimes, for instance, Joseph risked bouncing the rent check. As Maia recalled, They had $50 left in their checking account, and they mailed the rent check [for $950]. I had to say, “You have got to transfer money from the savings



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[account] to checking to cover the check.” Initially, I do not think Joseph understood that the day you mail the check is not the day they cash it. . . . So, he has had to learn. . . . He always mails it in a week before it is due, and they do not usually process it until after it was due. So, a whole week will pass, and he sometimes forgets that “I need to have that kind of money in my account.”

The systems were complicated; there were many hurdles and a lot that could go wrong. A mistake like a bounced check could be costly beyond just fees. As cultural brokers, the volunteers in Springdale and Marion helped the parents navigate financial services and overcome hurdles along the way. This help, along with Joseph and Georgette’s strategic move and their hard work, paid off. After a year the family had accumulated several thousand dollars—money they hoped would become the down payment for a house.

tangles in t h e s a f e t y n e t Then, the Ngomas hit a series of setbacks, unrelated events that culminated in an institutional knot. Although the volunteers helped Joseph and Georgette overcome hurdles and knots, they also made mistakes, and at times Joseph and Georgette had more valuable knowledge and networks than the volunteers. First, Georgette’s health problems flared up. Her kidney levels weren’t good. Her feet started swelling, and then her legs. Standing up for tenhour shifts packing boxes was already hard; now, with her feet swollen, it was insufferable. Georgette tried to continue, but her pace slowed. After working at the factory for six months through the temp agency, Georgette was fired. Sick and out of work, she was struggling. Maia acted as a cultural broker, helping Georgette seek specialized medical care. Maia’s husband, Rob, was a doctor at the Marion Public Clinic, which served refugees in the area, including the Ngomas. After many medical appointments and tests, the doctors determined that Georgette had low-level kidney disease, possibly the result of having untreated high blood pressure during her extended time in the refugee camp. She needed to control her blood

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pressure by regularly taking medication. Maia provided crucial assistance overcoming hurdles to treatment. She took Georgette to weekly physical therapy appointments to strengthen her legs, helped manage her medication, called the pharmacy for refills, and picked up the prescription. Georgette’s health improved. Despite this progress, during these months of medical appointments and treatment the family had to make ends meet on Joseph’s salary alone, approximately $2,400 a month. They reached for their credit card more often to purchase groceries or gas. Paying off the credit card became harder and harder. Finally, they started drawing on their savings. After all their hard work slowly building up their savings, as Cathy said, “The family almost went down to no money at all in the bank account.” Financially, they went “back to zero,” sliding into poverty, with their dream of homeownership slipping away. Then, another problem surfaced. When the family arrived in the United States they qualified for food stamps (SNAP) of around $700 monthly, yet managing these benefits brought its own hurdles. As upper-middle-class White Americans, the volunteers were “shocked” by the complicated rules and requirements, which are rooted in classist and racist ideas about who deserves assistance.15 For instance, finicky procedures made shopping difficult. Marilyn remarked, Part of the shock of that was if you’re on food stamps there are some things you can buy with it and some things you can’t. You have to keep track of “Can I buy this with this or with that?” “How much money is left?” The SNAP part is only charged once a month. If you run out before the end of the month, you are hosed.

The volunteers didn’t have the knowledge they needed to navigate food assistance. Just like the refugees and other marginalized families, the volunteers had to learn about it.16 Yet even with the volunteers’ considerable assistance, the family was tangled in a knot with food stamps. Every six months the Ngomas filled out a long recertification survey form. Cathy, one of the volunteers, usually helped them with this hurdle. The first step was identifying the documents out of a pile of junk mail Joseph cautiously saved. Without English



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skills, it was difficult for Joseph to manage the mail. Every time Cathy came by Joseph handed her the pile, saying, “These are the official mails I have gotten.” With a laugh, Cathy noted, “Most of them are garbage, junk mail.” But the process wasn’t smooth sailing even after the recertification form arrived and was identified. The forms were long and detailed, and they required copies of pay slips. Despite these hurdles, Cathy and Joseph always completed the application and the Ngomas’ food stamps continued. While Georgette was still out of work, they ran into a problem with the recertification. As Cathy recalled, “They had to do this whole reevaluation, and apparently it comes in this big manila envelope, stuffed full. They didn’t get it. So they were cut off.”17 This error threatened to become a knot, blocking their much-needed food assistance. But there was a guardrail in the system: the option to appeal. Cathy explained, The letter we got saying, “You have been cut off ” also directed, “This is how you can appeal.” So . . . I filled out the appeal and mailed it in. Then, we got a notice about a hearing. So I set up the hearing. Georgette and I went to the hearing. [At the hearing,] I explained that they never got the form. It could have been stolen from their mailbox, because it could have looked valuable because it was this big envelope. I don’t know what happened to it. That is probably why the judge just said, “It is fine.”

The error triggered new hurdles—an application for an appeal, scheduling a hearing, and defending their case—which Cathy helped navigate. Their appeal was approved, but the obstacles kept coming. Cathy filled out the additional forms they needed to complete to have their food stamps reinstated. But an official at the food stamp office made a crucial mistake, telling Cathy the wrong procedure for the forms. As Cathy explained, I filled out the forms, and then I did not fill it out right. I neglected to write a couple of their birthdates because the guy said, “It will be populated already when you get it, and we will put all those things on.” But because they were actually cut off, it did not [work]. So, I had to write everything out, and I really didn’t fully understand that. So they sent it back and I had to fill it out again.

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Errors led to new errors, creating another knot. Cathy winced, noting the lengthy fiasco: Two months. It took two months. It was right at the time when they were still trying to recover from Georgette not having work, so it was really bad. It meant that they ended up putting more stuff on the credit card and depleting their savings.

Stringent recertification forms were a hurdle. Cathy played a key role as a cultural broker. Fluent in English and accustomed to American bureaucracy, she helped Joseph and Georgette manage the fallout—and she may have prevented later reverberations—but even she couldn’t forestall the knot. The system had too many opportunities for things to go wrong. This knot was deeply consequential: the Ngomas lost $1,400 worth of food assistance over two months. Since Joseph’s income was $2,400 monthly for a family of six, it was a costly loss. Over this period Georgette’s health improved, but after six months away from work it was hard for her to find a new job, and an effort to get another job with the temp agency didn’t work out. Joseph then heard that the factory where he worked was hiring again—this time regular full-time employees. Joseph figured Georgette should try to get rehired there. The pay was good, the work was stable, and the couple could carpool, but the volunteers and caseworkers were skeptical. Since employers keep records of employees and want to avoid training employees who they don’t see as good investments, the volunteers thought that the chances of her being rehired were low. Cathy explained to Joseph and Georgette, “They won’t hire her. They already fired her.” But Joseph insisted, “No, they want everybody.” The next week he helped her fill out the application and recommended her to the supervisors at the company. She got the job, making $12 an hour. The volunteers were thrilled. As Cathy cheered, “It was such an amazing thing! Joseph getting Georgette that job was incredible. We were all like flustered. He just did it.” In this case the cultural brokers’ advice had been incorrect; Joseph had a better read of the situation.18 Joseph and Georgette’s independence and resilience were important. The volunteers and the family were able to overcome many obstacles.



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i nsurmounta b l e o b s ta c l e s t o e d u cat i o n : t h e power of th e i n s t i t u t i o n American volunteers acting as cultural brokers also helped the Ngomas navigate educational opportunities. Many of the volunteers were retired teachers and their own children had attended the same schools the Ngoma children did. Although Joseph had attended college in the Congo, he sought help from the volunteers to navigate the American schools, emphasizing to Cathy, “I really don’t understand the American education system. You have to help me understand it. Whatever you think we should do is what we will do.” In both Springdale and Marion, the volunteers provided crucial educational opportunities, such as intensive tutoring, help with extracurricular activities, and liaising with teachers and administrators. As Georgette said, “Those people from church have really helped my children with their education.” Yet no matter how hard the volunteers worked, the features of the schools mattered. As one volunteer, Steven, put it, in Springdale the Ngoma children “were in a nice middle school, and now [in Marion] they are in the worst the United States has to offer.” Whereas Springdale High was majority White and less than 20 percent of students were economically disadvantaged, in Marion over 90 percent of students were economically disadvantaged and almost all qualified for free lunch, a pattern linked to lower academic achievement. Marion served mostly low-income students of color and more than 20 percent of students were Englishlanguage learners.19 As Musa remarked, at Marion “there are so many immigrants. There are so many kinds of people—Blacks, [Hispanics], Americans, Whites.” Whereas the Ngomas had been the only Congolese at their school in Springdale, at Marion they were happy to study alongside other Congolese students; the children enjoyed having “friends to talk to in school,” and Kalenga liked that they could “speak Swahili every day at school.” But Musa cautioned, “It’s bad because all the time we speak in Swahili. We are supposed to speak English, to learn.” The school atmosphere was different; wide-eyed, Musa recalled a fight happening in front of him. In another instance, Musa was “targeted” by a Latino student who had the same class schedule. As Steven, the volunteer, stated, “Clearly [the Ngomas] are kids who do not like to be around violence. They like things to be settled and clear.”

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The schools also had different busing policies. In Marion, bus service in the cash-strapped district began two miles from school. Unaware of this, the Springdale cultural brokers made a crucial mistake: the house the brokers helped the Ngomas rent was just under two miles from the school. Since Joseph and Georgette left for work at 3 a.m. and returned at 5 p.m., the children had to walk forty minutes each way. Kalenga was upset. He said, “I didn’t like the school—it was so different from Springdale’s school. There is no school bus. Every day we have to walk to school here. It’s boring. . . . It’s far.” Quickly, the Marion volunteers began to worry. As Cathy remembered, “We sort of realized, ‘We are going to have to get them to school; otherwise they are not going to get to school.’ And so I volunteered to do that.” For the entire first year, Cathy, a retired teacher with grown children who had attended Marion High, drove the Ngoma children to and from school and their after-school activities. For five days a week I was waking up at 6:30 to take them to school. I was taking them every day and the boys were going to soccer after school. Amina wanted to go to soccer too. So, I was taking everybody. I became a soccer mom again, you know, waiting at 10 p.m. at the school for them to come back from that away game. It was that whole shebang.

Cathy helped the Ngomas overcome a crucial hurdle to get to school, but after a year she was exhausted. The second year the team decided to share the driving among three volunteers for the fall. They warned the family they could not continue after December, but the volunteers, noting that the “the family comes to church,” didn’t stop as planned. Instead they continued with some frustration, particularly when the children were not ready. Of course many affluent school districts provide bus service at this distance, and the lack of services at the school created difficulties. Rigid Assignments, Skipping Grades In addition, the Springdale and Marion school districts had different policies on how children were placed in classrooms. When the Ngomas first arrived in the United States, the Springdale school system administrators assigned the children to school grade levels based on their ages, according to the rules of the local public school system. At the school in Marion,



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placement for the older children—Kalenga, Musa, and Amina—was done based on their English scores on a placement exam. Based on her English score, Amina was placed in ninth grade, skipping eighth grade entirely. Amina was thrilled to be in high school, but, as Cathy explained, she wasn’t academically prepared: “She could not read the social studies book. I mean, the kids had never heard of World War II! The English vocabulary wasn’t there.” Cathy had been a history teacher and worked with Amina individually, but she was frustrated; she felt that Amina had been set up to fail and that she should be in a class more closely aligned with her English abilities. In an effort to move Amina to a more appropriate placement, she approached Amina’s teacher: I reached out to Amina’s social studies teacher. He was this young man, and I said, “She can’t read this book.” And he was like, “What! She can’t read the book?” and I said “Well, how do you expect her to do well?” He was explaining the fact that he was giving her help in class. I was like, “But she can’t read the book!” . . . She failed terribly. She had to repeat it the next year. . . . So, he failed her.

Though she was a former teacher at Marion, Cathy’s effort to assist Amina failed. Indeed, many of the volunteers were retired teachers; they had extensive meetings with the educators and they tutored the children regularly. They strove to overcome hurdles to secure assistance and the correct placement for the Ngoma children, but their attempts yielded only limited solutions. They could not fix the school system. Meanwhile, Kalenga and Musa were struggling in algebra class. Steven, who was tutoring them weekly, concluded, “It was clear they did not know some basic math facts. It was hard to know if they had even basic concepts in arithmetic.” Cathy noted, “If they had a teacher who really would talk them through it, they could do okay.” The twins liked their algebra teacher, Mr. Peterson, but he couldn’t give them the kind of specialized attention during class that they needed to catch up. During their first year at the new school, Cathy had pleaded with Mr. Peterson to get the twins switched to a math class more aligned with their level: Our heads were spinning. . . . We did talk to their math teacher, and we had a long conversation about their lack of preparedness. He said, “I understand.” But he told us that there weren’t any other options—which you know,

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as it turns out, there were. But again, I think this is the problem of the school not the teacher.

The volunteers were not able to overcome the hurdle of placement, but with the volunteers’ intensive tutoring and the twins’ persistence, as Cathy concluded, “They kind of got through the year.” They passed. At the beginning of the second school year in Marion, the volunteers requested a meeting with the school, Joseph, and Georgette. The team “had a goal,” as Cathy put it: “We wanted them to test their math ability,” hoping that low scores might bolster their case. She explained, “We went to a meeting with Joseph and Georgette early the second year, because we were just sick and tired of this. That is when it came about that there was a newcomer math class that they could take.” The previous year, Cathy and other team members had met with Mr. Peterson, and other teachers at the school, asking for options. Cathy had even done her own research for programs designed to help English Language Learner (ELL) students. Yet only a year later did the volunteers learn about the existence of the newcomer program. The school didn’t place the children into the proper program. Cathy reflected, I finally realized that the school did understand that adolescent English learners are different. And they did have a program: the newcomers program, which they put ELL kids in for the first two years after arriving to the U.S. But our kids came with two years under their belt, so [the school] assumed that they were ready for year three.

The school had made a blunder in the children’s class placement and, despite being highly skilled cultural brokers, the volunteers didn’t identify the knot for a year. The team members were upset. They started secondguessing themselves, as Cathy said: It’s crazy that we didn’t know that about the math class. Maybe at the beginning of the first year we should have just asked for an appointment with [the vice principal in charge of ELL] and ask, “What does the whole program look like?” But the school just made decisions in the beginning, and we just waited for the decisions.

Although the team’s advocacy to test the children’s math stalled, the vice principal agreed to switch Kalenga, Musa, and Amina to the newcomer



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math class right there and then. Cathy and the other team members were “so thrilled.” They encouraged Joseph and Georgette to approve it, and they did. The vice principal changed the Ngoma children’s schedules. Resistance to “Baby Classes” The team met with Kalenga, Musa, and Amina to tell them the exciting news, but the teens didn’t find the news so exciting. In fact, the team were met with resistance, as Steven remarked, The kids were very frustrated, which is not their personality. . . . Even though they were failing in algebra and not understanding it, rather than be relieved that they were going to get the help they needed and start improving their scores, they clearly saw the class as stigmatizing. They felt they were beyond being a part of that group.

They rebelled. Cathy recalled that as the class started, “one by one the kids got themselves back into algebra. Because they hated it. They did not want to be with the babies.” Looking back, Stephen and Cathy both stressed how they wished they had engaged the teens earlier. In an interview, Cathy remarked, We could have discussed this with the children, but we just skipped that. We could have talked it over with Amina, and Kalenga, and Musa, and maybe talk them into it. They could have maybe told us what their objection was, which was social. And it was a big objection. I think then we could have had our conversation about, “Do you want to fail? Do you want to graduate?” They still probably would have made the same decision, but at least it would have been more honest and upfront.

That year, all three of the Ngoma high schoolers took algebra, and the tutors continued to help them every week after school. But after the kids chose to change out of the newcomers math class, the volunteers started to put up boundaries. Steven was frustrated. The three decided that they are not going to take the newcomers math. Then I felt like, “Okay, so you are going to take algebra that you don’t understand. So, what are you going to do?” So, we put that question to them. I remember Musa saying, “Well, you can help us.” And I just said, “No, we don’t have the

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capacity.” And he said, “Okay, we could go to after-school.” I said, “good.” But did they go to after-school? I don’t know.

Between the tutors’ help and after-school help, they wound up barely passing. Furthermore, Joseph wanted Musa to take an engineering class that required algebra (so he could become an engineer), but, according to the volunteers, Musa wasn’t prepared for the level of math required for that class. Hoping to ensure that Musa would get enough credits to graduate, the volunteers sought the advice of the principal, who recommended that he switch to an “easy” psychology class. But Musa refused to switch. He stayed in engineering, which the volunteers saw as doomed, but they calculated that he could fail the class and still graduate. They let it go. In Marion, knots in grade and class placement stalled the children’s educational progress; despite three volunteers working hard, they couldn’t change school policies. The volunteers’ intensive help, however, did ensure that Kalenga and Musa accumulated enough course credits to graduate from high school. For newcomers in a low-performing school, this achievement wasn’t a given. The volunteers guessed that a bachelor’s degree was out of reach, but they hoped that the boys could one day attend community college and get a job they would find fulfilling.

removing h u r d l e s , r e s o lv i n g k n o t s , h e l p i n g mobility: t h e n g o m a s bu y a h o me In Marion, as the family navigated multiple, complex institutions at once—doctors’ offices and medical care, workplaces, banks, and finances— the crises they faced reverberated. A health crisis jeopardized Georgette’s ability to work. Her six months of unemployment depleted the family’s savings, stymieing their plans to buy a house. But, after a rocky first year in Marion, the Ngomas’ situation stabilized. Joseph and Georgette were both working and getting a lot of overtime hours. They were determined to double down on their savings to make up lost ground. In an interview, Joseph said with determination, “Georgette and I decided to save money



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to buy a house. Our own house! We really have been saving a lot of money. Sometimes $500 and sometimes $1,000 a month . . . especially the months where we are paid a lot from overtime.” Including their tax refunds, nearly four years after arriving in the United States, Joseph and Georgette had managed to save $12,000 toward a house. Even with their savings, Joseph and Georgette knew they would need help with such a big purchase—to navigate a confusing process. Scholars have also documented pervasive racial discrimination in home buying.20 There were many hurdles. How would they secure a mortgage? Find the right house? Joseph concluded, “We don’t know how to get a house on our own.” So, Georgette said, “We asked the people from church to help us get a house.” Maia, a homeowner herself, played a central role in each step of the process—and, as she remarked, “It’s been quite a process.” Acting as a cultural broker, Maia removed key hurdles and safeguarded against errors. She found a program for first-time homebuyers that would pay for closing costs after the Ngomas completed the program. Joseph and Georgette had to apply for preapproval for a mortgage from their bank.21 Maia and Joseph went to the bank to begin the process, but the official informed them that, these days, “You do it online.” Maia got her laptop and headed to the Ngomas’ house. The application was complicated and lengthy, requiring things like two years of tax returns, pay stubs, and green cards scanned and sent electronically—all significant hurdles. Joseph and Georgette gathered the documents one by one. Maia concluded, laughing, “I think that it would have been impossible without my assistance. . . . The mortgage process has been a lot of explaining.” After many false starts, they eventually gathered all the forms, and Maia uploaded them, finished the paperwork, and submitted the application. Beaming with pride, Joseph recounted, “After the bank investigated our employment, our income, and our credit card records, they felt we are okay . . . and they decided to loan us money to get a house.” Joseph and Georgette’s work on the application and their income and savings, along with their good credit history—thanks in part to the early assistance of church volunteers in navigating financial systems and guarding against hiccups—led to a later gain: approval for a mortgage. With help from cultural brokers they were spared the common mistakes that could have

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reduced their credit score and led to their application being denied, something that happened to other families in this book (chapter 5). Instead, with help from the volunteers, Joseph and Georgette were approved on their first attempt. With approval for a bank loan, the Ngomas started searching for a family home in the Marion area, enlisting the help of church members. Georgette wished for a five-bedroom house big enough for the whole family to gather—and for their daughter and grandchildren to stay as well as her sister’s family. Their kids dreamed of each having their own room and searched home listings online. Joseph hoped for a driveway, somewhere to park the family’s car. He was tired of coming home after a long workday and circling around the block looking for street parking—and all the parking tickets from street cleaning. Maia again took the lead, acting as a cultural broker. She teamed up with Kevin, a realtor, who was a member of their Quaker meeting and offered to donate his services. Every morning Kevin scoured the available listings and sent suitable options to Maia. Maia scanned through the listings and pulled promising leads. Joseph was working six days a week, taking any overtime he could get, so Kevin scheduled showings on Tuesdays, Joseph’s only day off. Maia accompanied Joseph and Georgette to the showings. When they got to a house, although Maia could not understand the couple’s words, she grasped the message. Chuckling, Maia explained, “Georgette is clearly in charge—and you can tell right away if she likes the house or not.” After weeks of looking, they settled on making an offer on a house with five bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a small yard. Maria emphasized, “The price was very good.” When they were making the offer, Kevin and Maia tried to explain the concepts described on each piece of paper. As Maia said, All the specialized terms like escrow and honest money. . . it’s unbelievable. The realtor will be explaining something, and I will say, “Wait, wait. Joseph, do you understand what he is talking about?” “No.” But he can laugh about it. He has a good sense of humor.

The family put in an offer of $149,000, which was $10,000 above the asking price. Unfortunately, someone outbid them. Joseph and Georgette were crushed but Joseph remained “patient,” according to one of the vol-



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unteers. The weeks stretched to months, and still no house. They widened their search. Four months later, just before Thanksgiving, Joseph and Georgette put in an offer on another house—1,700 square feet, with four large bedrooms and two full bathrooms—and their offer was accepted. The Ngomas closed on the house a few days before Christmas. Sitting on a green, grassy lot, the two-story brick house had a welcoming blue front door and pale blue shutters. A paved driveway led up to the house; Joseph finally had a place to park his car. The house was in the suburbs, outside of Marion in an area that is 94 percent White and 4 percent Black. The median income in the new neighborhood, $80,000, was twice the median income of their current neighborhood, and the poverty rate of their neighbors went from being about 30 percent of residents to less than 15 percent. The Ngomas’ offer of $212,000 was at the top of their budget. The volunteers cautioned that they’d have to be careful with their budget and warned that they would need to restrict how much they sent to friends and family back home. Also, the school district was different. Kalenga and Musa, who were seniors in high school, were permitted to finish out the school year in the Marion district; Amina and Emmanuel had to change schools immediately. Nevertheless, four and a half years after arriving in the United States, Joseph and Georgette Ngoma were proud homeowners. As Joseph said, “We did it!” After fleeing the brutal killings in the Congo and surviving almost two decades in a refugee camp, the family had their own home, their own refuge.22

cross - cultu ra l t e n s i o n s It would be surprising, given the cross-cultural gulf between the family and the volunteers, if there were not tensions from time to time. Volunteers come with their own set of expectations and ideas of deservingness, ideas that may be shaped by their own race, class, and gender. While the Springdale volunteers were particularly effusive about Joseph, some were slower to warm to Georgette, who had a more limited education and language skills, and some found her reserved and slow to adapt. (The Marion volunteers, however, were more positive, possibly due to the strides

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Georgette had made in her English after two years, or because of their own different dispositions.) In addition, as White upper-middle-class women, the volunteers had gendered expectations about proper aspects of home life, including cleanliness and cooking. For instance, there was a recurring conflict about food storage and management between the volunteers and Georgette, as well as among the volunteers themselves. In interviews, several volunteers separately brought up an incident about a cooked chicken. As Barb in Springdale explained, A cooked chicken had been left out all night. [A volunteer] had come to do whatever in the morning, saw it there, and realized that it was from the night before and threw it out into the garbage. Georgette went over and retrieved it from the garbage. This was shared with a group of us talking, as “Georgette needs to learn that you have to throw something out.” I’m thinking, “Well, not necessarily. Maybe the person who goes in the morning ought to learn to stay out of it.” . . . The Americans involved in this are all different kinds of people. Some of them are sort of Betty Crocker types, and others Miss Wilderness types. . . . Meanwhile, the Ngomas may be thinking, “What the hell? I ate this in the refugee camp. Why can’t I eat that?”

Our understanding is that Georgette and the volunteer never addressed this tension, and this moment also led to tension among different volunteers on the team.23 Other volunteers working with different families reported similar strains over kitchen cleanliness, children’s bedtimes, and families’ diets.24 Indeed, studies of volunteer sponsorship in Canada point to “intrusiveness” as a potential drawback for refugee families.25 In these interactions, there were signs that the volunteers, often White middleclass women, had expectations of the Congolese women, rather than the men, for the state of the home. These tensions reflected the power of gender in the expectations of the volunteers. Additionally, the Marion volunteers sometimes felt overwhelmed by the family’s needs and worried that their continued assistance might be creating “dependency.” For example, they wanted Joseph and Georgette to take responsibility for renewing Georgette’s blood pressure medicine. While volunteers didn’t always completely recognize the reasons the medicines were not renewed, they knew that this task fell through the cracks,



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and that Georgette at times skipped her medication (which could be serious). But they “let it go” since they could not “fix everything.” For their part, the Ngomas, were extremely positive when making offhand comments about the volunteers, often saying, “We thank God for that team! They have sacrificed to help us.” In some cases, the Ngomas (and other refugees) and volunteers had different ideas, for example about if the twins should be in the newcomer program at school or the Ngoma children should attend summer school (rather than visiting an aunt). The family appeared to see themselves as having agency—feeling as if they could choose, taking steps that they felt were best, and moving ahead. In some instances the volunteers preferred steps other than those chosen by the Ngomas (such as attending summer school), and in interviews they expressed some frustration. Still, they tried to be intentional and mindful of the family’s wishes. The Ngomas didn’t report similar feelings of frustration, and, similar to other refugees in the interview sample, they appeared to pick and choose the services that worked best for them. Volunteers found working with the Ngomas to be deeply rewarding. Some even remarked that they had gotten more out of the experience than the Ngomas had. As Cathy, her voice wavering with emotion, said, This has probably been the most fun of anything I have done, and the most rewarding. The family needed help because of their situation, and we were able to provide that help. It looks to me like they are going to be successful. They are going to make a life for themselves and a happy one, a fulfilling one. Joseph and Georgette will have friends and a house, and they have their kids, and their kids will one day have their own families—and I think it’s going to be good.

Steven wistfully reflected, “Through them, you see the American story.” This American story wasn’t only about the determination shown by the Ngomas. It was also about the obstacles they faced on their journey toward upward mobility, obstacles encountered by many refugee families (appendix A, table A.5). And it was about the valuable benefits they accrued from organizations and from the interventions of the volunteers and aid workers acting as cultural brokers.

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being helpe d a l o n g : p r e ca r i o u s p r o g r e ss The church volunteers, acting as cultural brokers, transformed the Ngomas’ family life. While many refugees, such as Honoria, waited patiently for their overstretched, underfunded caseworkers to help pay a bill, the Ngoma family was flooded with volunteers. Nor were they just any volunteers. As educated professionals who had occupational experience in some of the very areas of life where the family members needed services, the volunteers offered high-level professional expertise. By helping the Ngomas overcome institutional obstacles, they smoothed their pathway toward upward mobility. Volunteers directed educational resources to the children, ensured access to government benefits, and helped them buy a home. The family benefited from the interventions of the volunteers, cultural brokers who not only spoke English but also spoke “bureaucracy.” Undoubtably, the skills, knowledge, hard work, and persistence of Joseph, Georgette, and their children played a role. Joseph had attended college and spoke five languages. Georgette had persisted in the face of great trauma. Back in the Congo, Joseph had worked for an American, and he may have been particularly at ease with the American volunteers. In the United States, the couple displayed valuable knowledge about their employer (what scholars term “cultural capital”), which enabled them to get Georgette a job at the factory. They had ties with other recently resettled Congolese refugees around the country, a source of valuable information when researching where to move (what scholars term “social capital”). Yet, in our interviews with volunteers from other groups and other refugee families, we found similar patterns: volunteers played a central role as cultural brokers in clearing obstacles and facilitating upward mobility—regardless of the refugee family’s background. In our interviews, one-quarter of the refugee families mentioned intensive involvement with volunteers. Volunteers we talked to also reported similarly intensive levels of involvement, helping families beyond the ones in our study, such as fetching children from school daily, laboriously filling out paperwork, and advocating for access to entitled services. With the help of these cultural brokers, even refugee families with more modest educational and occupational backgrounds got ahead. For instance, when Janvier and Maria arrived in the United States with their five children, they dreamed of



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owning their own home. Compared to some other families, they faced some disadvantages: they had never attended school, couldn’t read or write in any language, and didn’t speak English. Nonetheless, an American volunteer, Kate, helped Janvier and Maria get manufacturing jobs, set up bank accounts, and manage their finances. When they were ready to buy a house, she set up house showings, studied the paperwork, and oversaw the inspection. Three years after arriving in the United States, Janvier and Maria bought a house. Janvier concluded, “If we didn’t have Kate, we wouldn’t have been able to get our own house. Things would have been difficult.” In other families, volunteers also helped children reach educational goals, such as attending college, a key mechanism of upward mobility. Volunteers helped Matayo, a young adult raised by his aunt and uncle who had never attended school, overcome key obstacles at school. In addition to daily tutoring sessions, they strategized about his educational pathway, including which courses he needed to graduate and how to strengthen his college applications. Matayo graduated from high school and enrolled in a community college. Furthermore, many different kinds of people can act as a cultural broker. An additional fourteen families also reported help from a cultural broker of some kind, such as a pastor, a coworker, or a more established Congolese refugee, meaning that twenty-four of the forty-four families noted assistance from a cultural broker. Thus, the intensive help received by Joseph and Georgette wasn’t rare in our study, nor were their gains. Studies have shown that in many immigrant families children learn English more rapidly than their parents and can act as cultural brokers in a wide range of settings, from helping parents with their fruit stands to navigating medical offices and school conferences.26 Children’s efforts can be immensely helpful to their parents and reinforce family solidarity, but they also lead to “adultification,” as children are pressed into adult roles.27 Indeed, the Ngoma children were deeply devoted to their parents and pitched in to help the family succeed in a variety of ways. In addition to the well-documented role of young adult children as cultural brokers, we show that volunteers from outside the family can play this role as well. They tap into a long-standing focus on volunteering, a feature of American society noted by Alexis de Tocqueville over a century ago. Of course, volunteers can’t do everything. The Ngomas also had a caseworker at the resettlement agency who had critical expertise that the

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volunteers lacked. She applied for food stamps, health care, rental assistance, and other federal aid when the family first arrived. There were also many challenges beyond the volunteers’ control. While the volunteers could help overcome hurdles, they couldn’t get rid of the complicated rules and requirements—rules that burdened some families more than others.28 Indeed, because the volunteers were upper-middle class and White, they hadn’t faced some of these burdens in their own lives, like finicky food stamp requirements and discrimination in mortgage applications. Nor were they able to prevent some significant organizational knots from surfacing, such as when the Ngomas’ food stamps were cut off or when Amina was made to skip eighth grade. When the Ngomas first arrived, the volunteers also had trouble finding sufficient hours of work for the adults. The volunteers had extensive professional social ties, but they didn’t have access to leads for low-wage work. Most importantly, the volunteers could not change key social structural factors, including deep racial inequality and unequal opportunities across neighborhoods. They could not change that, like many families in the United States, Joseph and Georgette had to choose between a more affordable neighborhood and a better-resourced school district.29 In sum, there are things that volunteers, as cultural brokers, can do to shape socioeconomic mobility, and these interventions can be invaluable, but other social structural patterns are hard to change. Families encounter many different institutions including schools, financial institutions, and social service programs. In many cases what seems to matter is the quality of institutions and the efforts of the employees within them—institutional insiders—as we show in the next chapter with Alain and Vana’s family.

5

The Power of People Doing Their Jobs alain and vana msafiri

Alain, forty-five, and his wife Vana, in her early forties, had a quiet confidence about them. Alain stood straight in a neatly ironed collared shirt and a khaki vest emblazoned with the UNHCR emblem, a lingering marker of his respected position in the refugee camp helping with food distribution. In the United States his son David praised his assuredness: “He knows the names of all the mayors, the president. He knows things like that.” “Always business minded,” a mom from David’s soccer team added with a laugh. Like Alain, Vana was carefully dressed, draping a black sweater over a green dress made from an African fabric topped off with a matching head wrap. At church and in English classes, everyone gushed over her “sweet” demeanor. Devout Christians, the family attended church weekly. It was one constant in their refugee journeys that had carried them through three countries—the Congo, Burundi, and the United States. Back in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Alain and Vana’s marriage across ethnic lines (Hutu and Tutsi) had made them a target in the country’s ethnic fighting, but their love was palpable in the way they looked at each other. Despite the hardships Alain and Vana had endured, they both exuded optimism and passed along this outlook to their children. 123

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Alain and Vana were resettled to Philadelphia with seven of their eight children. In the refugee camp, their oldest, Deo, eighteen, won a competitive university scholarship and moved to Canada. The younger seven were a lively, bubbly presence. Alex, fifteen, was the free spirit of the family, and his energy was contagious. He shared his parents’ confidence but with more mischief. His soccer friends—from a racially diverse team of players from Haiti, Egypt, and a dozen other countries—were filled with mirth as they recounted how Alex was pulled over by a policeman for riding his bike at breakneck speed and given a warning for speeding. As Alain noted, David, age fourteen, was the complete opposite. Just a year younger than Alex, David was steady, responsible, with his head often in a book. When he was working, he’d give his younger sister, Christine, money to get her hair done. Christine, like David, was responsible beyond her twelve years. The oldest girl in the family, she took after Vana, playing the role of caretaker. Then, there were the “three boys”—Saint (nine), Claude (seven), and William (six). They goofed off together, egging each other on as they did silly impressions and breaking into fits of laughter. Saint was a polite kid who loved math. Claude, inspired by the health workers who help him manage his diabetes, dreamed of becoming a doctor. William was energetic and active, breaking his new glasses just days after getting them. Furaha, aged three and the baby of the family, had the same charismatic mischievousness as Alex. Alain and Vana dressed her in elaborate outfits with ruffled skirts, her favorite striped tights with flowers, and white shiny shoes that clicked at the heel with each little step. Like the other families in this book, Alain and Vana Msafiri and their children faced obstacles when they arrived in Philadelphia, yet they were able to access crucial organizational resources that proved key in their efforts to get ahead. In this chapter we show that although there were obstacles in accessing these resources (hurdles, knots, and reverberations), overcoming them unlocked rewards. Through various organizations the Msafiris gained access to food, clothing, health care, English classes for adults, schooling for their children, tutoring, housing loans, and college financial aid. In this chapter we highlight the multiple programs Alain and Vana encountered, the extensive expertise and skill required to navigate them, the numerous setbacks they faced, and the formidable benefits that institutions can and do provide.

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Crucially, Alain and Vana benefited from relatively resource-rich organizations and help from institutional gatekeepers. In the United States, not all organizations are equal: some schools have more resources than others, some community organizations offer more extensive programming than others, and some agencies have fewer hurdles (or routine rules and requirements) and more built-in support. Nor does everyone have the same access to well-resourced services—middle-class families and White families disproportionately reap benefits.1 In particular, Alain, Vana, and their children benefited from the help of institutional insiders—teachers, caseworkers, mortgage lenders, coaches, and others who, as paid workers, had power and authority over the distribution of benefits within an organization.2 To be sure, Alain and Vana were among the most highly educated Congolese couples in our study. Their skills were valuable in navigating institutions and meeting agents’ expectations and helped them receive additional resources.3 Although Alain and Vana remained mired in low-wage, physical jobs with no pensions or hope of retirement, they managed to buy two houses as income-producing rental properties. One of their children attended college, and the others were achieving academic success. They played soccer and made friends, whose upper-middle-class parents helped the family, acting as informal cultural brokers. In this chapter we show that when things went the family’s way, the resources they gained could lead to considerable progress toward upward mobility.

fleeing the c o n g o Sitting in their Philadelphia apartment, Alain and Vana Msafiri concluded that, in the beginning, their family life was “tough.” Growing up in the Congo, Alain and his family were relatively well-off: Alain’s dad worked in the local tax office, and at home his mom farmed and tended to the family’s cows and sheep. What they had in food, they lacked in familial harmony. While other refugees reported congeniality in family systems with multiple wives, relationships in Alain’s family, which included his father and his two wives, were fraught. As Alain explained it, “My mother was the eldest wife—and it appeared that my dad really preferred the younger wife.” From an early age, Alain felt the tension and lack of favor.

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Furthermore, the rift grew when Alain introduced Vana to his family. Alain and Vana came from two different ethnic groups. Alain was Hutu and Vana was Tutsi. The Tutsi were seen as “outsiders” and faced discrimination and hostility from the Hutu. Although they knew their match might stir disapproval, they hoped that the peace between the two groups in their region (which later proved temporary) would lead to acceptance. But, as Alain recalled, their parents didn’t approve: “I really liked Vana— she was a good girl. But when I informed my parents, they rejected the idea. ‘You cannot marry someone from that tribe!’ Her parents also told her, ‘You cannot get married to someone from that tribe!’ . . . It was a tribal problem. Marriage was a problem.” But, Alain concluded, “We loved each other and so we decided to get married.” Together, the young couple made a life for themselves. They started a family, and Vana gave birth to three boys, Deo, Alex, and David. They each found relatively stable, professional jobs. Alain had a high school degree, which put him among the most educated in the Congo.4 Like many educated Congolese, both Alain and Vana spoke fluent French. Following in the footsteps of his father, Alain found a white-collar job in a government tax and customs office, licensing businesses and ensuring they paid their taxes. According to Alain, it was a “good job, but a risky one. We used to close down businesses that were not able to pay.” Vana—very unusually for women at that time—nearly completed high school and worked as a teacher at the local elementary school.5 Vana taught children reading and writing and “to be attentive to their teachers.” For a few years, life seemed good. Then, tensions came to a boil. War broke out between the two ethnic groups. Alain and Vana recalled that it was then that “we knew we would die.” Vana shuddered remembering how the interethnic tension intensified: “People were hating each other. My husband’s people did not want me to remain with him. They hated me [due to my ethnicity]. My people hated him.” They knew it was time to leave when the rival groups set up dangerous roadblocks throughout the area. As Alain recalled, “Tutsi set up roadblocks, killing any Bantu they saw.6 Bantus also set up roadblocks to kill any Tutsi person they saw. My wife and I could not even walk around.” In the middle of the night Alain and Vana set out by foot, unable to take anything with them apart from their children. Alain carried their first-

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born, who was around three years old, on his shoulders and the second in his arms. Vana carried the baby on her back. The border to Burundi was closed to refugees, so they took shortcuts through paths deep in the woods to cross undetected. Once they crossed the border, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) was receiving refugees; Alain and Vana cradled their three small children as they rode in the back of big UN trucks the 215 kilometers to the refugee camp.

living in a bu ru n d i a n r e f u g e e ca m p Across separate conversations, the entire Msafiri family shared similar recollections: “Life in the camp was not good.” After fleeing interethnic conflict, Alain and Vana’s Hutu-Tutsi love match proved dangerous once again, as there were members of both opposing groups in the camp. “It was such a big problem,” Alain stressed. At one point their Tutsi neighbors accused Alain of being a spy and “employing others in the camp to kill people” in the rival ethnic group. To no avail, Alain reported the incident to the UNCHR, pleading “to get us to a safer country where there is no discrimination.” Resources in the camp were scarce. Alain reported that the food rations were “too small to live off of.” But, with their professional backgrounds from the Congo, both Alain and Vana managed to secure jobs. At first, Alain worked for an NGO, keeping track of their food aid. Later, he got another job as a community health worker, teaching other refugees about sanitation practices to protect against contagious diseases, for approximately $25 a month. Vana again found a job as a teacher, this time for an NGO-run school in the camp, teaching kindergartners for $50 a month. In addition, Vana had a business selling vitenge, a bright patterned fabric used to make clothing. Vana and Alain pooled their monthly pay and the profit from Vana’s business and “helped each other—but life was hard in the camp.” Over the years Vana gave birth to five more children in the camp, each a “blessing from God.”7 Their children attended a UN-run school, where lessons were taught in Swahili and French. Christine, their oldest daughter, remembered the big class sizes and school days from 7 a.m. to noon.

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David finished in the top five of his class every year. Emmanuel, their eldest, excelled at school and received a scholarship to attend a college in Canada—a rare program that admitted 130 refugee students annually. For Emmanuel, Alex, and David, outside of school, “everything was about soccer.” Finally, after fifteen years in the camp, the family was notified that they would be resettled to the United States. They were ecstatic. David remembered, “I thought, ‘We are going to Heaven.’ ”

settling in a m e r i ca When the airplane landed, Zeus, the family’s assigned caseworker at Refugee Family Services (RFS), who was also Congolese—and who also helped Honoria (chapter 2) and Malu (chapter 3)—met the Msafiri family and took them to their new home, a row house rental on a cul-de-sac near the edge of a rapidly gentrifying city neighborhood bordering a large elite university. The neighborhood was over 85 percent Black, and the majority of residents were poor or struggling. When the Msafiris moved in, the median household income for the area was just over $25,000. The narrow street was animated with neighbors lounging on couches on their porches and children playing in the street. The family was shocked to see the rundown houses and piles of trash along the streets. David quickly concluded that America “is not like what I thought.” Alain and Vana were astonished to learn that their two-story, four-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom row house in a “so-so” part of town would be a whopping $1,200 in rent each month. Like all the neighboring homes, the row house had a front porch with room for a big couch, where they lounged on hot summer evenings. Although the rental was worn, it had a fresh and clean feel. The family room was the center of activity; the children rarely played upstairs in their bedrooms. Three large couches, neatly covered with rust-colored sheets as slipcovers, circled a large old fireplace. Vana frequently got after the children to retuck the sheets after sitting on the couches, gently scolding them, “Smooth that seat! How many times do I have to tell you?” The painted white mantel was carefully lined with an assortment of the family’s personal items, including certifi-

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cates from the children’s schools. The windows were bare. Vana wistfully dreamed of the day they would buy their own house, where she could pick out brand-new curtains to hang. Alain quickly discovered that, in America, “everything costs money, everything’s about money.” Alain and Vana needed jobs. They turned to newfound friends for help. In their first week they were thrilled to hear their neighbor across the street speaking French. Although neither Alain nor Vana spoke English, both were fluent in French. Their neighbor, Youssouf, had immigrated from Mali more than thirty-five years ago. He was a manager at a bread factory and helped Alain get a job working on a slicing machine (and later in the mixing room) for $10 an hour. Alain was assigned the night shift, clocking in at midnight and ending his shift at 8 a.m. The work was hard. He explained, “Everything is heavy to carry. You have to lift fifty pounds of sugar, fifty pounds of flour. I add water, which is heavy. Ice is heavy. Flour is heavy, eggs. I get a backache. I get so tired.” Each year Alain received a raise but no promotion. After five years at the job, Alain concluded that it was “because my English is poor.” Many of his colleagues were also French-speaking immigrants from Mali, Mauritania, and other African countries, but Alain lamented that for supervisors, “everything is in English. You need to be able to do a report in English.” In the United States, Alain’s skills and professional experience as a government office worker were devalued.8 He wistfully recalled his old white-collar job in the Congo. Another job proposed by a caseworker had better hours but paid less, so Alain stayed put. Vana found a job with help from Malu Malu, a Congolese refugee friend (discussed in chapter 3) who attended the same ESL class and had arrived in Philadelphia a month before the Msafiris. Malu heard about a job at a meatpacking plant through a Congolese friend who worked there. Vana applied and got the job: forty-two hours a week for $13 an hour. She worked alongside other immigrants, some of them Congolese, a few from Malawi, some from Namibia, and others from Brazil, Mexico, and Haiti. Standing up the entire day in a freezer room was difficult. With a hook in one hand and a knife in the other, she made small cuts separating the lean meat from the excess fat. “Initially, it was very hard,” she said. “My hand hurt and swelled. My joints hurt. My veins, too. I could not make a fist because my hand was so swollen, and my fingers covered with blisters

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holding the knife for so long. The company took me to the hospital, and I was given medicine and treated.” After nearly a year of grueling shifts, Vana concluded, “It’s a bit better. I have gotten used to it.” Although the work was hard, together Alain and Vana made around $3,400 a month, or a total of $40,800 a year, which put them above the threshold to qualify for food stamps and other social welfare benefits. In the United States, their pace of life was fast. Vana caught a ride to work in a shared van (for $40 a week), leaving the house at 4 a.m. for the ninety-minute drive to start work by 6 a.m. On busy days at the factory, she didn’t return until after 6 or 7 p.m. “It depends on how many cows they bring in,” she explained. The children got themselves ready for school. When Alain and Vana were gone, David and Christine were like “quasiparents”; they helped the “little kids” get ready. Alain got home from working the night shift at 9 or 10 in the morning, after the kids had already left for school. Exhausted, he headed straight upstairs to the bedroom, pulled the door shut, and slept all day. But, if there was an appointment or a phone call that needed to be handled, Alain took advantage of his flexible daytime hours, sacrificing his sleep. After school, most of the children went to an extended hours program run by their school, getting extra help with their homework, or they went to other activities. Christine played volleyball and softball. Alex and David loved soccer. When the Msafiri children finally got home for the evening, Vana was often still at work and Alain was sleeping. The little kids adored David, and when their parents were at work he was the authority figure in the house. Christine was the caretaker and cook, making dinner after school, stirring the overflowing pan of rice or sautéing chicken (David’s favorite) before helping her younger siblings with their homework. Around 6 p.m. she snuck away to the quiet of her room to start doing her own homework. When Vana got home, She appreciatively ate the food Christine had prepared, flopping down onto the couch and swinging her tired feet up onto the coffee table—relief to be home washing over her. She leaned forward, giving orders to the kids in Swahili: “Christine, go and check if the food Saint has will be enough for me to carry to work tomorrow. If it’s too little, call David to buy more.” . . . Fouryear-old Furaha grabbed at Vana’s phone, mesmerized. Vana grabbed it back, “Hey! Leave it.” As Furaha persisted, Vana wondered aloud, “Why is it

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that the other day when papa spoke to her, she did not do this?” David laughed, “It’s Dad who’s the strict one.”

Alain woke up in the evenings to get ready for work. “I don’t get to see my dad often.” Christine lamented, “He’s sleeping, and then I only really see him when he’s getting ready to go to work, headed out the door.” Despite his grueling night shifts at work, Alain changed his sleep pattern every Sunday to attend a Congolese church service across town with the rest of the family. In the summer, right after the Msafiris arrived in the United States, Alex and David spent time in a nearby soccer field they had discovered, dribbling the ball back and forth, just like they used to in the refugee camp. One afternoon there was a club soccer team playing on the field. Alex and David kicked the ball around on the sidelines, Alex showing off his fancy footwork. Nathan, a professor whose son was playing on the team, noticed the boys and approached them. Alex and David froze. Neither spoke English yet. They turned, talking to each other in French. In a stroke of luck, Nathan was fluent in French. Excitedly, he called out in French, “We have a club team. You should play with us,” so the boys took him to their house to meet Alain and Vana. Alex was a bit too old for the team, but David was the right age. The team was a small city club team, geared toward keeping talent in the city and including low-income families, making it unique among the wealthy suburban teams they played. It was a highly competitive team, but David was a shoo-in, and he quickly became one of the team’s top players. Although Alex couldn’t play in games, he practiced with the team, hanging around with the guys. Through the soccer team, David made a new friend, Rob, and ultimately developed a close relationship with his family, and especially his mother, Melissa. Melissa, an affluent White real estate agent, gradually became like a second mom. Melissa remembered that at first, David “didn’t know much English, but he was always smiling, and over time he just forged such a strong relationship with the boys.” Melissa and other team parents drove the boys to and from practices and games all over the city. As Rob and David became friends, Melissa felt her son benefited enormously from his connection to David, who had different perspectives and life experiences. David benefited too. Melissa took him to weekend

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away games and paid for his hotel room. Melissa remembered how it was just by messing around with his teammates that David “really learned English”—and “how to be a smart-ass American.” Melissa had valuable cultural knowledge about how things worked in America, was fond of David, and was generous; over time, her knowledge and gifts helped David and his family. While the soccer team brought benefits to David and his family, it also subjected him to the harms of American racism. David’s soccer team was diverse, including both White American teammates and those from Vietnam and Haiti. David emphasized that racism was not a problem with his teammates, explaining, “They respect me as a person, and I respect them. So, we didn’t have a lot of racial stuff.” The opposing teams, however, were a different story. Most of the other teams had all White players, and during games opponents yelled racist taunts and slurs. As David remembered, “They scream at you, ‘You African!’ ‘You, Black!’ ” Melissa separately echoed, “There’s a lot of racism. Sometimes you’d even hear the N-word on the field.” Sometimes it was the parents who were racist, as David recalled, wincing: You would hear the parents scream at you from the bench. I heard it. Melissa would be like, “Dave, just play your soccer. Don’t mind about it.” She was screaming really loud, and I would be shy like, “OK.” I usually ignore things like that, act like I didn’t hear it. Melissa will come and tell me later, “Dave, you are good. That is why they keep saying that.” And I will be like, “Yeah.” I feel like I am good, and that is why they said that. I don’t let it negatively affect me.

David was not surprised by the racism: I learned the history in school, in world history class. We learned about how Africans were traded to the U.S. and became slaves. At home [in Africa], I knew there were African people who were traded to Europe and the U.S., but I didn’t know exactly what happened once they got here. I was surprised. How could they make people suffer like that?

Having encountered racism on the soccer field and learning about the historical context of racism in school, David concluded, “I can see it. Reactions from people, I can see it.” Thus, while the soccer team itself was a source

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of friendship and social support for David, the games with other teams also brought harm through racist interactions. Additionally, some insiders in institutions were hostile rather than helpful.9 Over time Alain came to see racism from police as a potential obstacle. Although Alain stated that over five years in the United States, “I have not experienced any form of [racial] discrimination in Philadelphia,” he was stunned and terrified to see the video of a Minneapolis police officer killing George Floyd, an African American man: When that police officer killed George Floyd that brought some tension. I watched it on TV, and it reminded me [about] negative things about the Congo. I was very shocked and scared, and I was like, “Why is it that things have to be bad here, where we thought we had refuge?”

Protests against police brutality and racial injustice swept the nation. In Philadelphia, including in Alain’s neighborhood, there were widespread demonstrations—and heavily militarized police. Alain said, “I had been in America for five years without having seen police officers armed with guns. But on that day, I saw them in a van, and they had guns. That terrified me.” Months later, Alain concluded that the situation was “okay now.” Even so, he worried about his children, especially his son Alex, a young Black man who had recently moved to Ohio for work, saying, “I don’t know whether Ohio is as good as Philadelphia. Maybe in other states there is more discrimination.” For the Msafiri family, like many of the Congolese refugees in this book, high-profile racist police killings were moments of acute racialization, bringing to the fore structural racial inequalities and injustices.10 Indeed, while some institutions and their insiders could be sources of support, they could also erect obstacles and make them harder to overcome—particularly for Black and immigrant clients.

overcoming o b s ta c l e s : bu y i n g a h o u s e Early on Alain and Vana had a “vision” of buying a house and renting it out to supplement their family’s monthly income. Back in the Congo Alain and Vana had been landlords, which gave them experience in using a rental property as a source of income. In the United States, however, they

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encountered hurdle after hurdle in their pathway toward homeownership, obstacles that threatened to forestall or foreclose on their dreams. In addition, as Black homebuyers in the United States, they were at a disadvantage: racial discrimination is pervasive in home buying.11 Mortgage lenders are significantly more likely to reject Black applicants.12 To navigate the process, Alain and Vana drew on institutional insiders who shared information and program resources to overcome each obstacle. Each success also resulted in new resources to invest in future profit, boosting their upward mobility. Their first challenge was saving enough money, despite working lowwage jobs and supporting their household of nine; together they made around $3,400 a month, or $40,800 a year. After they began working, they immediately developed a savings strategy. As Alain explained, “My money is spent on bills and rent. We save what my wife earns.” They scrimped to make ends meet for their family of nine on Alain’s salary of $1,600 a month, or $20,800 a year. As a result, they saved most of Vana’s paycheck from the meatpacking plant, $2,080 each month or $27,040 a year. In order to do this, they severely restricted consumption beyond housing, utilities, transportation, and food. Alain and Vana eagerly sought out nonprofit donations, and they wore donated clothes. At an English as a Second Language (ESL) class, Vana pulled scarves from a donation box, carefully selecting a plaid one for Alain. Melissa reported that her high school–aged son was flabbergasted when David wore a secondhand girl’s shirt to practice. As she explained in an interview, “He’s like, ‘Mom . . . he has a field hockey shirt on, like a girl’s shirt . . . like, he doesn’t even care.’ ” As she recounted, “David’s view was, ‘Why would I care?’ And he really didn’t care.” In addition, Alain’s Congolese friend introduced him to a nonprofit for African immigrants where he applied for assistance with school supplies for the children, including backpacks, pens, and notebooks. Then, a few months later, a Catholic nun at the church gave the family a new laptop and fortyinch television to help them access English instruction and programming. Social ties that the family made through organizations such as the boys’ soccer team and the children’s school also resulted in contributions. One day after soccer practice in the first few months after the family had arrived, Melissa was driving David home:

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I had a carload of kids and it was such a hot day. I was dropping the kids off. . . . When we pulled up to drop off David, there was a couch up in front of the house on the porch. He was saying how they have to sleep outside because it’s so hot. I was like, “You don’t have air conditioners?” So, with the boys, we all went to Home Depot and I bought a bunch of [window] air conditioners for their house.

Not long after, when Blair was visiting, Alain and Vana both sat in their living room, chuckling, “One of the parents from my kid’s soccer team just brought these over one day! Can you believe it?” Another time Melissa reported that she took Christine to a wholesale grocery store and bought “like $1,200 worth of stuff, like food and household items.” Undoubtedly the family’s efforts—tight budgeting and sacrifices—were crucial, but these gifts, which came to the family through their involvement in social programs, saved the family scarce resources and enabled them to amass savings more quickly. Alain and Vana, possibly thanks to their educational backgrounds, were also skilled at navigating bureaucratic processes, deftly solving errors that threatened to become knots and derail their savings plan. For example, six months after arriving in the United States they received “a big bill” in the mail for water. The company had charged the family for the previous month even though Alain had already paid it. With basic English skills, Alain called the utility company and was given an appointment. He used a dictionary to “prepare some words on paper in English,” and he had Google Translate at the ready on his cell phone to translate any words he was unsure of in real time. He succeeded. As he explained it, “I went to the office and explained to them, ‘I don’t understand this bill. What is this? Here it’s written this amount, but I paid it last month. I have a receipt.’ They said, ‘We were wrong.’ And they fixed it.” Although Alain was new to the United States, he had know-how about the basic “rules of the game” in bureaucratic agencies.13 He identified the error and overcame hurdles to fixing the error, including calling the company, setting up an appointment, and translating his request. As a result, Alain and Vana—unlike Malu and Mari—were able to resolve the error quickly and smoothly. Although Alain spent time and energy on the task and lost valuable sleep, the family did not lose money. In addition, over time Alain and Vana received raises. Five years after their arrival, Alain’s pay went from $10 to $14 an hour, and Vana’s from

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$13 to almost $16, increasing the amount they could spend to $2,240 a month and their savings to $2,500 a month. Once Alain and Vana had accumulated some savings, they wanted to start the process of buying a house. But they hit another obstacle: they didn’t know how to buy a house in the United States. They sought out help from Zeus, their caseworker. Although the family’s formal transition period with the agency had ended, they had become “friends,” as Alain explained, so “I call him all the time for advice.” Zeus referred Alain to HOME, a city program that ran seminars for first-time homebuyers. Alain emphasized the gains from the program, saying, “The organization helped train us and teach us how to save. We had to open a savings account and save and save. Then, once you have $4,000, then they will give you another $4,000 to make a total of $8,000. Those funds become the down payment for a house.” Through the program, Alain and Vana attended a seminar with information on how to apply for preapproval for a loan from a bank, find a realtor, make an offer, and close on a house. Alain enthusiastically recounted: We were told your credit score has to be good to prove that you are credible, that you pay well, that there is no problem. You need a credit card [to build credit]. You have to pay the credit card bill on time for at least six consecutive months. Then the bank will preapprove you. Once you are preapproved by the bank, you take that document to the realtors, and they will help you find a house.

After the seminar Alain opened a credit card account. He approached a bank, filled out the application, and was approved. Each month he paid, building his credit score. But then they hit another hurdle. Two years after the family arrived in the United States, Alain and Vana started the mortgage preapproval application process—in Alain’s opinion, “the most complicated” obstacle yet. Unlike the Ngomas, they did not have a team of volunteers to act as cultural brokers; they depended instead on agents working within financial organizations. Alain scheduled an appointment at the bank and filled out the application, but their application was rejected: “We were told that a new person can’t buy a house. You need to have filed tax returns for three years consecutively.” They had only been in the country for two years and didn’t have sufficient tax returns. They had gone through an extensive

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training program for new homebuyers, but no one had told them this crucial piece of information. They talked with a bank official, but to no avail: the rule was firm. The bank official gave them detailed information; they could apply again in one year. Instead, determined, Alain and Vana drew on their economic resources to circumvent the mortgage approval process. They saved for a few more months and bought a “run-down” Philadelphia four-bedroom row house for $39,000 in cash. They inherited the tenants—four young African immigrants—from the previous owners. The tenants each paid $300 a month, for a total of $1,200. Because Alain and Vana paid the full price in cash, besides occasional maintenance and repairs, the entire month’s rent was profit. A year later, after they had filed three years of taxes, Alain and Vana tried again for preapproval of a mortgage. But there was a new hurdle: Alain’s credit history was insufficient. Again, they were rejected. Alain was “heartbroken.” He met with the bank officials: I found out that my score wasn’t good. It was discovered that there were some parking tickets I hadn’t paid, and some bills as well. So, I had several mistakes. The banker told me, “You do not have a clean record. Get your wife a credit card, since she has a clean record. Make sure you pay the credit card on time. Always pay on time or in advance, at least three days before.”

As recent arrivals without an extensive credit history, each minor mistake had a big impact, bringing their mortgage application to a screeching halt.14 Their efforts to achieve upward mobility were thwarted yet again. They tried again. Vana opened a credit card account, and they made all their payments on time. Nearly a year later, they applied for preapproval for a loan for a third time. This time the couple chose to apply with the bank that had partnered with HOME for the seminar they had taken on buying a house: “I talked to the mortgage coordinator at the bank, and I told him I needed a mortgage. He told me the kind of documents I was supposed to bring. He gave us an appointment.” When the appointment time came, Alain and Vana went to the bank with a pile of documentation. Two weeks later, the bank notified them that they had successfully secured preapproval for a loan of up to $200,000. When they received the news,

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Alain and Vana danced around their living room with their children “in pure happiness.” Preapproved for a loan, they were ready to buy a second property. With the help of a Kenyan real estate agent, they bought a more “expensive” house, located in a “more White community.” Alain swelled with pride: “I was very happy when I was given the keys to the house. I was very happy. And very grateful. . . . It was then that I knew America was good. I had been given a mortgage, and now I had keys to my house.” But, as Alain explained, “The house is too nice for a poor family like mine,” and they opted to rent it out for the extra income.15 After years of saving and help from institutional insiders and social ties, three rounds of applications, and learning to comply with complicated rules across numerous agencies from the tax office to immigration services, the Msafiris succeeded in achieving their dream. Crucially, their economic resources—their income and savings—were a necessary but insufficient condition to secure preapproval for a mortgage. Instead, their pathway was threaded through ten different types of institutions: the workplace (salary), three banks (savings account, credit card, mortgage application), the resettlement agency (donations, referral from a caseworker), the soccer team (gifts/donations), the education system (gifts/donations), the HOME program agency (savings matching, seminar), the transportation authority (parking tickets), the citizenship office (green card), the IRS (tax documents), and a real estate agency (home purchase).16 The application process was embedded within racially discriminatory mortgage and credit markets. Any mistake or lack of compliance threatened the entire process, becoming an obstacle to opportunity. Overcoming these obstacles led to financial rewards, since between their two rental properties they had seven units with tenants for a total rental income profit of $2,700 a month. Along with their jobs, Alain and Vana used their rental properties as an investment to build wealth and to afford their children’s educational costs (detailed below). But there was a catch: their investment only paid off if their tenants paid. Alain and Vana rented one of their apartment units in the “mortgage house” to an American tenant. Once the tenant moved in, he refused to pay rent. Alain wasn’t sure what to do. After a few months, their nineteen-year-old son David came home from college for winter break.

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When David learned that the tenant had not paid for five months, he was “really mad”: When my dad went to go ask him about the rent money, the guy threatened to kill my dad with a knife! I was like, “Really? Someone in your own house? How can you let that happen and you didn’t even tell me!” I was really mad. . . . Maybe the tenant was thinking that my parents don’t speak English, and he felt like he could just not pay. I don’t know. . . . I was very mad. Someone living in your house for months without paying anything! I took action and helped them.

David had not only English skills but also valuable institutional knowledge. He acted as a cultural broker to help Alain navigate the situation. First, he went with his father to talk to the tenant, but the tenant continued to refuse to pay. Frustrated, David called the police. He explained, “The police said, ‘You have to take him to the court of law.’ They gave us the information on how to get there, and how to explain everything. So, we went to the court and talked about it with someone in the office there. They gave us an appointment.” David returned to college for classes, and Alain pursued the matter. He collected “all the receipts, everything,” and arrived at the court appointment. Alain was given a free interpreter at court—a key program resource—and presented his case, providing all of his documentation. The tenant didn’t show up to court, as David surmised, “He knew that if he goes to court, he was going to pay up for the months that he had not paid.” Alain’s case was approved. Alain was issued an eviction notice to take to the tenant, but the tenant had already left in the middle of the night. Here, institutional insiders doing their job made a difference. Even so, the setback was costly, as the family was out of his rent for the previous five months. The situation was also stressful, but their success in court halted the event from spiraling further. Now Alain had important information on how to manage the process in the future. Among the families in their ESL class, they were the first to buy a home. As did other families in the book, Alain and Vana confronted many different organizations. Even after they purchased their properties, they faced obstacles that threatened to cut into their gains and foreclose their pathway to profit. Yet through these agencies and with the help of institutional insiders, Alain and Vana also accessed crucial resources—a seminar,

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money toward a down payment, a mortgage, and a favorable ruling in court. Each resource propelled them to further advantages. Hence, despite routine hurdles, the family was able to achieve upward mobility. Alain and Vana gained an additional $16,800 a year from the rental—gains that became a crucial resource in their children’s education.

well-resou r c e d i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d p o s i t i v e institutiona l r e v e r b e rat i o n s : p r i vat e s c h o o l Like all of the parents in this book, Alain and Vana valued their children’s education. Both Alain and Vana had relatively high levels of education in the Congo, and Vana had worked as a teacher. As Vana avowed, in the United States her “main aim is for all of my children to go to college.” Both parents impressed upon their children “to take education seriously,” emphasizing that “to have a good future, you need to do well in school.” Yet, in the United States, not all schools are equal.17 And which school children attend matters. Like many neighborhoods, many public schools are segregated, both racially and economically.18 When Alain and Vana moved to Philadelphia, the default assignment for their children (without parental intervention) was a nearby low-performing elementary school, where only 5 percent of students were at grade level in math and 20 percent in reading. All of the students came from economically disadvantaged families, and most were minority students. Alain and Vana, however, were able to secure enrollment and scholarships for their five youngest children to attend St. Mary’s, a local Catholic private school. Private school enrollment was the result of both luck and skill.19 After arriving in the United States, the couple quickly established an especially beneficial relationship with their Black American neighbor, Faith, who was born and raised in Philadelphia. From the start, Faith took an interest in the family and acted as a cultural broker, helping them with day-to-day challenges, such as reading forms that arrived in the mail or visiting the welfare office. Faith attended St. Mary’s church a few blocks away. Alain and Vana showed an interest in St. Mary’s, and Faith arranged an appointment at the school affiliated with the church. She took the couple to the school and introduced them to the Catholic nuns in charge. The school was kindergarten

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through the eighth grade and, for the first year, four of the Msafiri children were eligible to attend. (Later, when Furaha, their youngest daughter, turned four, she was also enrolled.) The children at St. Mary’s were almost all students of color; more than three-quarters were Black. The school was funded in part through the associated congregation, a diverse mix of White and Black Americans, some working-class, but many upper-middle-class. Students at St. Mary’s tested above the national averages and consistently scored in the top 20 percent across subjects. This difference in schools became deeply consequential for the Msafiris. St. Mary’s, however, was a private school, and tuition was a financial obstacle. Faith and the Catholic nuns at the school helped Alain and Vana submit a scholarship application. As Alain explained, “Once you apply, they will request you to provide tax return documents. And, even more important, they will want to determine whether you are Catholic. . . . Since we are Catholic, the [children] were given a two-year scholarship.” Their application was successful, and the children received a scholarship for free tuition as a “needy family.” Alain and Vana’s children flourished at St. Mary’s. The small class sizes and specialized attention from teachers, along with the initiative the kids took in seeking help, led to quick academic gains. When the children arrived in the United States, they didn’t speak any English. At first, the language barrier was a hurdle to academic success. Christine groaned, The first year I was getting Ds. There wasn’t anyone at my school who spoke my language. So I had to speak English, do everything in English. . . . Sometimes it was so difficult. We would take the test, and I would fail. I would repeat the test, and I would fail again—even though I studied a lot.

But her teachers at the school, and particularly her English teacher, encouraged her the first year. Christine explained, She pushed me to learn, even though she knew I didn’t speak English well. She would call on me and say “Christine, could you answer this question?” . . . She wouldn’t just write me off, like, “Yeah, you don’t speak English.”

In class, Christine and the other Msafiri children received specialized attention. Christine often sought out and received individualized help from teachers. She said,

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When the teacher is done teaching the whole class, I will raise my hand and say, “Teacher, I did not understand this part.” And the teacher will come to me and explain it to me way better than she had explained it to the classroom as a whole. . . . I do that in, like, every class.

Additionally, although Christine and the other Msafiri children didn’t have one-on-one tutors (like Joseph and Georgette’s children did; see chapter 4), St. Mary’s had an after-school program run by teachers. Alain raved about “Home Club,” thrilled that the children were able to “continue reading and doing their homework . . . in school the whole day.” Alain and Vana themselves struggled with English, and thus they couldn’t help the children with their homework. Home Club helped fill in the gaps. With specialized attention from educators, and Christine’s disciplined studying every evening, she improved quickly. By the end of the school year, all the Msafiri children could converse in English with ease, reading and writing at their age levels. But after two years at the school a new hurdle arose: the children’s scholarship ended. Alain and Vana mistakenly “thought the scholarship would continue.” As it turned out, it was a two-year scholarship, and the educators told Alain and Vana they had to reapply. After they filled out the application and submitted their tax forms, to their shock, their application was rejected. Their modest raises and their new rental income disqualified them.20 This unexpected obstacle seemed insurmountable, threatening to close the door on their children’s educational opportunities. Alain and Vana felt that St. Mary’s offered “security” in comparison to the local public school, including “protection from racism and discrimination.” Alain warned with wide eyes that the nearby public school had had a recent shooting. He emphasized that “children learning at a private school are different from those who attend public school. . . . They are taught well.” Even so, Alain and Vana didn’t see how they could afford the $250 monthly tuition payment for each of their five children in the school. They decided to have the children change schools, but, as Alain recounted, the children refused: “When I told the children that for their third school year they will have to go back to public schools, they refused. . . . Their mother and I tried to sweet talk them, but they refused.” After reassessing their budget, Alain and Vana relented and decided to continue with the same school and pay the tuition. “You know,” Alain said,

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“in America, a child is like an egg,” delicate and in need of intensive caretaking. He concluded, “I don’t think I had much of a choice!” Alain and Vana tightened their spending and decided to use all their earnings to pay the children’s school fees. Fortunately, Alain and Vana had bought rental property and they were able to reallocate the $1,200 profit from the rental units to pay for tuition. This earlier profit became a resource to solve a new unrelated and unexpected hurdle—a positive reverberation from earlier organizational successes. To the Msafiris, it was worth it. Nevertheless, Alain lamented, “The school fees increase each year.” That same year Christine graduated from the private school and applied for high school. St. Mary’s assisted with the process. (In contrast, Honoria’s son in the public school didn’t have the same assistance.) The teachers took the students to see the schools. Having achieved quick gains due to the specialized attention at the private elementary school, Christine had a strong application. Alain beamed with pride, saying that she had “good grades and good manners.” She was accepted into her top choice private high school with a 50 percent scholarship. As a result, Alain and Vana paid $300 a month for her tuition, a cost of $3,600 a year rather than the full $7,200. Christine “loved” the selective high school, which had small classes. “It’s like one big family,” she said. She also loved the “nice teachers and principal.” Although Christine was the only African immigrant among students at the school, she felt “so welcome.” The facilities were “beautiful,” and Alain appreciated that a laptop was given to each student. Christine continued to improve in her classes, and, four years after arriving in the United States, she got straight As. She participated in after-school activities, including softball and volleyball. As a rising junior, she planned to apply for college, although she worried that her parents wouldn’t be able to help her with tuition. Christine’s earlier scholarship and enrollment in a well-resourced elementary school led to later profits; put differently, early educational advantages led to later rewards. Then an unrelated hurdle with catastrophic potential arose: Child Protective Services (CPS) opened a child welfare case for the Msafiris. Poor and Black families are disproportionately entangled in these investigations in the United States, with over 50 percent of Black children and their families investigated over a lifetime.21 Alain and Vana’s case was

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linked to an incident when their son Claude, who was around ten at the time, fell ill. He was admitted to the hospital for several days for tests (which later determined that he had diabetes). Because Alain worked the night shift, he was able to stay with Claude during the days, sitting by his bedside and talking with doctors. Vana worked during the day and then at night stayed at home with the other children. At first Alain took a few shifts off from work to stay with Claude, but as the days stretched on he worried about losing his job, so sometimes he would “sneak at night and go to work.” One night the doctor came into Claude’s room and found that Alain was not there. Claude was alone, and Alain’s understanding was that this was the reason the doctor called CPS: The doctor found Claude alone and reported the matter to Child Protection. They wanted to come and take him away. . . . They thought that maybe I do not attend to my children, or I do not like them, or I do not provide for them as a parent should—because they found Claude in the hospital alone.22

Regardless of who called, CPS opened an investigation. The mishap at the hospital tangled into a knot, and the family had to clear new hurdles to untangle it, as Alain recounted: They came to investigate the kids’ bedrooms. They inspected the school. They checked the fridge to see if there was enough food. Many, many things. I was shocked! They would come at night without notifying us, knocking at the door saying they wanted to inspect the children’s bedrooms, the kitchen, how the kids are feeling, how they learn.

The investigation threatened to bring the family’s gains to a screeching halt: if the official reported that their parenting was inadequate, the children might have been placed in foster care. As part of the investigation, a CPS official met with officials at the private school. Although Alain and Vana didn’t know exactly what happened, Alain concluded that those at the school spoke well of them: “They really did me a good one! The inspection at school helped me, and all this went away.” Thus, private school admittance and tuition (made possible by a scholarship and the family’s investment), along with their “good relationships” with teachers and school officials, created a positive reverberation, becoming a critical resource that helped the family overcome a later, potentially catastrophic,

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obstacle. Access to resource-rich institutions propelled the family toward upward mobility.

college bou n d a n d w h i t e - c o l l a r d r e a m s When they arrived in the United States, the Msafiris’ four younger children attended St. Mary’s elementary and middle school. Zeus, their caseworker, helped the older boys, Alex and David, secure a spot at Washington, a selective magnet public high school that admitted just over 35 percent of applicants. The school boasted a specialized ESL program for recently arrived immigrants, small class sizes, and specialized attention from teachers and guidance counselors—the type of specialized program Cathy had wished for Joseph and Georgette’s children (chapter 4). In the refugee camp David had been at the top of his class and had dreamed of attending college. But his studies in Africa were in Swahili and French, and studying in English was a challenge. David reported that when his family arrived in the United States, he didn’t speak any English, “not really even how to say ‘hi.’ ” Classes were difficult. He explained, “Even in math and science classes, there’s a lot of words in English.” Yet, unlike at the Marion public school that the Ngomas attended, Washington had significant support for English language learners: “They told us that whenever you need help, just come to us; we are going to help you.” Like Christine, David turned to his teachers for help, noting, “Right away I start asking questions.” After school, David threw himself into his studies. He said, “Literally, when I get home, all I think about is school.” With support from his school, his hard work paid off. His grades were “perfect,” all As. Shaking his head, he sighed, “I don’t know how I did it!” In the summers, David and his siblings benefited from additional organizational supports, attending a summer school program for refugee and immigrant children run by a nearby nonprofit—the same summer program that Honoria’s children had missed out on. One of the teachers in the camp, Thom, a Cambodian refugee himself, became a mentor for David, talking with him about college. David said, “The summer program is what really helped.”

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With his intellect and hard work, David’s academic success in high school set him up for college admission. He felt “confident” about his potential, but his good grades alone weren’t enough. There was also the U.S. college application process, which was new to David and the entire family. Each step was an obstacle: taking standardized tests like the SAT, choosing which colleges to apply to, filling out online applications, writing personal statements and essays, paying for application fees, and submitting specific, detailed family financial information. Any one of these obstacles threatened to close the door. Given the benefits of higher education, the stakes were high. As David said, it was “stressful.” But Washington, a public school in the same district as the low-performing school attended by Honoria’s children, provided crucial supports to face the task. His guidance counselor, English teacher, and resources at the school helped overcome hurdles and prevent errors. David’s guidance counselor worked closely with him, teaching him about the application process and encouraging him. David studied hard for the SAT, but it also helped that “the school district made it easy for us to take the SAT.” Rather than booking an appointment, scheduling an exam slot, traveling across town, and paying a hefty fee, David and his classmates were able to take the SAT at his school, where it was overseen by his teachers for free. David’s English teacher, Ms. Heakin, took time during class to teach the “whole class the way to start the college applications.” Even so, when he sat down to start filling out the questions, he was stumped. While Honoria’s children found their teachers to be unhelpful, David praised his teachers as going above and beyond to help him, saying, “I am lucky. I had my English teacher, who helps. She would say, ‘When the other students leave for lunch, come and we can have a quick meeting.’ ” Ms. Heakin helped him brainstorm a topic for his personal statement, including an essay about the many languages he speaks (English, Swahili, French, and Rundi) and another about his perseverance and his love for math. She read draft after draft, encouraging David’s ideas and perfecting his grammar. Crucially, David needed financial aid to afford college. Although his parents supported and encouraged his education, they were strapped for cash to support the family of nine. Financially, David was on his own. David opened the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). He

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scrolled through; there were a whopping 108 questions. (Since then, the process has been simplified, reducing the questions to around 36.)23 Staring at the form, David was stuck. Again, he turned to Ms. Heakin, a key program support: She said, “You need your parents’ tax return of this year and last year.” I was like, “What is tax return?” . . . I had to tell that to my parents, and they had to look for it. At first they didn’t even know where it was. . . . It was like hours to get the documents. . . . Sometimes I would get into an argument with them. Sometimes, they would say, “No, Dave.” I would go real deep and explain, “If you don’t give me this, I won’t be able to go to college! I won’t be able to get the financial aid.”

Eventually Alain and Vana found the tax returns and all their W2 forms. David took the forms to Ms. Heakin, and she showed him how to fill out the application. With support from the school—the guidance counselor, Ms. Heakin, SAT testing, and waived application fees—David overcame hurdles to applying to college. He submitted the financial aid application and four applications to colleges in the state. Months later, the letters arrived: David had been accepted to all four colleges. He was ecstatic. Alain and Vana were proud. With support at Washington High, David had overcome an obstacle (college applications), opening the door to new educational opportunities. Then Thom, one of his mentors from the migrant summer school program, helped David secure a scholarship for migrant children at Harrison University.24 Although it was “not even my top school,” David chose to attend Harrison, a small public school, with Thom’s encouragement and a scholarship. Harrison is rated among the top forty public universities in the north, with a four-year graduation rate of around one third of students. The majority of students receive need-based financial aid. David was excited to move to the quiet campus—he loved that it was “in the middle of nowhere”—but moving was a big process, exciting but also expensive and stressful. Melissa, the soccer mom from David’s club team in high school, was a key helper. Melissa, a successful real estate agent, and her husband, who owned a restaurant, were upper-middle class. Melissa knew David would be starting college soon. One day when the boys from the soccer team were hanging around her kitchen, she turned

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to Dave and exclaimed, “Dave, we need to get you some stuff! Just text me whatever you need.” David had received a list from his college with “everything, like bed sheets and clothes, pens and stuff like that.” He sent Melissa the list. She took him to the store and, with another mom on the team, they “set up Dave with everything he needed,” even “outfitting him up with a laptop and a minifridge, everything.” She added her family’s Netflix account to his laptop. She bought him a new smartphone and put his phone on her family plan, concluding, “It’s like $65 a month, unlimited, and he needs it.” Melissa wanted him “to have everything he needs to succeed at college.” David credited Melissa as “the one who bought me like the whole college stuff that I needed—books, everything that I needed for my first year of college.” David was nervous to start college and worried about the heavy workload; watching videos on YouTube, he had heard that students read “a whole book for one class!” David worked hard and studied diligently at college, but he also found resources at the school to support him and help him overcome academic hurdles. With Thom’s help David had applied for the CAMP scholarship program, which was specifically for the children of migrant workers in the food industry (David was eligible due to his mother’s job at a meatpacking plant). This program set David up for success, giving him valuable tools. The summer before his freshman year, David and the other students in CAMP took classes: We had three college classes, math, English 100, and an anthropology course. . . . They were hard, especially writing. Writing on the laptop, I was really slow. In English class we would read, like, forty pages every day. Then you have a quiz every morning. You are too busy to look at your phone the whole day.

David found these first college classes “hard,” but when the school year started, he credited the classes with giving him an idea of “what to expect in college.” In addition, this program had key requirements, such as mandating that David attend office hours of faculty—requirements that helped him succeed. Even so, there were hurdles. His first semester, David was enrolled in a science class that was “really hard.” He failed the first test. He explained, “I didn’t know what I [was] doing. I didn’t go to office hours. I didn’t talk to

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my classmates. I was just alone.” He was disappointed, but he was also determined to pass the class. He started studying really hard and, crucially, he started attending the professor’s office hours regularly, a requirement of the CAMP program: I would visit her during office hours once a week, twice a week. We would talk about what I did not get in the class. . . . She would explain it to me and then give me an extra little task to do when I get home . . . and she would quiz me on it . . . my classmates as well. We would study together like that.

When David took his second science test, he got a 94 percent. “I couldn’t believe it!” With support from CAMP and one-on-one help from his professors during office hours, David made academic gains. David’s academics were on track, but then came a knot with his financial aid that threatened to derail everything. In the middle of the first semester, he waited for his financial aid to come through, but nothing arrived. David already had a full plate, and he said that with these financial issues, it was “a lot.” Frustrated, David sought help from the financial aid office at Harrison. They informed him that there was a mistake on his parents’ tax returns. They emphasized, “If your parents don’t fix their tax returns, you cannot receive financial aid!” David was blindsided. In phone calls, David pleaded with his parents to check on their tax returns and fix the issue. Alain and Vana refused, and David argued with them. Meanwhile, Alain fretted that the family couldn’t take on the cost of paying for a college education for eight children. Alain felt that the children must be responsible for themselves, as he later explained in an interview: Here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a wife and husband are not supposed to file their taxes separately. . . . So, his scholarship was withdrawn. I decided not to change anything because of David’s younger siblings. When we arrived here, they were lucky enough to get a scholarship for private schools. Now, I have to pay for their tuition. So, I asked David to apply for a loan instead, and he refused. He just wanted financial aid. And I told him, “You have already completed high school. You will pay for your own university education.”

Alain’s account of the nature of the problem was divergent from Melissa’s (described below), but the key point is that Alain thought that the responsibility of paying for college should be their son’s, not their own.

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David was devastated. He didn’t know what to do about his financial situation: I was so unhappy. I was just worrying about my financial stuff. I felt so alone. I was just thinking, “Am I going to be able to do this?” But that is the experience I have had my whole life. I am kind of used to tough moments. I know what to do when you’re, like, not feeling good. I know how to control myself.

To make ends meet David started working at an Amazon warehouse, repackaging returns for $17 an hour. He worked six days a week, “seven, six hours, eight and nine sometimes, bending, flexing. I took it like going to the gym. I didn’t have time to go to the gym. I thought of it as exercise.” But his financial solution threatened to derail his academic progress, as he didn’t have time for school anymore. After three months David decided to quit his job to refocus on school, and he used some of his salary to pay his school debt. Finally, when David came home from school for winter break, he shared this obstacle with Melissa. David went to Melissa’s office and, as she recalled, they called the financial aid officer at Harrison to “try to get it straightened out.” The financial aid person told them of a crucial workaround: his parents could fill out a form informing the college that they would file a revised tax form, but then they could skip actually following through since the college would never enforce the provision. As Melissa explained: So, the woman said to me, “Melissa, I gave David the form that he needs to fill out, that his parents need to fill out.” Basically, it’s a one-page addendum to say, “I’m adapting my filing from ‘Married, filing jointly,’ to ‘Married, filing separately,’ ” so that they would match. And the woman was, like, winkwinking me over the phone, “I told Dave, we do not submit this stuff to the IRS. We do not have to check on it. I just see that this form has been filled out.” So, I was like, “Got it! Got it. Thank you.”

Put differently, the institutional insider in the college financial aid office explained how to bend the rules to Melissa, who acted as a cultural broker since she was able to understand the intricate information. She then explained to David that his parents were not being asked to change their taxes and nothing would be sent to the IRS. This strategy was successful:

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“David, it’s up to you, but if your mom could just sign it, this paper needs to be signed, right?” So then, his mother did sign it. . . . I uploaded it to the school’s online portal. . . . That was all they needed to release financial aid. And the next semester, he was back at school.

David’s entire college education was nearly derailed over one signature on one form. David’s early tie to Melissa through his soccer organization resulted in later gains, as she helped him untie this knot. Melissa’s efforts were aided by a gatekeeper who was willing to give her informal “backstage” knowledge of how to navigate it. The two—a cultural broker and institutional insider—played a transformative role in David’s upward mobility journey.

unequal ins t i t u t i o n s , u n e q ua l a m e r i ca While some families, including Honoria’s, were stalled on their pathways to upward mobility (chapter 2), and some, including Malu Malu and Mari, lost ground (chapter 3), Alain and Vana had a steady pattern of accessing agencies with important resources. They received help from institutional insiders, including teachers, financial aid officials, and mortgage brokers. These organizations opened doors to opportunities. Alain and Vana were stuck in low-wage, dead-end work, but they also managed to buy two houses and enroll their son in college. Their children were doing well in school. Their progress was notable. Other refugee families were also able to access similar institutional resources and supports. Our interviews with forty-four families revealed life-changing support for everything from food assistance programs to educational opportunities and help from institutional insiders at critical moments (see appendix A, table A.4). And these resources helped them get ahead. Including the Msafiris, eleven families (25 percent) reported children enrolling in college, and ten (23 percent) reported becoming a homeowner—key milestones in measures of upward mobility. The Msafiris path to success was integrally interwoven with institutions. For example, it wasn’t enough for them to save half of their earnings; they didn’t qualify for a mortgage until they were able to master

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opaque and specialized internal standards and deal with racially discriminatory systems. Nor was their hard work and individual effort enough. Their son went to office hours, studied hard, and worked a full-time job while managing to maintain grades of As and Bs, but the lack of a single signature on a single form almost derailed his college career. The solutions to untangle the knot came through a cultural broker working with an institutional insider. Many of the Msafiris’ helpers came from the organizations in their everyday lives, including schools, after-school programs, and soccer teams. These social ties created valuable unanticipated benefits. Since the role of institutional insiders is often brief, episodic, and variable across institutions, their importance in facilitating upward mobility has not always been fully recognized by social scientists.25 But institutional insiders—and the resources they could access—played a key role for the Msafiris. David ended up in a well-resourced magnet school, where his teachers helped him apply for college.26 When mortgage officials turned down Alain and Vana’s loan applications, they still took the time to explain in detail the steps necessary to complete a successful application. Police and eviction court officials helped Alain and Vana solve a problem with a tenant and prevented a downward slide. Furthermore, at times, institutional agents helped solve problems in unrelated institutions, such as when educators vouched for the family during a CPS investigation—positive reverberations in which gains became more gains. As professional representatives, the insiders’ opinions and expertise may have held more weight with other insiders, and they may have had more access to backstage information. Thus, the assistance of the institutional insiders mattered. In addition, the character of the social structures they interacted with mattered. Although Honoria’s children and Alain and Vana’s children were in the same city, Honoria’s children attended different schools with fewer resources and lower test scores. Honoria’s son Peter didn’t get help from his teachers in applying to high schools and ended up in a nonselective neighborhood school. Like many Black and poor and working-class families in the United States, most of the families in this book were blocked from access to well-resourced, top-performing schools, hospitals, banks, and government agencies. Furthermore, as newcomers, refugee parents didn’t always understand the deeply unequal nature of American

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social services. Alain was frustrated that his children refused to go to the neighborhood school, deriding them as fragile “eggs.” But the children had quickly grasped the unequal nature of American schooling, and they benefited from dramatically better conditions at their private school compared to others in the city. To be clear, it is not that these advantageous educational conditions can only be accessed in private schools. After all, the magnet school that helped David was a Philadelphia public school. While the Msafiris were able to access well-resourced schools, they still struggled to find jobs that offered the possibility of career advancement. As many studies document, immigrants often face a devaluation of their education and work backgrounds.27 In the United States, Alain and Vana were required to be self-sufficient within ninety days of their arrival. They had not been resettled to a country, such as Canada or Australia, where refugees are given one year of training in English, which can improve their occupational opportunities.28 Thus, although Alain and Vana had had professional jobs in the Congo, their job prospects in the United States were constrained by their limited English. Five years after they were resettled, night after night Alain worked in a bread factory, lifting heavy bundles, while day after day Vana stood in a cold, uncomfortable building cutting up beef. We make a mistake when we see families as isolated. Instead, we need to see offices and agencies as threaded through the heart of family life. These institutions control resources that help families as part of the social safety net in the United States. But their bureaucratic processes also create complex knots that families have to untangle. In many instances, institutional insiders helped the families resolve knots. Other times, institutional insiders were not helpful: Some acted on racist expectations or, as we saw earlier, enforced harsh programs of recertification to assess deservedness to receive social services. These challenges are not only experienced by refugees. Many Americans, especially low-income and non-White families, face difficulties getting approval for mortgages or have trouble with their financial aid packages. The obstacles that refugee families face, and the ways in which cultural brokers and institutional insiders can be helpful, have implications for our understandings of the barriers to upward mobility in the United States as a whole. We reflect on this issue in our final chapter.

Conclusion refugees in an unequal america

Years have now passed since the refugee families in this book arrived, exhausted but excited, in a new land. They came from refugee camps where they had lived for over a decade after fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Indeed, for decades, thousands of refugees have arrived at the doorstep of America, seeking refuge from humanitarian tragedies around the globe. As their planes touched down, the families carried with them the hopes that they had nourished for many years. They thought that life in the United States “would be like Heaven” compared to the profound scarcity of the refugee camps. Caseworkers met them at the airport, ushered them into cars, and drove them to their new homes, most of which were in lowincome neighborhoods. There they discovered run-down buildings and trash on the streets. In their apartments, crumbling stairs led to dim hallways and cramped rooms. Expected to be self-sufficient within ninety days, they were channeled into low-wage jobs performing manual labor. It didn’t matter whether they had a college degree or had worked as a nurse or government official back home. They soon found that the assistance they would receive in the United States was meager, especially compared to that available in other countries like Canada or Australia. As they 154



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started new lives in the United States, the refugee families joined the ranks of the poor at the bottom of a deeply unequal country. Their hope that they had reached Heaven quickly, and abruptly, faded. To be sure, having survived for years in refugee camps on meager rations, the refugee families were practiced at scrimping. In the United States, they were able to skillfully manage scarce resources to feed themselves and their children. Many “thanked God” that they finally had more plentiful food and a steady flow of electricity. They had a legal pathway to permanent residency and, ultimately, citizenship. But these gains also brought new hardships. The families faced a slew of American offices and organizations, and they had to manage them all at once. These institutions were interconnected but not coordinated, creating blizzards of paperwork and bewildering instructions. The institutions also routinely made errors. Thus, the very programs designed to help refugees, as well as others living in the United States, introduced obstacles that threatened to block their efforts toward upward mobility. In this book we have showcased three types of obstacles—hurdles, knots, and reverberations—and how they created challenges for refugee families. Hurdles are routine rules and requirements that must be overcome to access resources. For example, Honoria was required to monitor her bank account to make sure it never had more than $2,000 lest her daughter’s Social Security disability payment be terminated. Malu Malu faced complex rules to try to transfer his disability benefits across state lines when he moved to Iowa. David, Alain and Vana’s son, had to obtain his parents’ signature on a form to keep his college financial aid from falling through. Sometimes these hurdles could be dealt with quickly and easily. Others, however, were more difficult to clear. To enroll his fouryear-old daughter in Early Head Start, Malu was required to produce many different items: proof of income, official mail addressed to him or his wife, his daughter’s birth certificate, evidence of her vaccinations, dental records, and other paperwork. These hurdles to enrollment ultimately prevented his daughter from gaining valuable educational skills. And, for many, language barriers made these hurdles even harder to clear. Indeed, many of the families in this book knew no more than a few words of English when they arrived, nor did most have access to the lengthy language training provided and mandated in countries such as Canada and

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Australia.1 When family members lost a job, had an issue with a bill, or needed help at school, they rarely found programs where they could walk in and easily get the assistance they needed. Instead, they encountered cumbersome systems that were difficult to maneuver. As we have shown, organizational mishaps could easily multiply and tangle into a knot since hurdles made organizations more complex. In underfunded, short-staffed service organizations with limited “slack” (i.e., the capacity to catch and rectify errors), there were simply more possibilities for things to go wrong. Often these knots were started by one small error, which brought everything to a halt, and then other problems piled on, compounding the situation. Resolving the knot took knowledge, time, and effort. Joseph and Georgette lost their food stamps after a recertification form failed to arrive at their home. Then, a government employee gave incorrect instructions about how to fill out the appeal paperwork, advising them that they didn’t need to record the birth dates of the family members. Due to this error, the application was rejected, and it took another two months to process the correction. Since the family of six was on a tight budget, the two-month delay was consequential, stalling their dreams of getting ahead. These patterns were echoed in the larger interview sample. As the tables in the appendices in the back of the book and online reveal, a number of refugees in our study reported complicated knots in their interactions around green cards, housing, job options, children’s schooling, banking, financial aid, mortgage applications, and other fields. Sometimes, hurdles and knots spread, turning into institutional reverberations, or new woes in unrelated organizations. For example, Honoria faced a knot after a mishap in which the police took her children away: she signed a form, and she had to appear in court to plead her case before the children were returned to her. But this knot led to a new, unrelated problem: her landlord threatened to evict her. Although she was able to avoid an eviction after a police visit, others do not.2 Early institutional challenges had a ripple effect, spreading to new areas of the families’ lives. Many of the refugee families in this book received valuable assistance in overcoming these obstacles from cultural brokers, people with cultural knowledge and skills who helped them navigate institutions. Groups of American volunteers, like the welcome team that helped Joseph and



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Georgette’s family, created a bridge between the families and schools, banks, welfare offices, and doctors’ offices. Cultural brokers were especially valuable in solving small problems and preventing them from becoming bigger ones. Of course, it is possible that skilled and educated refugees attracted more help from volunteers. However, even families in our broader interview sample who had more modest education levels described many instances of being helped by American volunteers, and they often gained more resources than those who weren’t assigned volunteers.3 Additionally, in some families, young adult children who had picked up English in their first years in the United States also acted as cultural brokers, helping their parents navigate U.S. institutions. For example, David, Alain and Vana’s son, helped his parents deal with an American tenant who wouldn’t pay rent.4 In addition, institutional insiders (e.g., caseworkers, educators, and other paid employees within organizations) and well-resourced programs were very consequential. Teachers helped refugee children apply to high school, administrators helped young adults complete college financial aid forms, and caseworkers referred refugees to housing programs for firsttime buyers. These insiders had deep institutional knowledge and gatekeeping power, and they could unlock access to valuable resources within institutions. Just as obstacles could generate negative reverberations, resources from one program could open access to additional gains and create a positive reverberation, helping refugees move ahead. The programs and policies in schools, housing programs, health care organizations, and other agencies made a difference. Thus, while many studies have looked at the challenges of interacting with one institution, we show how refugee families must navigate many institutions at the same time. Our research highlights what sociologist Leslie Paik has termed the “maze” of institutional demands, with deadline-sensitive, opaque, and conflicting requirements that control and constrain families.5 We conceptualize the types of obstacles that families encounter across a wide array of institutions, illuminating the nature of the problems they face within the “maze.” Echoing Paik, overcoming one obstacle often involved multiple institutions, such as a mortgage loan application at a bank, which required tax forms from the IRS and a green card from immigration services.6 Alain and Vana’s process of purchasing

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a home, for example, wove through ten different institutions. These institutions frequently demanded documentation from other agencies, but they were not coordinated. Instead, refugees were expected to work it out themselves. Since many studies focus on one institution, these studies underestimate the extent of obstacles and their consequences for socioeconomic mobility. After all, difficulties with institutions could reduce income, decrease access to high-quality educational pathways, or block homeownership, all of which are key elements of upward mobility. Institutional obstacles were also deeply tied to racial inequality. Rules and expectations in institutions are not neutral. Many are rooted in racist ideas, with people of color deemed less deserving of a service or benefit. The Congolese refugees faced racism and xenophobia in their interactions with institutions, which made it harder for them to access resources.7 It was often in these institutional interactions—a supervisor assigning work, an official harshly applying a rule, a landlord refusing to rent an apartment—that the families learned about the U.S. racial hierarchy and their status in it.8 Racism and xenophobia from gatekeepers could make obstacles harder to overcome and costlier to solve.9 Indeed, scholars have found that, even in the absence of consciously discriminatory intent by institutional agents, administrative burdens (the costs of institutional obstacles) disproportionately disadvantage racially marginalized groups.10

the system i c nat u r e o f h u r d l e s a n d k n o t s While knots may be triggered by a mistake by an individual bureaucrat, volunteer, or refugee, the possibility of errors is baked into the structure of the system itself. Whereas some institutions, such as air traffic control systems, are designed to have “slack,” or built-in backup systems and redundancy to catch and reduce errors, many social service agencies have few systems in place to identify mistakes and correct course.11 In the context of neoliberal policies of downsizing, subcontracting, and scrutinizing deservedness, organizations have increased the likelihood of errors while slashing slack, thus increasing the chance of institutional knots. Resources, staff, and oversight are devoted toward fishing out the few fraudulent claims rather than toward ensuring that many other clients are not erro-



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neously cut off. It is important to look beyond the actions of one person to illuminate the social rules and regulations that create “system errors.”12 Some might ask: if these errors are baked into the system, are they really mistakes at all? Or are they products of intentional design? After all, some tax-filing corporations have famously lobbied against the simplification of the tax code.13 We believe some institutional hurdles, errors, and knots may serve certain groups’ interests; for instance, a politician wanting to reduce food assistance might look favorably on administrative burdens that reduce the total number of food stamp recipients. We certainly do not preclude this notion. Thus, while some errors and institutional obstacles may be “unintended” consequences, others may, in fact, be “intended.”

thinking be y o n d o u r s t u d y Our goal in this book is to enrich our understanding of the processes that refugees go through as they strive to get settled in a new land and the multiplicity of obstacles they face in the adjustment process. We cannot claim that the Congolese families we discuss are representative of all Congolese refugees in Philadelphia or other parts of the country, let alone all refugee groups. Nor do we aim to determine the precise cost of each obstacle, the resources needed to overcome them, or the effectiveness of specific institutions or policies. Nonetheless, we believe that the experiences of the refugee families we studied have implications beyond this group. Certainly, other types of migrants face similar obstacles. Although refugees have a particularly institutionalized migration and settlement process, other immigrants also interact extensively with many institutions.14 Even undocumented immigrants, who are ineligible for many government benefits and entitlements, are eligible for some services in some localities, such as public education for their children, driver’s licenses from the DMV, and medical assistance in a crisis; thus, they may face the kinds of hurdles, knots, and reverberations we describe here. Additionally, other migrants also face challenges with language barriers and complicated documentation, both of which may make institutional interactions more complex, institutional errors more likely, and knots more difficult to unravel.15

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We further believe that many of our key findings about U.S. institutions have implications for native-born Americans as well. From signing up for Medicare, submitting health care reimbursements, navigating school choice programs, or getting help with a cable bill, challenging institutional hurdles confront most Americans. Indeed, in her study of American-born and immigrant families, Leslie Paik has demonstrated a daunting “maze” of institutional demands.16 Hurdles, knots, and reverberations may therefore be a broad feature of institutional engagement, and thus consequential for Americans in their pathways toward upward mobility.

looking at t h e b i g p i c t u r e In this final section we take up the implications of our work for policy and practice by briefly considering three issues: the role of volunteers, promising elements of refugee policy, and the benefits of streamlining programs. The Gifts and Limits of Volunteers Our book points to the value of volunteers in helping refugees navigate institutions. While many have focused on the role of volunteers in donating furniture or teaching refugees skills such as how to use a microwave, we find volunteers were especially effective in “speaking bureaucracy.” Ten of the forty-four families in the interview sample reported sponsorship by volunteer groups. They explained banking systems, filled out endless stacks of paperwork, tutored children, and helped parents manage educational decisions. They prevented problems and solved others, interventions that were often crucial for getting ahead. As resettlement agencies and religious groups train volunteers, we would encourage them to think of their role as not only cultural liaisons or helpers in fulfilling routine errands but also as institutional problem solvers and advocates. Agencies might help volunteers by training them on the intricacies of food stamp policies, recertification for Medicaid, requirements for Head Start enrollment, heating assistance programs, and so forth. Otherwise, volunteers are learning this information at the same time as the refugees. In addition, they can be taught to recognize that “lit-



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tle things are big things.” By helping a family pay a bill, mail a letter, write a check, or resolve an inaccurate charge, the volunteers are really preventing bigger problems, thus helping families along their pathways to upward mobility. Volunteers also reported that these relationships were deeply rewarding for them. Some stayed close with the families they welcomed for years, attending graduations and celebrating holidays together. A few were inspired to sponsor additional families or to become involved in advocacy work, such as for migrants’ rights or for racial justice, after their experiences.17 Some volunteers from religious groups reported that refugee families became part of the church community, thereby enriching the life of the congregation. Put differently, volunteers saw the process as a “two-way street.” Still, there can be enduring tensions between volunteers and refugee families. Like institutional insiders, volunteers have their own expectations and ideas of deservingness, which can sometimes lead to cultural tensions and clashes.18 It is crucial that refugees have the power to shape the role of the volunteers in their lives, as well as to decline services if they choose. In the case of Joseph and Georgette, we found the family to be skilled at customizing the help of the volunteers and respectfully listening to volunteers’ advice (e.g., that their children attend summer enrichment programs) while also carrying out their own wishes (e.g., sending their children to spend the summer with their aunt). Volunteers should take care to seek out and respect refugees’ preferences. Volunteers have expertise, but they are also powerless in crucial areas. They do not set policies, and it is these policies that often structure refugees’ daily life. The volunteers helping the Ngoma family, for example, spent countless hours tutoring the children, but they were not able to resolve some of the critical problems at their school, such as its programming, resources, and educators’ pedagogical approaches. Nor are volunteers able to dictate the level of government resources allocated to each refugee family. Thus, we see volunteers as invaluable supplemental resources, but their willingness to help should not lead the government to shirk its responsibility. There are risks to developing national programs organized exclusively on private citizens and sponsorship. Volunteer programs can be

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highly variable; there’s little oversight over volunteers, who may be busy, become unavailable, or develop new interests. Refugees may not be able to appeal to or seek other alternatives. Still, in combination with federal refugee resettlement programs, volunteer sponsorship can be extraordinarily helpful. Volunteers make a difference, but volunteers alone are not enough. Revisiting Refugee Policies Policies matter. Many Western European countries have more robust safety nets than the United States; many also have lower rates of poverty, childhood hunger, infant mortality, and other social problems.19 Policies also differ in terms of how much assistance refugees are given. In Canada and Australia, refugees are given more support and for a longer period of time than in the United States. For example, refugees in Canada receive financial support for one year, during which they are given extensive language and job skill training to improve their integration into Canadian society.20 In the United States, when the federal refugee resettlement program began in 1980, refugees were given cash assistance for three years, but the period of coverage has sharply decreased to the current period of three months, after which refugees are required to become economically self-sufficient.21 Language training programs are often fragmented, offered by different organizations scattered across a region. For refugees like Vana, who work long hours, they are difficult to attend.22 If the United States adopted policies like those of other countries, such as Australia, Germany, or Canada, this investment could expand the range of jobs open to refugees, increase their long-term independence from government programs, and improve their prospects of upward mobility. Even within the United States, there is wide variation in what services refugees are offered across county and state lines. Because refugees overwhelmingly do not decide where they will be resettled—a system policy makers refer to as a “lottery”—the level of institutional benefits available is left up to chance.23 Joseph and Georgette were resettled to a wellresourced suburb and their children attended top-ranked public schools. Honoria and her children, meanwhile, landed in a cash-strapped area of Philadelphia with underfunded schools where student achievement ranked below statewide averages. Moreover, the highly localized nature of



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many government entitlements meant that a move of a few miles—just across a county line—could trigger new problems as refugees had to initiate complicated procedures to transfer benefits. Indeed, policy reports have noted that “the safety net is a patchwork” and that improving coordination across the country could help families receive the services they are eligible for.24 Since many refugees move, increased coordination of benefits across county and state lines would reduce hurdles and the possibility for things to go wrong. In addition, caseworkers and volunteers could help by facilitating a referral to new agencies, explaining benefit transfer procedures, and connecting families to services and programs in their new locality. Resettlement agencies could also offer drop-in hours for refugees to come by to troubleshoot problems—big or small—without needing a formal intake or a caseworker. Common Ground: Streamlining Policies for All Americans Many of the problems faced by refugees are also faced by others living in America. Despite common narratives of America as the land of opportunity, fewer than 5 percent of Americans who are born into the lowest income level end up in the top one.25 We have evidence that existing safety net programs are, in fact, effective in reducing poverty.26 But millions of poor children do not receive valuable social services to which they are entitled. In fact, studies suggest that thirteen million people in poverty are not linked to any safety net program to help them, including about onesixth of families eligible for food benefits and almost half of low-income families eligible for health care help, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and other programs.27 Meanwhile, benefits worth $60 billion go unclaimed annually.28 Why? For one, many programs are unnecessarily complex and hard to access. Many Americans also face an array of “normal accidents.”29 For example, it is not uncommon for the U.S. Post Office to lose mail or deliver it to the wrong address.30 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees often fail to answer the phone and have been found to give incorrect information to taxpayers around one-third of the time.31 Not only are there errors in individual client interactions, but entire systems can fail.32 When faced with disasters and emergencies such as hurricanes and school shootings,

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plans falter, even if the emergency plans have been recently practiced. 33 In other words, hurdles and knots are routine. While institutional mishaps are commonplace, not all Americans face equal obstacles. First-generation college students face numerous obstacles navigating college.34 People who are dependent on social services, such as food stamps, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, housing assistance, Social Security, and childcare subsidies, are more likely to encounter consequential obstacles. Many benefit programs in the United States, such as food stamps, are “means tested” so that benefits are available only to those who can prove they earn below a particular income. For example, for food stamps, the average applicant must complete a ninety-minute interview or fill out a seventeen-page form and provide as many as ten documents about their assets.35 Within these complicated systems, the onus is on clients to navigate the process and correct errors. As a result, programs with means testing don’t reach many potential recipients who qualify. Additionally, rules about deservedness mean that the demands of recertification produce “churning,” where people receiving benefits inappropriately lose and then ultimately regain their eligibility. One study found that 45 percent of people thrown off food stamps ended up back on it, just like Joseph and Georgette.36 This churning carries costs in time, paperwork, and administrative overhead. Simplifying reporting requirements reduces churning and provides important stability to struggling families.37 And, all of these rules are expensive to enforce.38 Simple is better. Although no system is perfect, some social systems are effective in reducing calamities because they have systems of redundancy and scrutiny to catch errors and immediately correct them. In systems that are necessarily complex, builtin systems of monitoring (to detect problems) and slack (to fix problems) can help catch predictable errors.

toward a m o r e g e n e r o u s a m e r i ca For a period, the United States was a world leader in refugee support. The number of refugees admitted annually was higher than it is today, and the support they received was more extensive.39 More recently, however, refugee policy, and immigration more generally, has become politically



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fraught, and the number of refugees admitted has plummeted.40 Of course, only a very small fraction of refugees are resettled each year around the world; and, at the time of this writing, many fleeing their homes, such as those displaced by flooding and other climate change-related issues, are still not considered to be refugees. Those selected by agencies for resettlement also face an arduous pathway. As we noted in chapter 1, prior to being chosen, refugees are screened by eight different agencies, five security databases, six background checks, and three interviews.41 Refugees often do not know what country, let alone what city, they are being sent to until shortly before their departure. Many refugees arriving in the United States are haunted by trauma. They have experienced countless tragedies: some have had their homes destroyed or their loved ones killed, and many have endured conditions of extreme scarcity for years. Although many come to America hoping to find a land of opportunity, they are surprised to discover deep, entrenched levels of inequality. This inequality, baked into key aspects of American life, limits their pathways to upward mobility. Although many are willing to work long hours and exercise extreme frugality, it is hard for them to get ahead. Key aspects of the humanitarian ideals of the U.S. refugee program have not yet been realized. Many contend that refugees enrich their new home and that aiding refugees is rooted in core American values of “freedom and opportunity.”42 Truly living up to these values, however, requires reconsidering how we can better offer pathways to opportunities for refugees, as well as other immigrants. Too often the obstacles highlighted in this book go unrecognized or are simply dismissed as minor inconveniences. As policy makers focus on scrutinizing the deservedness of those receiving help, they create ever more complicated systems that divert scarce resources and increase the risk of errors. A better approach is to streamline policies and to make it easier for those who need support to access it. Too often, our narrative about America as a land of opportunity glorifies individual accounts of success built on one’s grit and hard work. And, indeed, the refugees in this book worked hard. They showed determination. But, despite their efforts, institutional obstacles and the often-invisible social systems that create a web of complexity blocked their pathways to getting ahead. Instead of a narrative that blames individuals for their

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lack of progress, we need a more holistic picture of the institutions that thread through the heart of family life, controlling crucial resources and shaping opportunities. We need to focus on how individual moments add up as families navigate multiple institutions at once. We need to take more seriously the costs the current systems impose, correcting common ways in which people are denied services and removing barriers to accessing programs. By more clearly understanding the obstacles and systems refugees face, we can offer more opportunities for them to build a better life for themselves and their children. In doing so, we can help the United States honor our core values and make good on our nation’s humanitarian promises.

Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to the families who opened up their homes to Blair and shared so much of themselves. It was hard for the refugees we interviewed to steal time away from work, sleep, and childcare to speak with us. We are also indebted to the volunteers and aid workers for teaching us about their experiences. As this book shows, refugees have faced unfathomable challenges, and we are honored that they put their trust in us to share their experiences. The creation of this book has followed an unlikely path. As we explain in the methodological appendix, the project began when Blair was asked to help with translation for newly settled refugees. We had met the previous spring in a qualitative methods workshop that Annette had offered. That summer we began chatting about the possibility of Blair doing regular family observations using the method that Annette had helped to popularize in her book Unequal Childhoods. Gradually we started to meet regularly, and, after we had countless conversations, we ended up writing this book together. We are grateful to Maria Odongo, Mirriam Chemutai, and Frida Aloo, the exceptionally talented research assistants who helped us carry out the interviews with refugee families. We have benefited from the help of many people. First, we are indebted to Naomi Schneider at the University of California Press, who believed in the book and has offered valuable advice throughout the entire process. We are also grateful to the entire production team at the press. We owe special gratitude to the members of our book workshop for the careful feedback they provided: Cecilia Menjívar, Leslie Paik, Van Tran, Emilio Parrado, Chenoa Flippen, Naomi 167

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Schneider, Elliot Weininger, Danni Falk, and Shaquilla Harrigan. We were also aided in critical ways by the helpful feedback of the anonymous reviewers. We’re grateful to the doctoral/postdoctoral writing group at the University of Pennsylvania: Minseo Baek, Matthew Clair, Ashleigh Cartwright, Sherelle Ferguson, Peter Harvey, Doron Shiffer-Sebba, and especially Katharina Hecht, who graciously took over moderation of the group when the manuscript was discussed. Annette’s writing group, Maia Cucchiara and Judith Levine, provided countless rounds of invaluable comments, both enthusiastic and skeptical. Frida Aloo, Rawan Arar, Laura Emery, Susan McBride, Paige Sweet, Andres Villatoro, Julia Whalen, and Julia Wrigley read the entire manuscript and provided extremely helpful advice; Ekedi Mpondo-Dika also provided insightful comments. Early in the process, M. Katherine Mooney edited three chapters to make our points clearer. David Lobenstine improved our introduction, and Peter Catron, Lindsey Glassman Woods, and Onoso Imoagene gave helpful comments on an early piece. Later in the process, Karolyn Tyson and Joyce Kim gave helpful comments on the appendix. Andy Jimenez, Lee Ang, Edward Stevens, Steven Lopez, Sreya Pattipati, and Isabelle Alaniz did valuable work as research assistants as we were completing the book. Many thanks to Samuel Freeman, Betsy Freeman Fox, Joan-Erin Lareau, and Lucille Lareau for their assiduous proofreading. The Department of Sociology, the Otto and Gertrude K. Pollak Fellowship, the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University provided crucial financial support. Of course, all errors are the responsibility of the authors. We are grateful to our partners and families who supported us, even though they also questioned our sanity at times, such as when in the midst of the pandemic, when it was not safe to meet inside, we held four-hour meetings on the porch with a windchill of 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Blair thanks her partner, Pete Tontillo, who met with refugee families, tirelessly read and edited draft after draft, and believed in the project—sometimes more than she did herself. She thanks her family, Brent and Karen Sackett and Chase and Sue Lin-Sackett, and friends Molly Gott and Danni Falk, who provided endless support. Annette is particularly indebted to her husband, Samuel Freeman, for his endless patience and support of this project. She is also grateful to members of her church for helping her understand the challenges faced by refugee families more deeply. Due to war and other calamities, the number of refugees continues to grow. Millions of people, including children, have fled their homes worldwide and are living under difficult conditions. Most are not resettled. As we strive to show in this book, the resettlement process is complex and filled with frustration. Countless aid workers and volunteers play a critical role in welcoming refugees to their new homes. We hope that our book will help others understand the challenges refugees face as well as the policies that might ease their adjustment and improve their prospects for upward mobility.

appendix a

Tables

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170

appendix a

Table A.1 Summary characteristics of the forty-four refugee families in our interview sample Characteristic

Household Structure  Married  Other (single, divorced, or separated) Sample Source Location  Philadelphia area  Outside of Philadelphia area Moved in the U.S.  Moved  Did not move House ownership  Bought house  Did not buy house Any children enrolled in college  Enrolled  Not enrolled

Percentage

71 29 39 61 47* 53* 26* 74* 30* 70*

note:  The median number of children in each family was 5, and the children’s ages ranged from birth to age 14. * Data was missing for some interviewees. In the case of missing data, we calculated the percentage based on the total number of families that reported.

9

7

Married

Married

Separated

Married

Amani

Andama

Asende and Assa (Tande’s parents) Ayubu

2

5

7

Married

Baraka and Rozina

8

5

Married

Married

7

5

Completed secondary

Completed college

Completed secondary

Completed secondary

Completed primary Some college

None

19

14

20

19

15

19

19

15

Number Highest of education of Years children the HH displaced

Widowed Separated Married

Current family structure

Alain and Vana

Malu Malu and Mariamu Joseph and Georgette

Honoria

Family household head(s) (HH)

4

2

7

5

5

5

5

5

7

Years in the U.S.

Midwest

Midwest

Midwest

South

Midwest

Northeast

Northeast

Midwest

Northeast

Current region of residence

Table A.2 Key characteristics of the 44 refugee families in our interview sample

Bottling factory

Wife: Nurse Assa: Housekeeping

None

None

Amani: Cafeteria cook at university Andama: Car factory Homeowner

None

Homeowner

Vana: Meatpacking Baraka: Packaging Rozina: Packaging

Homeowner

Georgette: Packaging Alain: Bread factory

None

None

Malu Malu: None Mari: Packaging Joseph: Packaging

Packaging

Current employment

(continued)

n/a

n/a

n/a

No

Enrolled

No

No

Enrolled

Children enrolled in Homeownership college*

Married

Married

Bakari

Banduka Beatrice

Married

Separated Married

Fadhili

Grace Hamisi

Bella Married Bilombele and Separated Flora (Maisha’s parents) Costa and Married Georgette Emmanuel and Married Jeanine

Married

Current family structure

Aziza

Family household head(s) (HH)

Table A.2 (continued)

2 7

4

4

None Completed secondary

Some primary 20

14

10

12

1 2

5

2

2

Completed primary Completed college

1 4

5

1

5

22 20

20

23

1.5

Some college

Completed primary Completed college

Years in the U.S.

5 7

14 3

6

4

Number Highest of education of Years children the HH displaced

Northeast South

South

Northeast

Northeast

Northeast Midwest

Midwest West

Midwest

Midwest

Current region of residence

Enrolled n/a n/a

Husband: Meatpacking Meatpacking Factory None

None

No n/a

Enrolled

Jeanine: Unemployed Fadhili: Housekeeping None

Emmanuel: Factory

None

None None

None None

Housekeeping

None

Wife: Unemployed Window company Retirement home cafeteria

None

Bakari: Unemployed

Packaging

Current employment

Children enrolled in Homeownership college*

Some primary

6

8

7

8

0

Kageta and Married Mkyoba (Matayo’s aunt and uncle) Kaisa Married

Married

Married

Widow

Married

Single

Kasumba

Mariamu

Martha

Mussa and Francine (Austin’s parents) Ndabe

1

5

Completed secondary

0 1

Single Married

Completed secondary

Some secondary Completed secondary

Completed secondary

Some college Completed secondary

None

2

Married

Some college

Janvier and Flora Jean Pierre Juma and Buruki

2

Married

Jabari

21

22

20

20

20

6 16

9

19

3

4

4

12

4

4

4

1 1

5

3

Northeast

Northeast

West

Midwest

Midwest

Northeast

Midwest

Northeast Northeast

Northeast

Midwest

n/a

None

Grocery store

Francine: Housekeeping

Mussa: Tailor

Wife: Meatpacking Mariamu: Factory Husband: Factory Unemployed

None

None

None

None

(continued)

n/a

Enrolled

n/a

Enrolled

Enrolled

Enrolled

n/a n/a

n/a

n/a

None

None None

Homeowner

Husband: Unemployed None Kasumba: Meatpacking

Kaisa: Housekeeping

Buruki: Unemployed

Meatpacking Juma: Meatpacking

Chemical manufacturing plant Car factory

5

4

6 3

Married

Separated

Married

Married Separated

Married

Married

Pierre

Robert and Nicole (Deborah’s parents) Roda Rosa

Sifuna

Simon and Victorina

3

4

1

4

Some primary Some secondary Completed college

Completed college Some secondary

Completed secondary

23

17 13

3

7

9

20

Number Highest of education of Years children the HH displaced

Divorced

Current family structure

Omari and Binti (Esha’s parents) Pastor Jean

Family household head(s) (HH)

Table A.2 (continued)

Homeowner

Homeowner

None

Simon: Office manager Victorina: 22

Packaging Homeowner

Enrolled

n/a

n/a n/a

Enrolled

n/a

n/a

Enrolled

Children enrolled in Homeownership college*

Husband: Meatpacking Homeowner Cleaner None

Wife: Service worker Business owner

Pastor Jean: Grocery store

Binti: Housekeeping

Current employment

Victorina: Nurse

Midwest

Northeast Northeast

Northeast

South

Midwest

Midwest

Current region of residence

Simon: 20 Northeast

1

3 1

6

15

2

5

Years in the U.S.

Married

Widowed

Married Separated

Yohana

Zainab

Zamari Zubeda

4 3

2

7

2

Some primary school

Completed primary

Completed secondary Some secondary

21 8

23

22

23

3 1

1

2

1

Midwest Northeast

Midwest

Northeast

Northeast

None

None

Packaging Meatpacking

Homeowner

Wife: Unemployed Packaging

Homeowner

Yohana: Packaging

Grocery store

n/a n/a

No

n/a

*Some families did not have college-age children, which we have indicated with “N/A.”

note:  Qualitative research, including interviews, is emergent, and we added questions to our interviews as we learned more in the field. Some interviews are missing data on specific points. We have indicated this missing data by leaving the field blank. In six cases, we interviewed young adults in their twenties (i.e., Tande, Maisha, Matayo, Austin, Esha, and Deborah). These young adults usually were living with their parent(s) or guardians and considered themselves to be part of these households. (A few were away at college.) Consistent with our focus on families, in this table we have listed these young people according to their parents’ characteristics.

Married

Solomon

Changing jobs to get a better one

Qualifying for a credit card or loan

Learning your credit score

Managing retirement Learning about programs money orders

Paying bills—rent, utilities, loans, etc.

Getting signed up to be paid

Interacting with office workers and landlords

Financial institutions

Opening and managing a bank account

Getting a job

Finding out about a job

Workplaces

Accessing housing programs

Gaining Social Security for a disability

Interacting with caseworkers

Filing for food stamps with the SNAP office

Signing up at the welfare office

Social welfare agencies

Completing college applications, applying for financial aid

Communicating with teachers

Signing up for tutoring

Choosing schools

Starting school— registering, getting uniforms, etc.

Education

Table A.3 Examples of key institutions and institutional interactions in day-to-day life

Managing program requirements

Providing documentation

Finding a location

Qualifying for subsidized services

Childcare

Getting insurance reimbursements

Signing up for health care

Filling a prescription

Getting a referral to see a specialist

Scheduling a doctor’s appointment

Health care

Working with probation officers

Appearing in court

Managing an arrest

Reporting an accident or crime

Police/criminal courts

Acquiring birth and death certificates

Negotiating child support agreements

Talking to a mediator or lawyer

Working with repair people

Getting a green card (for immigrants) Qualifying to purchase a home Passing a citizenship test Managing the closing

Avoiding eviction

Finding rental housing

Housing

Getting a passport

Immigration services

Managing a divorce

Civil courts ( family court)

Paying bills

Handling problems

Demonstrating creditworthiness

Signing up for services

Utilities

Becoming a member

Getting to religious services

Religious institutions

Attended free college-prep program

Received a summer internship

Received housing assistance and later bought his own home

 as taught about W finances

Summary of benefit

When I first got my bank account, Lindy was the one who helped me. I thank God for the experience that I had being a refugee back then in Vermont. . . . They teach you step by step. They will show you how to write those checks, how to use those ATM machines, how to apply for a credit card, and things like that. My brother first moved to Indiana [and] I stayed in Vermont. I was in school there. After I finished, I went to Indiana and joined him. He had Section 8 [housing assistance] in Indiana. After that we lived together for a couple of years, saving money, and then we all decided to buy our own homes. I wanted to be a doctor and . . . I really wanted to do research during the summer, but I didn’t have experience. . . . So, I went to my professors and was like, “Is there something I can do with the math experience that I have?” . . . And he was like, “Yeah. The chair of the math department . . . has this summer internship where he hires a couple of students to work with him on this website.” So, I applied for the job. That is how I got it—through my math professor. . . . I got to know him through his office hours. They have like this two-week program before fall semester. . . . It’s a summer institute program for first-year low-income students. . . . You come in before everybody else, and they run you through the whole college experience.

Interview quote

Education

Labor market

Education

Financial institutions

Social welfare agencies

Housing

Banking

Resettlement agency

Institutions involved

note:  For additional examples of institutional benefits from interviews with refugees, see the online appendix (www.ucpress.edu/go/we-thought-it-wouldbe-heaven).

Austin

Pierre

Family

Table A.4 Selected examples of institutional benefits refugees experienced

A change in doctor led to challenges in scheduling appointments

Martha

I had eye problems . . . ever since I was in Africa. When I came here, I was taken to the doctor. I was diagnosed with [high] blood pressure. That doctor was like a sister to me. She would give me appointments every two weeks. Then she moved to Denver, and we were [transferred to another] doctor. She has never called me in for an appointment. . . . I used to call our interpreter, and she told me that nowadays doctors no longer do consultations. I call her, and she promises to get me an appointment, but then she doesn’t. Since we didn’t know English, we suspected that [the landlord] was extorting us. . . . We wanted to move in June. So, we told him, and he was like, “You want to move yet you still owe the water bill?” So we asked him to give us the bill. He gave us it, and we paid for it. Then we moved out of that house on [September] 29th. Then come October, he sent us another bill for that house. He asked us to pay the water bill for the month of September and October—a total of $400. We just had to pay. And so we feel they are really abusing us just because we can’t speak English. That was it. If they bring a bill and we tell them that we have already paid for it, they threaten to take us to court. For a refugee to be taken to court, we are scared of that.

During the application process we are asked to submit all IDs and children’s certificates. We did that. . . . It has now been two months since we started trying to apply for food stamps and Medicaid, but we have not received any feedback . . . [and] not long after we moved, my wife gave birth and we received a bill of $3,500.

Interview quote

Courts

Police

Housing

Interpreter

Hospital billing Health care

Medicaid, identification

Food stamps (SNAP)

Institutions involved

note:  For additional examples of institutional obstacles from interviews with refugees, see the online appendix (www.ucpress.edu/go/we-thought-it-would-beheaven).

Banduka Landlord overcharged for water bill

Moved from Iowa to Ohio, but their food stamps (SNAP) and Medicaid didn’t transfer; a friend took them to apply in Ohio, but there was no response to the application

Summary of obstacle

Abuyu

Family

Table A.5 Obstacles faced by families in interview sample

Jabari

Workplace

Pierre

Housing

A White person treats a fellow White very different from how he treats a Black [person]. Even at the workplace,  . . . the Whites will be given the first priority, and they may not show you that it’s because of your skin color but you will know it. . . . I have never been discriminated [against], but at work you can just see how the supervisors treat people. The supervisor becomes contemptuous and hates on people due to their skin color. They even talk ill of them, thinking that they do not understand that language. Race has always been there. No matter what you do. When I first came to the U.S., my first name is Alphonse. . . . So instead of saying “Alphonse,” they started calling me “Ali.” . . . Some people started thinking that I am a Muslim. . . . I realized it was hard for me to get some jobs because of just that name. Every time I say “Ali” they will be like, “We do not have anything for you. Come back in six months.” So when I call and pretend to use an American name like John, that same position that they told me they didn’t have, when I call back, they have it. . . . When I got my citizenship, I changed my first name . . . because of that problem. When I saw that incident [the killing of George Floyd], I was very sad. I felt it wasn’t fair. . . . I was very scared. I felt as if [the police] would do something like that to me. When you are trying to look for an apartment to rent here in Tennessee—that was the first time somebody would say over the phone, “Are you Black or White?” . . . When I came to Tennessee, I didn’t have any place to live. I was staying with my friends. . . . So, I started making some phone calls. I would see an apartment for rent in the newspaper, and they will be like, “If you are Black, you can’t rent this home.”

Interview quote

note:  For additional examples of racial discrimination from interviews with refugees, see the online appendix (www.ucpress.edu/go/we-thought-it-would-beheaven).

Sifuna

Police

Pierre

Name

Institution

Table A.6 Racial discrimination in institutional interactions

Legal status

Utilities Employment

Housing

Resettlement  agency Housing Employment

Type of institution

Activities

(continued)

— Negotiated with the landlord; managed the federal rent subsidy for six months and then subsidized the remainder of the rent so that Ngomas paid no rent for one year; in the second year, the Ngomas paid $700 per month of the $1,425 rent. — Made sure rent was paid on time; taught them to make sure there was money in the account after check was mailed — Helped rent a house in Marion, interacted with the landlord, facilitated the family getting their deposit back after moving — One volunteer paid moving costs to Marion — Helped them get cell phones and Wi-Fi, set up their computers; set up payments — Made calls to aid organization in Marion, facilitated Joseph applying for a job at the factory, helped Georgette get a cleaning job — Filled out paperwork for state identification cards for Joseph and Georgette; took them to the office — Helped them file taxes

springdale: family arrives, institutions connected to services

— Created a consortium of 14 religious groups, set up committees, researched schools, Head Start programs, extracurricular activities; arranged for a scholarship at a private school — Found a house and rented it; furnished the house — Started looking for work for Joseph, Georgette, and Riziki (20); had difficulty but finally found seasonal landscaping work for Joseph from a neighbor of a volunteer — Found cafeteria work for Georgette and Riziki

springdale: preparing for the family

Table A.7 Supports given to the Ngoma family by church volunteers

Extracurricular activities

Education

Transportation

Religion

Healthcare

Banking Government agencies

Type of institution

Activities

— Enrolled Emmanuel in private school with free tuition — Attended school conferences, emailed with teachers and administrators, called special conferences — Purchased backpacks and school supplies — Taught them bus routes to school — Helped parents sign all permission forms, kept track of field trips — Kept school calendar, updated the parents about half days — Found ESL courses that worked with their schedules, drove them to classes; arranged for a personal tutor who was an experienced ESL teacher

springdale: kids’ activities

— Learned the rules for using SNAP/food stamps (which are numerous), and how to check the balance as well as how to apply for recertification after six months — Made medical appointments, kept track of prescriptions, kept track of over-the-counter meds — Found a dentist, made dental appointments, drove them there and back — Picked them up and drove them to and from church (in two cars) for two years — Called Marion church and asked them to give them a ride to church and back — Took them to apply for a driver’s permit; someone donated a car and gave driving lessons (but it took over 2 years for Joseph to pass the test)

— Filled out green card applications; followed up, helping with fingerprinting, special medical appointments, and forms; they got their green cards after applying the day they became eligible — Opened bank accounts, taught them how to check their balances — Helped them apply for food stamps and Medicaid

Table A.7 (continued)

Government agencies

Housing

Banking

Education

Religion Healthcare

Transportation

— Registered for appointment for driver’s license, helped Joseph take the permit test (in French), arranged for a driver’s test, donated a car — Helped them get car insurance (found a plan and set up payment process) — Helped them learn rules (can only have 5 people in a car with 5 seats) — Arrived July 2016; in 2017 tried to get a car; in 2018 got license and car — Gave them a ride to church — Made medical appointments, kept track of prescriptions, kept track of over-the-counter meds; gradually transitioned this to family — Picked kids up at 6:30 a.m. and drove to school daily for 2 years — Many private conferences, sought (unsuccessfully) to change classroom placements, learned of special program — Tutored, and helped the children get in a tutoring program; drove them home after tutoring (to make sure that they went) — Helped them set up an automatic savings program — Helped them fill out extensive paperwork for loan preapproval — Signed up for program for first-time homebuyers — Arranged for a broker to waive fee; realtor from church — Toured houses with them; advised on budgeting and bids — Helped them text landlord when there was a leak in rental house in Marion, helped family text landlord to send someone to clean up; helped arrange for new refrigerator (paid for by landlord) when mice ate through the wires — Wrote appeal and helped to get food stamps reinstated when they were cut off

marion volunteers

— Enrolled 15-year-old twin boys in club team soccer, track, took them to soccer practice, helped get uniforms — Enrolled Furhana in choir and soccer

Spring 2016

Fall 2015

2015–2016

Spring/summer 2015

Date

Steps in data collection

4 volunteers from the welcome team added to study (interviews only)

Fifth family, Joseph and Georgette, added to study

Annette joins the project as a coauthor

Blair shadows Wendy, a resettlement caseworker

Blair conducts interviews with 12 Congolese refugee families (including focal families) and 9 aid workers

Malu and Mari, and Baraka and Rozina, and their families move to Iowa; Blair occasionally keeps in touch with them through social media

Blair begins weekly observations with the families outside of ESL class

4. Alain and Vana Blair gains permission to observe families; all agree

3. Baraka and Rozina*

2. Malu Malu and Mariamu

1. Honoria

Four Congolese families in the class:

Blair gets approval for a study from the refugee agency and university IRB Blair observes ESL class

Blair’s Swahili professor contacted by refugee agency seeking Swahili-speaking volunteers for an English language class

Table A.8 Research design: Stages of the study

Modest gifts at holiday for each family Small food item, such as a plate of cookies, given at the time of interviews

No honorarium

No honorarium for participants

Blair helps out in the class

Honoraria for participants

Blair conducts in-person interviews with Honoria’s family in 2022 after initial difficulty finding Honoria’s contact information

Blair interviews 4 refugee families and 21 aid workers and volunteers by phone or video call; Annette interviews 1 volunteer Blair conducts follow-up interviews with case study families on phone or video call

RAs conduct phone/video interviews with 28 refugee families

Hire research assistants for interviews, and Blair trains them in recruitment and interviewing

$200 honorarium per family for kids

$200 honorarium per family for parents

Thank you card for aid workers and volunteers

Observations end; Blair leaves Philadelphia and from 2017 to 2018 conducts a separate dissertation research project in Kenya Decision to write a coauthored book; partial book submitted for review $30 gift card for each refugee interviewee Receive reviews and decide to carry out additional research

* Due to the similarity in the experiences of Malu and Mari’s family and Baraka and Rozina’s, we decided not to feature the latter as one of our case studies. Instead, their family is included in the interview sample.

2020–2022

2019–2021

Summer 2016–2018

appendix b

Key Ideas in More Depth

context of reception, immigrant incorporation, and the rules of the game

To avoid weighing down the book with scholarly debates, we use this appendix to situate our work in the broader theoretical context. Social science research on the experiences of refugees and immigrants sheds valuable light on these groups’ patterns of adjustment in the United States, which is often termed “incorporation.”1 Here we highlight the importance of the “context of reception,” or the features of the receiving country.2 Indeed, while the characteristics of migrants themselves are important, institutions determine the value of these traits. We focus on how refugee status and the resettlement migration pathway shape the context of reception. We then turn to a broader reflection on how institutions establish “the rules of the game” based on sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s key insights, which have influenced our thinking.

immigrant incorporation: the role of context of reception In conceptualizing how immigrants fare, scholars demonstrate the importance of both the characteristics of immigrants themselves and the features of their new country. Studies suggest that people who migrate are often different from those who remain in their home countries, a concept that scholars refer to as immigrant “selectivity.”3 For refugees, selection for resettlement and support for the migration process is largely led by the United Nations and government agencies. 187

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By contrast, most other migrants have a different pathway without this institutional facilitation. They are responsible for securing their own transportation and logistics, including obtaining visas. This is challenging, even for those with social ties to those living in the United States who can help. While some succeed, other immigrants are unable to secure visas and arrive without proper legal documentation. Still others never make it into the country. For instance, the very poor are often unable to afford the expenses of the journey and cannot migrate.4 Immigrants who make the journey tend to be more educated compared to others in their home countries.5 Not surprisingly, these “premigration characteristics” play a role in immigrants’ integration upon arrival in the United States.6 Indeed, children who have a parent born outside of the United States are especially likely to achieve relatively high levels of education and job success.7 For instance, among Cuban refugees in the United States, early waves of resettlement were predominantly comprised of the country’s educated military, political, and economic elites, who tended to be light-skinned; these premigration characteristics helped them develop successful businesses and gain economic resources in their new country.8 Studies show that the skills that immigrants bring with them, such as education, help facilitate reaching mile markers of incorporation, including employment, home buying, and college enrollment.9 Yet, in the process of incorporation, it is not just the characteristics of the migrants themselves, but also the context in which they are received, that matters. Features of the receiving country, such as government policies, economic structures, and racial hierarchies, also shape their adjustment process. After all, while immigrants arrive in the United States with educational credentials and job experiences from their home countries (their premigration characteristics), the value of these skills and qualifications are determined by employers and other institutions in the context of reception.10 Moreover, government policies and programs can facilitate or stall resources for economic success.11 In the case of Cuban refugees, while early waves benefited from their premigration professional knowhow, their economic success was also aided by institutional support from the U.S. government, including over $1.4 billion in resettlement aid and small business loans.12 While other factors can also be influential, in the following sections we discuss three features of the context of reception that are crucial in the experiences of the refugee families we studied: the interwoven nature of U.S. institutions, the character of American racial inequality, and the availability of social ties within local communities.

The Role of Institutions in Refugee Reception Institutions, including government policies and programs, play a key role in creating a welcoming or restrictive reception.13 When immigrants arrive they join American labor markets, schools, and neighborhoods. As immigration scholar



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Helen Marrow has shown, immigrants have significant interactions with American institutions, and these institutions play a key role in their process of incorporation (what Marrow terms “bureaucratic incorporation”).14 Some scholars suggest that in recent decades, institutions—and especially government policies—have provided a favorable context for immigrant incorporation, pointing to expanded civil rights and a growing institutional consensus on the value of diversity.15 Due to support from the federal refugee resettlement program, refugees have been conceptualized to have a particularly favorable welcome to the United States compared to other immigrants with different pathways into the country, like asylum seekers and undocumented migrants (see chapter 1).16 Although immigration scholars have certainly expanded our knowledge about the role of institutions in the context of reception, the focus has often been on one type of institution in isolation, and there has been less attention to the ways in which navigating a large number of interdependent but uncoordinated institutions can create “administrative burdens” and challenges in the lives of immigrants, including refugees.17 In particular, research has suggested the importance of the official welcome refugees receive from governments—such as policies of state sponsorship and pathways to citizenship—in facilitating political incorporation. For instance, sociologist Irene Bloemraad found increased naturalization and political participation among Vietnamese refugees compared to Portuguese labor migrants.18 Similarly, refugee status shaped resettled Liberians’ expectations and interactions with the state and other social service institutions by reinforcing their right to such services.19 Beyond federal programs, local institutional contexts also play a role in how refugees develop notions of belonging and citizenship.20 Thus, studies suggest that the favorable context of reception provided by the federal refugee resettlement program facilitates the political incorporation of refugees. Yet research on refugees’ socioeconomic incorporation also points to less favorable outcomes, particularly for employment. Indeed, rather than viewing refugee status as the “holy grail” due to the rights and resources it affords, Katherine Jensen has found that in Brazil, refugees—especially African ones, who also face anti-Black racism—express apathy and a lack of enthusiasm, in part because their legal status does not readily improve their socioeconomic lives.21 Moreover, in the U.S. context, government policies and programs have become less favorable. In recent decades federal funding for refugee resettlement has decreased, and resettlement caseworkers face increased pressure, uncertain caseloads, and time-consuming paperwork for government accountability.22 Resettlement programming emphasizes refugee self-sufficiency through employment.23 Required to find work quickly without time and support for language training, resettled refugees are pushed into low-wage, short-term jobs.24 While these policies, funding declines, and self-sufficiency mandates initially lead to high rates of employment for refugees (compared to other types of immigrants), over time they have

190

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the reverse effect, contributing to a decline in employment rates the longer refugees live in the United States.25 Moreover, although refugees are eligible for support from the social safety net, which might provide a buffer, the social welfare state has shrunk, and assistance has become increasingly fragmented.26 Less is known about the role of institutional mechanisms in how these relatively favorable policies and programs may fail to result in a positive context of reception, as refugee families navigate a wide range of institutions, including schools, banks, transportation, and welfare offices on a regular basis. In this book we provide an in-depth examination of Congolese refugee families’ experiences in their first few years after arrival to the United States. We focus on the role of institutions in helping or hindering socioeconomic mobility, which is one aspect of incorporation. We show three types of obstacles (hurdles, knots, and reverberations) that can hinder families’ upward socioeconomic mobility as well as three types of resources (cultural brokers, institutional insiders, and well-resourced institutions) that can help boost mobility.27 By identifying different types of obstacles across institutions, our findings contribute to the conceptualization of the institutional mechanisms in the context of reception. We detail how these obstacles can block incorporation for refugees, even with relatively favorable policies and eligibility for resources.

Racial Inequality in the U.S. Context When refugees and immigrants arrive in the United States, they find a context of reception characterized by widespread racial inequality. How immigrants are perceived and treated within this hierarchy undoubtedly shapes their trajectory.28 Schools, workplaces, courts, and banks—and many other everyday institutions—are marred by long-standing racial inequities.29 Within institutions, Black clients are disproportionately hampered by the ways that the rules are constructed and implemented, causing “racialized administrative burdens.”30 As we discuss in chapter 1, it is well documented that institutional agents have racial biases, as they favor some clients over others. For instance, anthropologist Aihwa Ong shows that health and social workers had racist views of Cambodian refugees and saw them as unworthy.31 Some groups, such as European and Canadian migrants, receive more assistance than others, such as Mexicans.32 Thus, institutional racism is a key feature of the context of reception for immigrants. Through these encounters, immigrants learn about American racial hierarchy. Social scientists have found that Black immigrants—new to the country’s racial context—undergo a process of racial learning, discovering how they are seen and treated by others as Black. While conceptualizations of race and Blackness span the globe, for many immigrants, like Somali refugees, Blackness is perceived differently in their home countries, rooted in local historical and social nuances.33 Arriving in the United States, immigrants are met with new racial



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dynamics in the context of reception. Studies suggest that the longer immigrants and refugees spend in the United States, the more aware they are of racial inequality.34 Over time they experience “racialization”—moments in which “one’s race is made salient”—prompting a sharpening of racial recognition.35 To protect against racism, some Black immigrants, such as the West Indian migrants in Mary Waters’s study, go to great lengths—such as maintaining their Caribbean accents—to distance themselves from Black Americans.36 Liberian refugees have also been found to try to distinguish themselves from Black Americans, “continuously juxtapos[ing] their own ‘Liberian’ priorities and actions with those of Black Americans.”37 Indeed, as Waters found, American employers discriminate against Black Americans and express a preference for immigrant newcomers, who, compared to native-born Black citizens, have been found to be more highly educated and likely to be hired by White employers.38 In this book we trace the experiences of Congolese refugees who are racialized as Black in the United States, contributing to the growing scholarship on Black immigration to the United States.39 As the families navigated institutions to ensure their children’s education and earn an income, they encountered racism (appendix A, table A.6). As we show, the Congolese refugees in our study learned about racism as they lived in the United States, particularly through national crises and conversations about police killings of unarmed Black men. Some of the Congolese refugees in our study—especially those who had lived in the United States for years—reported instances of racism in institutional settings. Over time they became much more attuned to racism, particularly in the workplace, at school, and by the police.40 Moreover, we show that in institutions, racism and xenophobia could create obstacles for the families in accessing resources and make the obstacles more likely and harder to solve.41 Thus, for Black refugees, incorporation in the U.S. context of reception involved racialization in identification, as well as outcomes impacted by racialized institutional obstacles.

Friends, Family, and the Role of Social Support Friends, relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances can provide a welcoming context of reception for new arrivals in the United States, playing a crucial role in incorporation.42 Before migrating, many immigrants have friends, family, and acquaintances in the United States, and these social ties can provide valuable advice and resources throughout the migration process.43 Thus, many start their new lives in the United States with already established social connections and support. These ties can provide a wide range of resources, such as helping immigrants—especially undocumented immigrants—find jobs and earn higher wages.44 Some immigrants are received by large co-ethnic communities that are established and have resources, such as those in “ethnic enclaves,” or neighborhoods concentrated with co-ethnics, their businesses, and their organizations.45

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However, not all immigrants have access to such a favorable context of social support. Some ties, especially fellow newcomers, may reject requests for help due to their own limited resources, making it a “fragmented tie.”46 Social capital can also have downsides, demanding time and resources to maintain.47 Resettled refugees are distinct in that they migrate through a governmentsponsored pathway and don’t have to rely on social ties to facilitate the process. Many arrive in the United States with few friends and family.48 This is particularly the case for newer resettlement groups without established co-ethnic communities, such as the Congolese.49 Furthermore, historically, U.S. resettlement agencies have sought to disperse refugees across the country, preventing or slowing the formation of ethnic enclaves. Indeed, many of the Congolese refugee families in this study arrived with no nearby social ties, who might have helped ease their adjustment. Nonetheless, studies suggest that many refugees are able to form significant co-ethnic social capital, with many eventually moving to join social ties and forming tight-knit communities.50 Some more established groups have formed ethnic enclaves, such as the Hmong and Somalis in Minneapolis and Cubans in Miami. Studies indicate that for many groups, like Vietnamese refugees, co-ethnic ties contribute to success in school and community building.51 For example, in this book, Joseph and Georgette chose to move to Marion, not just for the lower cost of housing but also to be near other Congolese (chapter 4); and Malu and Mari moved to Iowa to join Malu’s uncle and family. Overall, in our study social ties had mixed effects. Sometimes they played a positive role in the families’ access to resources and ability to navigate institutions. For example, Alain and Vana’s neighbor, Youssouf, an African immigrant from Mali, helped Alain get a job at a bread factory with other French-speaking immigrants (chapter 5). Another neighbor, Faith, a Black American who was born and raised in Philadelphia, helped them enroll their children in a nearby private school. Other times friends and family had limited resources to help, such as Malu Malu’s uncle in Iowa (chapter 3). Predominantly upper-middle-class and White American volunteers often lacked networks with valuable information about jobs that didn’t require English, such as the volunteers who struggled to find full-time work for Joseph and Georgette (chapter 4). Moreover, while resettled refugees may arrive in the United States with limited social ties, the day-to-day organizations and groups they interact with can be important sources of social capital, boosting their integration.52 Alain and Vana’s son David developed a beneficial tie with a mom from his soccer team (chapter 5). For Joseph and Georgette, American volunteers helped shuttle their children to and from school, set up accounts, managed their online passwords, and provided advice on how to buy a home (chapter 4). Thus, while the Congolese refugees may have faced a context of reception with more limited co-ethnic social ties, many forged ties with co-ethnics and Americans upon arrival, particularly through everyday organizations.



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In sum, while immigrants’ premigration characteristics undoubtably play a role in their incorporation patterns, we find that it is the institutions within the context of reception that help to determine the “rules of the game” and thus the value of individual-level characteristics. In the next section we briefly discuss the important work of Pierre Bourdieu in theorizing the “rules of the game” to put our study in broader context.

bourdieu: stratification, field, and the rules of the game Many policy makers and others make the mistake of blaming the challenges that refugees face on individual characteristics. In our view, a better approach is to recognize that institutions set complicated and conflicting rules and expectations. Refugees, immigrants, and others—including low-income family members or first-generation college students—face challenges in learning the “rules of the game.” Here we provide a brief account of Pierre Bourdieu’s key ideas, since his writings offer valuable theoretical tools for understanding these issues.53 However, to avoid weighing the book down with jargon, we have substituted our own terminology for his. Specifically, we use the phrases “institutional knowledge and skills” and “cultural knowledge, skills, and strategies” in place of “cultural capital.”54 We also use the terms “social ties” or “social networks” rather than “social capital.” Similarly, we speak of “economic resources” rather than “economic capital.”55 Most importantly, in the main text of this book we don’t develop Bourdieu’s notion of fields. Here we provide additional context.56 Pierre Bourdieu’s work often seeks to highlight the deeply stratified nature of social life, which facilitates the transmission of advantages across generations. In Bourdieu’s analysis, institutional arrangements (what he calls “fields”) define what counts and what doesn’t count as valuable. As a result, his analysis shows the fluid relationship between “structure” (systems of organizations, political systems, legal systems, and social rules) and “agency” (i.e., individuals’ own life pathways and unique decision-making). Individuals’ trajectories are enacted in a specific context where there is always uncertainty. His work helps to clarify some of the key mechanisms sustaining social inequality. Indeed, Bourdieu offers a compelling analysis of how people raised in varying family contexts are socialized differently, yielding a different set of deepseated dispositions (“habitus”) that teach children and adults what feels comfortable and natural, powerfully shaping how they navigate the world.57 These background experiences shape the amount and form of resources (capital) people inherit and use as they navigate institutional arrangements. Crucially, it is the institutions—not the families—that play a key role in determining the value of this capital. For example, families differ in their child-rearing methods, including

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how much they talk to young children.58 Since educational institutions are organized to place a premium on children beginning kindergarten with literacy skills (rather than acquiring them while in school), some children gain crucial advantages as their families comply with the standards of dominant institutions. The institutions—fields—determine the rules of the game.59 Bourdieu generally developed his theories in the context of French and Algerian society. France at that time was more homogenous than the United States in key ways, particularly in terms of the centralization of many important social institutions such as schools and social services. By contrast, the United States, with its federal structure, has always had a complex set of fields or institutional arrangements. There are limits on federal power (compared to welfare states in Western European countries), fifty states, and a host of policies under the control and implementation of local governments. Nonetheless, the general point remains: institutions define the value of actions. Bourdieu also focuses our attention on the power of elites to set the terms for what constitute the rules of the game. Since the power of elites is seen as legitimate, Bourdieu constantly reminds us to see the “mis-recognition” in the transmission of advantages across generations—the transmission is seen as natural and just rather than as a set of historically specific institutional arrangements where powerful actors control the terms and standards for success. As some practices spread through society, they can become devalued and thus less helpful in securing advantages. The focus is not on individuals’ practices per se but on the ways in which practices conform to institutional standards and thus gain value. We see our work as contributing to empirical efforts to explicate the role of fields in the transmission of advantage since for refugees to gain resources, they must comply with the rules of the games of a host of institutions. In the book we do not have the space to spell out key elements of the concept of field, but the concept is crucial. It encompasses some of the same dynamics captured in terms such as “market” or “social institutions,” but the notion of field also conveys the idea of relational jockeying for advantages—and conflict. Indeed, the importance of unequal relations is baked into Bourdieu’s conception.60 As David Swartz writes, The concept suggests force field, wherein the distribution of capital in the market reflects a hierarchical set of power relations among the competing individuals, groups, and organizations. Field is a more inclusive concept than market; as a spatial metaphor it [field] suggests rank and hierarchy as well as exchange relations between buyers and sellers. Interactions among actors within fields are shaped by their relative location in the hierarchy of positions.61

Furthermore, Bourdieu sees fields as constantly being contested, as agents are jockeying for improved position, and the fields themselves are shifting.62 The outcomes are never certain or predetermined; they must be navigated as agents draw on resources and confront fields at a particular historical moment. In a



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lesser-known piece, Bourdieu draws an analogy with a card game as a tool for readers to understand how the social space is stratified. Actors confront a field that imposes “rules of the game” (which actors must know in order to succeed) and a social space where people have differing amounts of capital. His analysis draws our attention to both the cards being dealt to players, the kind of cards players have vis-à-vis one another, and the skill with which people play the cards they are dealt (including the coaching that they receive from others in playing the game).63 More attention is needed to the “rules of the game” of the institutions and especially the role of gatekeepers. As Lareau has previously noted, insufficient attention has been played to the rules of the games: Bourdieu’s work . . . enables researchers to capture “moments” of cultural and social reproduction. To understand the character of these moments, researchers need to look at the contexts in which capital is situated, the efforts by individuals to activate their capital, the skill with which they do so, and the institutional response to the activation of resources. Unfortunately, Bourdieu’s empirical work has not paid sufficient attention to . . . the crucial mediating role of individuals who serve as “gatekeepers” and decision makers in organizations.64

Many of the challenges faced by resettled refugees center on the difficulties in complying with the rules of the institutions, rules that often presume not only cultural knowledge of one institution but also the skill to interface with multiple intersecting institutions. Put differently, although refugee families have extensive survival skills and resiliency, these resources are not recognized and valued by institutional gatekeepers. They don’t generally have highly valued forms of capital (cultural, social, economic, and symbolic) to deploy in their navigations with institutional agents in different fields. Although extensive research has looked at variations in the cultural capital people bring to interactions, in this book we focused on common institutional obstacles faced by all of the refugees in our study. Still, refugees did vary in the cultural resources that they brought with them. Honoria, for example, was not literate (like about one-third of women her age in the Congo), while Alain had worked in a bureaucratic office.65 Others have highlighted the impact of prior educational skills on migrants’ journeys.66 Normally, however, cultural capital is conceptualized as context-specific—within a particular country or setting. Future work on this topic might take up the idea of a transnational set of cultural skills that help migrants navigate similar bureaucratic forms. Our study also highlights the importance of cultural brokers who have the skills and resources to comply with institutional standards. Actors not only have capital they control; research shows that elites are able to deploy other forms of capital—for example, by hiring tutors or college admissions coaches for their children or building relationships with career mentors—and these cultural brokers also help advance the position of actors. These cultural brokers have

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certainly been acknowledged, but they are generally folded into the actions of family members rather than being conceptualized as having a distinctive and potentially powerful role. Future research might explore this work. In addition, given the developing work of children having agency to create advantages for themselves, more work is needed to clarify the actions of parents for children, of children for themselves, and by other adults and parents and children mobilizing to help them.67 All of these people can play a role in activating capital to yield profits in key institutions, but researchers are not sufficiently precise about who is deploying capital for whom. In short, our study seeks to draw attention to the value of analyses of field, as well as forms of capital, in understanding the upward and downward mobility pathways of many immigrants, including refugees.

appendix c

How We Did the Study

This study focuses on refugees from forty-four Congolese families and thirty-five aid workers and volunteers (appendix A, table A.1 and table A.2).1 For the four Congolese families featured in this book, we offer a longitudinal picture, showing how the lives of the parents and children unfolded in the United States over several years. Table A.8 provides an overview of the steps in the study. Writing this book has been a collaborative project. Throughout the study we met regularly to discuss decisions for data collection, review field notes, talk through key challenges, work on data analysis, formulate the argument, and revise drafts together. Nonetheless, Blair conducted almost all of the data collection (family observations, dozens of interviews, supervising research assistants doing interviews with refugees), and she took the lead in the data analysis and writing. Annette provided crucial support and guidance, especially on key methodological decisions and the conceptual framing of the argument.2 Traditionally, methodological appendices focus on the process of data collection, and since Blair collected the data, this appendix is written up as her research journey from her perspective, although we also, from time to time, note Annette’s role.3

blair’s account of beginning the study This project began in the spring of 2015. I was preparing to take a graduate course in ethnography the following semester in the Department of Sociology at 197

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the University of Pennsylvania and I needed a site where I could conduct participant observation. That spring I was studying advanced Swahili.4 Years prior, I had worked with refugees as an intern at a nongovernmental organization that advocated for Zimbabwean asylum seekers in South Africa and at the Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma in St. Louis. In formulating the project I was interested in learning more about how Congolese refugees might fare in the United States, especially as a relatively new resettlement group, guided by the literature on refugees and immigrants (see appendix B). I was especially interested in the barriers refugees faced in resettlement and the ways in which agencies assisted them, but I did not have a specific research question per se. Instead, the research question emerged and developed through the study. Nervously, I set up a meeting with the RFS staff in Philadelphia, biking over to meet them at a coffee shop near their storefront building. I described my goals to the staff, explaining that I would gain approval from the Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects (IRB), attend and study the weekly ESL class, and then write notes later for a paper. I told them that if people were comfortable with the idea, I would also interview staff members and refugee participants in the class and then possibly observe the families in their homes. The nonprofit staff members were very open to the idea, although they stressed that the refugees, as well as other staff, would have to give permission. I also had to complete the elaborate set of federal and local background checks required of volunteers. Many refugees have experienced trauma, and in designing and conducting the study I sought to exercise extreme care to do no harm, protect their confidentiality, and adhere to professional codes of ethics for research conducted with forced migrants.5 With Annette’s sponsorship I submitted my research plans to the IRB and was given permission to do all aspects of the study, including the family observations.6 While the IRB at my institution didn’t categorize refugees as a “vulnerable” or “protected” group, I sought additional ethical precautions. I was given permission to collect verbal (rather than written) consent to ensure participants’ confidentiality, as well as to reduce respondents’ stress since many refugee families had memories of nerve-wracking interviews with officials for their resettlement cases.7 Since I was interested in the experiences of the adults and because studying children requires extra ethical considerations, I did not request to study children. I did, however, have IRB approval to study adults’ interactions with children. Through RSF, I assisted with a weekly two-hour ESL class for one full academic year. Overall, the ESL class enrolled a total of ten refugees from the Congo, China, and Ethiopia. Classes took place in the agency’s classroom on the edge of downtown, close to where many of RFS’s clients live. The storefront was sunny, with brightly painted stripes decorating the walls and photos of smiling refugees of different ethnicities scattered around the room. Classes were held in the after-



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noon, and RFS provided childcare in the adjacent room. A certified ESL teacher, Celeste, taught entirely in English, focusing on the vocabulary necessary to navigate day-to-day life. She did not know any Swahili, so I helped with translation and other tasks. On the first day I explained to the families that I wanted to sit in on the class to “learn about the lives of Congolese people in the United States” for a project for my university studies, emphasizing that it was up to them if they wanted to participate. All four of the Congolese families who enrolled in the ESL class immediately and positively agreed to participate in my observations of the class. My Swahili language skills, although still developing after five and a half years of classes, helped to establish rapport with the refugee families, the ESL teacher, and other aid workers. After all, the families in the class had arrived in Philadelphia only weeks earlier, and they spoke little English, nor did the nonprofit workers speak Swahili (with the exception of their caseworker, Zeus). Recruitment on the first day of class proved valuable. Although RFS required ESL classes for all newly arrived refugees, the U.S. federal resettlement program didn’t provide economic support for intensive, prolonged language training and instead emphasized the importance of finding jobs quickly. Within a few weeks attendance decreased, and by two months it had dwindled to only a few adults in each class. Mari and Vana stopped attending after they got jobs and their work schedules conflicted with the classes.8 Alain dropped out because it conflicted with his sleep schedule, as he was working nights. For others, especially Malu and Honoria, walking to the class with their small children raised problems that grew increasingly difficult, and their attendance became sporadic. Even so, Honoria attended the class the most regularly out of any of the Congolese refugees. Thus, it was good that I had connected with all four of the Congolese families in the first class. After I got to know the four families (Honoria, Malu and Mari, Mari’s brother Baraka and his wife Rozina, and Alain and Vana) in the ESL class, I broached the topic of home visits and all four immediately agreed (table A.8).9 I began to visit their homes weekly or twice per month. As others have noted, the labor-intensive nature of ethnographic research restricted the size of the sample.10 Each hour of fieldwork was followed by multiple hours of writing field notes. In this study, following four families, with visits typically ranging from one to three hours, generated approximately thirty hours of work per week spent in observation, transportation, and writing field notes. As table A.8 notes, after data collection was over, and with some agonizing, Annette and I decided that we would not feature Baraka and Rozina as one of the case studies in the book since the families were related (Baraka is Mari’s brother). Also, with their joint move to Iowa, the families had a similar trajectory. Instead, they were included in other sections of the book, along with others from the broader interview sample. Since we made

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that decision after I had collected all of the data on the family, Baraka and Rozina are included in this account. During the visits I joined family members in their homes as they did household chores, took care of their children, walked to the grocery store, rode the bus, met with caseworkers, relaxed, and visited with friends. All the families were large and had young children; their homes were filled with sounds of children running around, laughter, and occasional squabbles. I tried to alter their path of action as little as possible. Given the premium the families placed on dressing modestly and their disapproval of skimpy, form-fitting clothing (which they saw as immoral), I tried to dress respectfully, wearing simple outfits of nice black jeans, a high-neck top, and a decorative scarf. At first I felt awkward and unsure about how to position myself in the family visits, but I developed more comfortable relationships over time. The families seemed to enjoy my visits. They greeted me warmly, and the children would invite me to play with them. I also learned that many were homesick and keenly felt the reality that most people in the United States had little insight into their prior lives. After all, few people they met in the United States had ever been to a refugee camp, a setting where most of them had lived for over a decade. Although I am a White woman raised in an upper-middle-class Midwestern family, the fact that I spoke Swahili and was familiar with life in a refugee camp through my ongoing dissertation research made a difference. All of the families seemed to enjoy helping me improve my Swahili, suggesting better word choices and sometimes giggling at my pronunciation. Family members were interested in the similarities and differences between Kakuma refugee camp (where I had done research) and the refugee camps where they lived. My impression is that the interactions were smooth, possibly due to my experience in Kakuma in Kenya as well as their relative social isolation as newcomers at the time. All of the refugee participants were Congolese and phenotypically Black, and as a White American—often the only White person present—I stood out.11 Sometimes they teased me about speaking Swahili as a “mzungu,” which in Swahili means “foreigner” and implies a White person, and is often associated with wealth and privilege. At times participants explicitly discussed physical aspects of my race—asking with curiosity about my light brown hair and about my skin care routine. Most had limited experience with White people (such as visiting with them in a private home) before arriving in the United States. Several were surprised to see so many Black, Latino/a, and Asian Americans on the streets of Philadelphia; they had expected everyone to be White. In their lives in the Congo and in refugee camps in other countries, ethnic differences among people of the same race (e.g., Kongo, Bembe, and Furiiru) are very meaningful and are referenced in normal conversation. Overall though, the families’ discussions of race— while very direct—were rare.12 A more frequent topic of conversation was my identity as an American and the wealth and power connected to that identity.



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American cultural differences were also a common discussion point. They frequently brought up the fact that families in the United States tended to be small by Congolese standards, and they were surprised (and saddened) to learn that I have only one sibling. They asked me about how often I saw my parents, whether my family members were churchgoers, and how we celebrated Christmas. They discussed my visits to Washington, D.C., to see my boyfriend and quizzed me about my plans for marriage. Because ethnography is labor intensive and I couldn’t observe the families at all times, I worried that I would miss important moments. All of the participants were busy—taking care of five or more children, buying groceries, working long hours (and commuting in carpools across town), visiting with friends, and attending doctor’s appointments and meetings with caseworkers. As a result, the frequency and duration of home observations varied by family. Honoria, who had the least demanding daily schedule outside the home, was often available for observation; visits with her and her family continued for nearly two years on a regular basis. Two families, Malu and Mari and Baraka and Rozina, participated in observations every week or two until the families abruptly moved to Iowa after eight months. (The families nevertheless remained in the study, continuing to communicate occasionally by phone.) Alain and Vana were the busiest, and the weekly visits were hard to schedule, but they participated for eighteen months. Sometimes there were stressful moments in scheduling visits, and I worried it was a sign of a bump in our relationship. Although I always asked to schedule the next visit before I ended the current visit, and I would confirm in advance, sometimes it would not work out and no one was home at the scheduled time. Once, after a missed visit, I called Honoria multiple times without reaching her. I went by the house, but no one was there. I was anxious, fearing that I had lost touch with her. A week later Honoria showed up at the ESL class. It turned out that her youngest child accidentally broke her phone; she got a new phone, as well as a new number. Despite my fretting, I usually discovered that they just forgot or were busy. Ethnography captures the busier moments as well as the quiet moments. I sometimes found myself visiting week after week without a lot happening. I sat quietly with Malu, watching the children play, gazing out the window, and listening to Swahili news podcasts echoing through the apartment. Or with Honoria, sweating in the summer heat, helping her practice writing her name in English or watching her youngest son play games on the cell phone. While I enjoyed these visits, I also fretted—was I missing the action?13 Sometimes when I got home and rushed to finish other class assignments and responsibilities, I found myself discounting the visit, putting off sitting down to write detailed field notes. Yet even these visits—seemingly uneventful—were important. Showing up and sitting together helped build rapport. Laughing together at silly cartoons on the TV helped build relationships. These shared “uneventful” moments helped me build

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the trust and relationship depth to gain access to and share the “eventful” moments. During these visits I observed the families as they faced challenges in the United States. In many small ways I tried to help, such as when I assisted Bakari and Rozina to figure out where to buy school uniforms and went with them to the store, or when I used Google Maps on my phone to determine where an office was located and gave a cab driver the directions for Malu. On occasion I pitched in to help with the children, such as walking with them to ESL classes, and, when asked to do so, I sent emails and inquiries to aid workers a few times. I wanted to offer some kind of gift to the families, and Annette and I had a lengthy discussion of my financial constraints and various options. Ultimately, we agreed that at Christmas I would bring each of the families homemade holiday cookies and a small gift tied with a bow. During my visits I didn’t give the families money or other significant financial help.14 This decision was based on my own limited resources as a student, my desire to be equitable with the families, and my goal of differentiating my role from that of aid workers. Over the course of the study the families made a few requests, which I declined, citing my status as a student. Over time, as the refugee families grew accustomed to the dynamics of the relationship, their requests for material assistance subsided. One participant, however, did continue to make requests, such as asking me to give him a laptop. Although I found these instances somewhat stressful, I politely declined, reminding him that I was a student doing research and suggesting that he might ask an aid worker or friend instead. In addition to my observations, I conducted interviews with various groups to gather multiple perspectives. I conducted interviews with the adults in the families I had observed. They all readily agreed. (Although I temporarily lost track of Malu and Mari when they moved to Iowa, we later reconnected through social media.) These two-hour interviews were either in person (with Honoria, and with Alain and Vana separately) or by phone (with Malu—Mari had just given birth and was unavailable—and Baraka). The interviews covered their fleeing, refugee camp experiences, and resettlement. In addition, I did interviews with eight other Congolese refugee families. Compared to the families on which I collected ethnographic data, I found the participants in these interviews somewhat guarded and distrustful, presumably because of our more limited relationship. For example, their answers were briefer, so their accounts were not as in-depth as my interviews with the focal families. Nevertheless, the broad outlines of their experiences were consistent with the families I had observed. In a few cases refugees did not feel comfortable having their interviews recorded on audio, but all of the other interviews in the study were recorded, transcribed, and translated from Swahili by a native Swahili speaker, a sociology student at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. No financial honoraria were given, but I usually brought a small food item, such as a plate of cookies, as a thank you.



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As I was wrapping up observations, I also carried out interviews with thirteen aid workers and volunteers. In addition, after securing complicated organizational permissions, I shadowed one aid worker, Wendy Maina, a Kenyan woman, four times for five to eight hours per observation. In addition to being with her in the office, I observed Wendy at the homes of seven additional refugee families (with their consent). During one of these visits I was surprised to find out that she was heading to Honoria’s house. Wendy had recently become Honoria’s caseworker after her case was transferred from another agency. As a result, I was able to observe Wendy’s interactions with Honoria and situate these interactions in a broader context. I was careful, however, not to share any confidential information about the refugee families with the aid workers or vice versa. Although the data from these rare observations are not in the book, they informed the analyses. Both refugees and aid workers are difficult populations to gain access to study. We selected a single nationality group because we hoped to capture variation within that group. ESL classes were required for all recently resettled refugees through RFS. All recent arrivals are grouped together in a newly started class. Since all the Congolese families in the ESL class agreed to be in the study and did so at the start of a new session of classes, we reduced common challenges of respondents self-selecting into a study. Because we recruited through this class, we managed to include Honoria and her children, who were not involved in other organizations and were relatively socially isolated. If we had relied solely on a snowball sample, it would have been easy to miss families like Honoria’s, who were struggling to a greater degree than others to settle into life in America.

Adding One More Family In this study the research question was emergent, and throughout data collection Annette and I considered what additional data would be needed to deepen the analysis. We both knew churches in the Philadelphia area sometimes sponsored refugee families. When I invited Annette to be a coauthor on a paper from the research in the spring of 2016 and we began to collaborate more closely, we both thought it would be important to add to the study a family with volunteer sponsorship to fill out the picture. My observations had identified interactions with institutions as a key factor shaping refugees’ trajectories. Since families with volunteer assistance have different experiences navigating institutions, Annette and I felt it was important to capture that variation. By happenstance, a member of a volunteer group contacted my Swahili professor looking for Swahili speakers to help with a family they were going to sponsor. I spoke with the group member, Barbara, explained the research project, and asked if she might be willing to discuss the group’s work. She offered to add me to the group’s email list, and I was updated when Joseph, Georgette, and their children arrived in the United States.

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After the family had been in the United States for around six months, I reached out to set up an interview with Barbara, Diane (the head of the church group), and two other volunteers.15 They agreed to be interviewed, but the group was protective about access to the refugee family. They declined to introduce me to the family, not wanting them to feel obligated. Instead, they suggested to reach out to the family’ refugee resettlement caseworker. I called and explained the project, stressing that I wanted to call the family to tell them about the project, but that the phone call to them did not mean that that they would be in the study, and only the family could decide about their participation. She agreed and gave me the family’s phone number. I then called and spoke to Joseph and explained the project in Swahili. He immediately agreed to be in the study and invited me to visit their house. When I arrived at the scheduled time, I discovered that Joseph was still at work. Nevertheless, I was warmly welcomed by Georgette and their children, and we sat on the sofa chatting in Swahili for over an hour. They joked that when I had first called the family’s phone, their youngest child had come running to tell the family that a “mzungu” was on the phone speaking in Swahili (which was noticeable by my “nasal” accent). Once Joseph arrived, he and Georgette appeared keen to participate in the study. After the interview I sent a basket of fruit to thank them, and Joseph called me with excitement to tell me it had arrived. I continued to be in phone contact with the family occasionally but did not conduct home observations. Before the study was over, I also conducted interviews with nine of the volunteers helping the family (across the two cities where they lived). Even with extensive interviews with the family and the volunteers helping them, Annette and I worried about the lack of ethnographic observations with Joseph and Georgette’s family compared to the other families featured in the book. Subsequently, in 2020 Annette and I gained IRB approval to do follow-up interviews, and specifically gained permission to study children. Our plan was to visit the family in the summer of 2020 to hang out, reconnect, and then do follow-up interviews. I would interview the parents in Swahili (described below), and Annette would interview the children (in English)—but this plan was thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since I had been added to the email list of the volunteers early on, we were lucky to have comments in real time from the volunteers. The email exchanges and the interviews with volunteers gave a thorough account of the challenges the family faced as well as the actual help they received during these experiences from volunteers. Combined with our extensive interviews with Joseph, Georgette, two of their children, and nine volunteers, we felt these data were sufficient to offer a detailed account of their experiences.

Exiting the Field As is common, I was planning to exit the field in a ritualized way, perhaps with a celebration with food and a cake.16 However, one of my family members suddenly



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had a health crisis. I took a leave of absence from the university and moved across the country, abruptly ending my visits and delaying the start of my dissertation research in Kenya. I managed to call each of the families (and visit Honoria at her house) to update them. They all showed great care for me and my family. Honoria in particular sought to reassure me, emphasizing the advanced medical treatment available in the United States (unlike in the refugee camp) and calling to check up on me. At that point, in 2016, I considered the data collection to be over. Fortunately, my family member recovered. The experience was a reminder of the intensive, and at times fragile, nature of ethnographic fieldwork—following life’s ups and downs, not only of research participants but also of the researcher.

broadening the sample: more in-depth interviews Two years later, however, a series of circumstances led me to take up the study again. In 2016 Annette and I had written an eighty-page paper about the project and submitted it to an academic journal. The paper was rejected with helpful reviews. After I finished my dissertation research in Kenya and returned to Philadelphia in 2018, Annette and I began to meet again to have conversations about what to do about the paper. We enjoyed working together, and at that time we both (foolishly) thought it would not take that long to write a book. The idea of writing a book together was hatched. The project grew and changed, and we submitted a book proposal and two chapters to the press. The reviewers had helpful comments, but they also suggested that the book needed to be about more than a handful of families. While, as Burawoy notes, the goal of ethnographic research is not empirical generalizability but conceptual advancement of our theoretical models, they advised us to broaden the sample, such as by adding an analysis of survey data.17 We did not know what we would learn by expanding our research sample, and we worried that the emerging results might not cohere with the ethnographic data. Furthermore, as noted, I had found earlier “cold” interviews with refugees to yield guarded responses; the interviews were strikingly different from those done with the warm familiarity built from ethnographic work. This issue proved to be an enduring dilemma. Nevertheless, we decided to do more interviews with Congolese refugee families to see if the themes from the family observations were echoed in a broader sample. To fund the additional interviews, Annette and I applied for a grant, but it was rejected (with helpful reviews). Annette committed to funding the follow-up research (including the salary of research assistants and honoraria) from her university research fund. Unsurprisingly, adding more families to the study was an arduous path. Our goal was to build on the twelve families I had previously interviewed and observed and to recruit more families to bring the total sample to between thirty-five and

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forty. In the end, we created a sample of forty-four, including the four families I observed. We hired three Swahili-speaking undergraduate research assistants. Annette and I planned the training, and I met with them weekly for six months to train them on ethics, active listening, probing (including on sensitive subjects), and recruitment. Before beginning, we wrote about the study on Annette’s website, including a description in Swahili and photos of all of us in case potential respondents looked us up. We purchased $30 gift cards to thank each of the interviewees for taking their valuable time to do the interview. After these preparations, we were planning to begin recruiting Congolese refugees in March 2020 through in-person visits to a church with Congolese parishioners and African markets. Unfortunately, at that moment the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, and the university hurriedly moved to remote work. Since university policies prohibited in-person research, we were forced to switch to phone or video interviewing. Although this method facilitated the inclusion of refugees from across the country, it also presented methodological challenges, including that snowball samples have difficulty reaching isolated families. First, we tried to recruit participants through a snowball sample, where one respondent gave us a name and number of another, but we found that refugee respondents hesitated to refer us to others, and, even when we reached someone, some were suspicious of the research project. We found that potential participants were likely to decline to participate, either directly or through nonresponse or ghosting. Some worried we might be scammers, trying to obtain their personal information. Annette and I had been optimistic that we could have recruited participants face-to-face at churches or markets, but the pandemic precluded this option. We were hitting walls. In the end we gave up on cold-calling based on a referral. I turned to a Congolese friend, a refugee himself, who had worked as my research assistant for my dissertation project in Kenya and had since resettled in Australia. He was well versed in research, knew me well, and had wide networks with other Congolese in the United States. He graciously reached out to potential respondents through his own friends and families, as well as others he was in contact with through online Congolese groups. Crucially, he explained in detail about the interview and the $30 gift card for participating. He also vouched for me. Once potential respondents agreed to be contacted, he gave their contact information to me. Next, I or a research assistant would call them, explain the study again, ask if they would like to participate, and, if they said yes, set up an interview. His direct calls to respondents explaining the project in detail, and especially his assurances, made a difference. After we turned to my friend to act as a sponsor, our success rate for landing interviews improved. Nonetheless, even after people agreed to be interviewed, scheduling interviews was difficult due to respondents’ busy work schedules and demanding childcare responsibilities, which were heightened by school closures during the coronavirus pandemic. Sometimes we



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had luck when we made an unscheduled phone call, asked if they were willing to be interviewed, and then conducted a lengthy interview on the spot for two or three hours. After each interview the research assistants called me to debrief, discuss emerging findings, and raise methodological questions, following the same method Annette had done in her work with research assistants in Unequal Childhoods. I set up a number of interviews for the research assistants; in addition, I conducted four interviews in this round. Once we began the interviews I read every transcript and provided additional feedback to the research assistants. At first the interviews were brief, but gradually the research assistants got the hang of it and became better at probing for detail. We found that the quality of the interviews improved over time. It turned out that we were more successful in recruiting men than women; we believe that this is due to the heavy child-rearing burdens that women face (in addition to employment), but we are not sure since cultural norms around gender also might play a role. We provide additional details about the research participants in tables A.1, A.2, and A.3 in appendix A. In comparison to my position as a White American woman, all of the research assistants were women from Kenya and phenotypically Black; and the impact of their positionality on the research unfolded somewhat differently than we initially anticipated. The research assistants shared a common language with the participants, although they noted some regional differences in accents, vocabulary, and intonation. But there were also differences since the research assistants came from Kenya, a middle-income and stable country, versus the Congo, a lowincome nation in conflict. We anticipated that refugee respondents might feel more comfortable discussing race and experiences of racial discrimination in the United States with the Black, African research assistants, who were also newcomers to the United States, but instead we found few notable differences between the interviews completed by me (in earlier periods and in the current moment) and the research assistants. However, compared to my interviews, respondents interviewed by the research assistants were somewhat more likely to raise the advantages of corporal punishment for their children, as well as complain about the prohibition against them hitting their wives in the United States, perhaps assuming that the research assistants would share these beliefs. Otherwise, we did not see differences in the focus of the interviews between me and the research assistants. We did, however, continue to see a difference in the depth and openness of the interviews I conducted with the families who had participated in observations and the families the research assistants and I interviewed, on a one-time basis, on the phone or video call. Still, even under these conditions, the interviews were valuable. In the in-depth interviews with refugee families (as well as those with aid workers and volunteers), we stressed that it was up to them if they wanted to participate and they could decide how much to share.18 When they described

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their traumatic stories of fleeing, their experiences in war, and hardships in the refugee camp, many of the refugees became emotional. In these moments, we (the interviewers) worked to silently “bear witness” to the pain of the refugees by listening with great respect, expressing sorrow about their difficulties, and having the interviews move ahead at the pace and level they chose. In a few instances this pain was too much to discuss. For instance, after one refugee recounted a basic timeline of his family’s fleeing, he sighed and said, “Blair, I don’t really like to think about these things.” I apologized and immediately changed the subject. Nonetheless, many of the refugees reported that our interview was an opportunity for them to share their experiences in their language (without a translator) and on their own terms (in contrast to high-stakes resettlement interviews with government officials). They stressed the value of others knowing their journeys. In the end, data from the additional interviews turned out to be deeply consistent with data from the ethnographic observation of the families observed. The interviews did enhance the study, as they gave us a chance to probe more deeply, learning, for example, about the emerging thesis of the role of institutional obstacles. The interviews revealed obstacles across a wider range of institutions, such as hurdles in accessing green cards. They also helped to situate the in-depth case studies in a broader context. For instance, we discovered that Malu and Mari were not rare in moving (indeed, 41 percent of families we interviewed moved) or in facing obstacles reinstating benefits (six other families had similar troubles across a range of benefits). Even so, we were mindful of the difficulty recruiting people and worried about whether or not our respondents were particularly unusual. We did not notice any marked differences between the twenty refugee families met through my friend and the other twenty-four families recruited though other independent network ties. It is certainly possible that all our interviewees are more gregarious, confident, open, and trusting than other refugees who declined, but it is hard to know, and it is especially difficult to know if their experiences navigating institutions would have been distinctive. If our sample is more amiable and socially skilled than other refugees, our results likely underestimate the difficulties refugees face in navigating institutions. Additionally, I did more interviews with volunteers to gain insight into the role of cultural brokers, and Annette interviewed a volunteer at a nearby church, whom she reached through a volunteer at her church. Across the different phases we interviewed a total of twenty-five volunteers who worked with Congolese families. Nine of these volunteers worked with Joseph and Georgette (four from the first group in Springdale and five from Marion). Then, the remaining sixteen volunteers worked with seven other Congolese families (some had worked with additional refugee families from different nationality groups as well). The volunteers are predominantly White, middle- or upper-middle-class Christians with advanced degrees and professional backgrounds. All of them currently worked in or had retired from white-collar jobs, including doctors, lawyers, nurses, teach-



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ers, corporate sales, and IT. By the time of the interview, around half (thirteen of twenty-five) were retired. Most of the interviews were conducted by video call. Interviewees were recruited through a snowball sample through the volunteers who worked with Joseph and Georgette and the church volunteer Annette had interviewed.19 The volunteers were enthusiastic to share their experiences. They were sent a thank you card but not given an honorarium. After combining the interviews at both points in the study, there were a total of thirty-five interviews with aid workers and volunteers.

following up: finding and interviewing the families again Over five years after the focal families’ arrival to the United States, I did followup interviews with those families in the case studies. I interviewed one adult in some of the families (Honoria, Malu, and Alain) and both adults in others (Joseph and Georgette, and Baraka and Rozina). Subsequently, as I explain below, I also interviewed the adult children in separate interviews in three of the four families featured in this book: Joseph and Georgette’s (Kalenga and Musa), Alain and Vana’s (David and Christine), and Honoria’s (Peter and Grace). Finding some of the families was difficult as their phone numbers had changed. I reconnected with Malu and Mari’s and Bakari and Rozina’s families through social media. I learned that they had moved back to Philadelphia from Iowa and then to Ohio and Kentucky, respectively. Honoria was the most difficult to find. None of the families in the study had her contact information. After an extensive search, including using commercial locators, I was out of options. But then one day, while I was interviewing the wife of an American pastor who worked with refugees from the Congo, she happened to mention Honoria’s son, and she was willing to ask Honoria if she could share Honoria’s contact information with me. Fortunately, Honoria agreed, and within two weeks we were back in touch. I discovered she was living over two hours away from me in a small town, and after various delays we were able to meet for an interview. All of the families welcomed me warmly. A few, including Vana and Honoria, remarked that they had forgotten how to say my name (a difficult name for many to pronounce in Swahili), but they immediately recognized my voice and accent and responded to my greeting with enthusiastic laughter. In Swahili, the families recounted long-distance moves, births, graduations, marriages, and house purchases. I told the families about my time in the refugee camp in Kenya (since I had last seen them) and my studies. Honoria remembered and asked about my family member who had had a health crisis. All of the families invited me to come visit them at their homes: Malu and Mari, who now lived an eight-hour drive away, proposed an overnight stay at their house (which, due to the pandemic, I

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was unable to do). Then, after catching up, I told them that the research for the book was continuing and that we were hoping to interview them again “to see how things are these days, the challenges, and the progress.” All of the families agreed and expressed enthusiasm about the book and the importance of sharing their stories. Several, like Baraka, remarked, “Anything to help!” Except for Honoria’s family, whom I visited in person, the follow-up interviews were conducted by phone and, when possible, by video call on Zoom. Despite the families’ original enthusiasm, it was challenging to pin them down for a lengthy virtual interview. With the families’ pressing work schedules, childcare demands, and other factors, it would have been better to meet in person, but the pandemic prevented visits. Nonetheless, most of the follow-up interviews with the parents lasted two hours, with some lasting more than four hours. When I did the original research, I built a relationship with the families without any exchange of money (due in part to my limited funds). For the follow-up interviews though, Annette and I wanted to express our appreciation for their involvement in the study over many years, to compensate them for their time spent during the follow-up interviews (when otherwise they might have been working), and to encourage their participation (without being coercive). Each family needed to receive the same amount (in case the families compared), regardless of the number of interviews. We ultimately decided on a $200 gift card to Walmart per family since it could be used for food, household items, or presents. We also wanted to speak with the children (many now young adults), but we were mindful of the complex ethical issues involved. Hence, Annette and I decided that only after the interviews with the parents were completed would I raise the possibility of interviewing their children. I stressed that whether or not we interviewed the children would have no effect on their interviews and honorarium. Annette and I did not want the parents or children to feel coerced, so we made the honorarium the same regardless of the number of children who participated. Given the large family sizes, we originally anticipated doing six or eight interviews per family, so we set the honorarium at $200 per family for the children’s interviews (which was in addition to the $200 honorarium to the parents). Unfortunately, interviews took place during the height of the pandemic, and it was not safe to meet face to face. We were forced to scale back our plans. In the end, I carried out separate interviews with a total of six children: the teen twins in Joseph and Georgette’s family were interviewed on Zoom, and the two eldest children of Alain and Vana were interviewed by phone. My contact with Honoria was delayed, so the interviews with David and Grace (now seventeen and eighteen) took place in person. The interviews with the children were all conducted in English; they lasted between 45 and 210 minutes each. Of course, there are no easy rules for balancing obligations and gifts to respondents except to express appreciation to the research participants. We



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wanted to show that we valued the families’ time and participation, but also wanted to ensure that no family member felt pressure to participate. Sometimes family members interrupted the interview or rescheduled due to other obligations, thereby increasing my confidence that they felt comfortable setting the terms. In sum, we sought to be mindful of the complex ethical issues and follow a principle of reciprocity.

finding our way: data analysis, writing, and forging the argument Data analysis was an integral part of the process of data collection as I read and reread field notes and interview transcripts, searching for patterns as well as for disconfirming evidence.20 For data analysis, Annette and I met regularly to discuss emerging patterns and developed codes through an iterative process where we reflected on the themes in the interview transcripts, the weaknesses (and strengths) of the literatures of interest, and our emerging concepts. Ultimately, we developed series of codes focusing on the process of refugees navigating institutions.21 With help from trained research assistants, we began by coding field notes and interviews using Dedoose for themes such as “institutional interactions,” “error,” “deservedness.” In the end, we found it to be most valuable to immerse ourselves in the data, reading and rereading the transcripts and field notes and creating numerous documents on selected themes rather than using formal coding programs for the entire data set.22 Working with research assistants, we also created numerous data matrices with extended quotes as we scoured the interview transcripts for evidence of specific patterns—racial discrimination, the benefits of services, obstacles, and other key themes. This data analysis helped us clarify our findings, search for disconfirming evidence, and refine our argument. The process of moving from data to the final book was not without bumps. Truthfully, we figured out what we were trying to say through initial failure. The reviewers for the press and our own colleagues thought that the stories were interesting, but they believed that our contribution was murky. In one discouraging moment, we were excited that we had finished the introduction and thought we were ready to move immediately to a book workshop. Annette’s writing group then graciously but firmly told us that the argument was unclear and inconsistent and that it needed more development before we scheduled a book workshop. It was a setback, although it helped us in the end. We found that we worked better together in face-to-face meetings (rather than by Zoom), and since it was December 2020 (before the vaccine had been developed), we met outside on Annette’s porch daily for almost two weeks. It was chilly in Philadelphia, so we armed ourselves for long discussions with blankets, hot water bottles, and hot tea. Finally,

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at the book workshop we organized we began to get more positive feedback, which increased our confidence and helped us hone our argument. We learned a great deal from our readers. As with any research project, our progress was slow and uncertain. Nevertheless, the goals of the project became clearer as we worked. Church volunteers, readers of earlier drafts, and the refugee families themselves stressed the importance of sharing their journeys, as well as the obstacles they have faced. As we explain in chapter 4, when asked at the end of the interview if there was anything that had not been discussed, Joseph urged me to ask more questions about the war in the Congo, emphasizing how important it was for their story to be told. Others felt the same way. We have tried to honor their stories in this book.

Notes

introduction 1. As we explain below, we have changed the names of the people and organizations in this book to ensure their confidentiality. We name Philadelphia and other big cities, but in a few cases we have used pseudonyms for smaller communities. 2. See UNHCR, “Resettlement,” which reports that there were 20.7 million refugees at the end of 2020 but fewer than 1 percent are resettled annually. 3. The term “refugee” is contested (see Arar and FitzGerald, The Refugee System; Gowayed, Refuge). Since it denotes refuge and is used by our participants, we use it here (see also Dryden-Peterson, Right Where We Belong). Refugees are a type of migrant who have been forced to flee their home country; have crossed international borders; and have received a special legal status (see chapter 1). Only designated refugees are eligible for resettlement. Only family members on the same case file are resettled together. 4. When Honoria was selected for resettlement, her husband was listed on a separate resettlement case with his first wife; hence, he wasn’t eligible for resettlement with them, although he was resettled later. See chapter 1 for a more indepth discussion of resettlement cases and eligibility. 5. Legal status is deeply consequential for incorporation, and scholars have shown that migrants who are undocumented or have a precarious legal status are blocked from accessing crucial institutions and services. See, among others, 213

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Gonzales, Lives in Limbo; Armenta, Protect, Serve, and Deport; and Menjívar and Lakhani, “Transformative Effects of Immigration Law.” 6. In the United States refugees don’t experience the robust financial support that refugees find in Canada, Australia, and other countries. As Gowayad, Refuge, shows, adult refugees in Canada and Germany are restricted from working for two years so that they can learn the language. As a result, in those countries they learn skills that enable them to find much better-paid, more desirable jobs than they do in the United States. 7. Her check for housing assistance arrived in her checking account on the same day as her SSI check, which temporarily pushed her over the $2,000 asset limit. The limit of $2,000 for SSI recipients is not indexed to inflation (unlike the annual tax-free gifts wealthy people can give). 8. There is an extensive literature on socioeconomic mobility patterns in the United States. Upward and downward mobility certainly do occur, but they are limited, modest in scope, and have declined in recent decades. As Chetty et al., “The Opportunity Atlas,” have shown, mobility also varies by geographical regions. See also Smeeding, “Multiple Barriers to Economic Opportunity.” For a discussion of the costs of upward mobility, see Morton, Moving Up without Losing Your Way. For a discussion of immigrant children and mobility, see Feliciano and Lanuza, “An Immigrant Paradox?,” and Ho, Park, and Kao, Diversity and the Transition to Adulthood. 9. Refugees are expected to be self-sufficient within ninety days of arrival, and this means they aren’t given time to learn English; see Gowayed, Refuge. Caseworkers direct recently arrived refugees to low-paid, low-quality jobs earning just above minimum wage. For caseworker strategies for securing employment, see Darrow, “Getting Refugees to Work.” In the first few years after arrival, refugees have high rates of employment, but rates decline later due to a lack of social welfare support (Kreisberg, de Graauw, and Gleeson, “Explaining Refugee Employment Declines”). For more on housing and neighborhoods, see Tang, Unsettled. The refugees we studied generally lived in low-income neighborhoods but for the most part didn’t report the very low-quality housing and neighborhood challenges that Tang vividly describes in his book. 10. For reviews of widespread racial discrimination in the United States, see Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System,” which convincingly shows how discrimination across institutional spheres interconnects to become systemic; and Pager and Shepard, “The Sociology of Discrimination.” For a discussion of Black immigration to the United States, see Hamilton, Immigration and the Remaking of Black America. 11. As we explain here and in more detail in appendix B, there are important differences between refugees and immigrants in their selectivity (i.e., their own traits and how those compare to others) and context of reception (i.e., features of the society receiving them).



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12. See, among others, Aguilera, “The Impact of Social Capital”; Aguilera and Massey, “Social Capital and the Wages of Mexican Migrants.” 13. See Zeng and Xie, “Asian-Americans’ Earnings Disadvantage Examined”; Fuller and Martin, “Predicting Immigrant Employment”; Friedberg, “You Can’t Take It with You?” 14. For other studies of differential accomplishment of work, home buying, and higher education among immigrants, refugees, and their children, see, among others, Hamilton, Immigration and the Remaking of Black America; Kibria, Family Tightrope; Zhou and Bankston, Growing Up American; Abdi, Elusive Jannah; Lee and Zhou, The Asian American Achievement Paradox; and Portes, Fernández-Kelly, and Haller, “The Adaptation of the Immigrant Second Generation.” 15. For studies of intermarriage, see Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream; Perlmann and Waters, “Intermarriage Then and Now.” For language adoption, see Rumbaut, Massey, and Bean, “Linguistic Life Expectancies.” For ethno-racial identification, see Alba and Islam, “The Case of the Disappearing Mexican Americans.” For baby naming, see Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream. 16. Odrowaz-Coates, “Institution.” Institutions can be formal or informal, are bound by often explicit rules, and exert power over individuals. Herbert Spencer, the first sociologist to use the term, analogized society as an organism and institutions as “society’s organs” and distinguished different types of institutions, including “those related to the family, politics, religion, the economy, ceremonies, and professions.” See Henning, “Institution.” For an in-depth discussion of key debates and historical shifts in the concept, see Scott, Institutions and Organizations. Scott’s contemporary term defines institutions as “cognitive, normative, and regulative structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior . . . transported by various carriers—cultures, structures, and routines— . . . operat[ing] at multiple levels of jurisdiction.” By contrast, organizations are defined as “groups of individuals bound by some common purpose to achieve objectives.” See North, “Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance,” 5, where North makes the distinction that organizations are “the players of the game” and institutions are the “rules of the game.” 17. Ludwig, “Wiping the Refugee Dust from My Feet”; Brown, “Refugees, Rights, and Race.” 18. For more information, see Office of Refugee Resettlement, “About.” The refugee resettlement program is unique among migration pathways in its explicit humanitarian mission. For a discussion on how domestic concerns can clash with and compromise U.S. humanitarian obligations, see Garcia, The Refugee Challenge in Post–Cold War America. 19. Waters and Pineau, eds., The Integration of Immigrants into American Society; Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen; Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant

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America. See also Watson, “Rescaling Resettlement,” for a discussion of this “adaptational advantage” thesis and counterarguments. 20. As Marrow, “Immigrant Bureaucratic Incorporation,” has shown, immigrants have significant interactions with American institutions, and—even without political incorporation—these interactions can lead to a form of “bureaucratic incorporation.” Some institutions, such as law enforcement and court systems, may be less welcoming. See also Armenta, Protect, Serve, and Deport. In addition, we know that these resources matter for refugees’ political incorporation. Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen, found that Vietnamese refugees had higher levels of political participation and citizenship status than Portuguese labor migrants in the United States, a pattern linked to government sponsorship for refugees. 21. Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens, outline the different types of administrative burdens that various institutional obstacles place on families, including learning curves, deadlines, psychological costs, and time. We focus on the types of obstacles that trigger these burdens and how administrative burdens affect socioeconomic mobility. See also Barnes, “‘It Takes a While to Get Used To’”; and Brodkin and Majmundar, “Administrative Exclusion.” 22. Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy. 23. As we explain in appendix B, Helen Marrow, “Immigrant Bureaucratic Incorporation,” has played a pivotal role here, but countless scholars have illuminated obstacles posed by one particular institution. Our point here is the need to look at the errors and obstacles that surface and, especially, the impact on upward mobility. 24. For more on resettlement agencies, see Fee, “Paper Integration”; and Watson, “Rescaling Resettlement.” 25. For more on barriers in employment, see Gowayed, Refuge; Darrow, “Getting Refugees to Work”; and Kreisberg, de Graauw, and Gleeson, “Explaining Refugee Employment Declines.” See McBrien, “Educational Needs and Barriers for Refugee Students in the United States,” for a review of barriers facing refugee students; for barriers for refugee parents in education, see, among others, Blackledge, “The Wrong Sort of Capital?” 26. Paik, Trapped in a Maze. 27. For a discussion on the interdependence between criminal justice systems and child support, see Haney, “Incarcerated Fatherhood,” and on criminal justice and health care, see Lara-Millán, “Public Emergency Room Overcrowding.” See also the discussion of “organizational irrationality” in Comfort et al., “How Institutions Deprive.” 28. In Trapped in a Maze, Paik shows how intersecting institutions trap families. She traces how families with a child in the juvenile justice system or with chronic illnesses have their lives intricately tied up with a variety of institutions—and shows how these institutions frequently collide in their demands.



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Paik’s work has been deeply valuable in our conceptualization of intersecting institutions. Yet our focus on the case of refugees probes the types of obstacles clients face within intersecting institutions prompting navigation of the “maze,” the forms of cultural knowledge needed to navigate these institutions, and the impact of these obstacles on mobility pathways, all of which have cumulative advantages and cumulative disadvantages. 29. For experiences of the initial years after resettlement and the importance of programmatic interventions in the early years, see Tran and Lara-García, “A New Beginning”; and International Rescue Committee, “Financial Capability for New Americans,” respectively. 31. Gowayed, Refuge. 30. There are, however, ethical costs to mobility; see Jennifer Morton, Moving Up. Refugees often face conf licting goals, such as sending remittances to families in refugee camps while also covering the costs they face in their new homes; see DeParle, A Good Provider. 32. Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens, show how these hurdles can have learning, psychological, and compliance costs. We also know that when clients don’t comply with the rules or demands of workers, particularly in the social welfare system, they can be sanctioned. See, among others, Reich, Fixing Families; and Bloom and Winstead, Sanctions and Welfare Reform. 33. In other studies we can see traces of this conceptual pattern. See, for example, Paik, Trapped in a Maze; Haney, “Incarcerated Fatherhood,” on “entanglements”; and Roberts, Torn Apart, for a discussion of families being ensnared in child welfare investigations in her analysis of the racist character of Child Protective Services. See Black and Keyes, It’s a Setup; Harris, A Pound of Flesh; and others on the ways that prison fines constrain low-income men. For studies of “street-level bureaucracy” and low-income women interacting with bureaucracies, see Watkins-Hayes, “Race-ing the Bootstrap Climb,” and The New Welfare Bureaucrats; and Levine, Ain’t No Trust. Others have also documented errors and mishaps, like Moynihan, Gerzina, and Herd, “Kaf ka’s Bureaucracy,” who describe how an undocumented immigrant left a nonapplicable field blank on a form (her son didn’t have a middle name), resulting in her application being rejected. Still, most of these discussions are confined to one particular institution rather than looking more holistically at conceptual patterns that crosscut and involve many institutions at the same moment (but see Paik, Trapped in a Maze, and Lara-Millán, Redistributing the Poor, for rare studies across institutions). Moreover, in this book we conceptualize the role of errors in entanglements and their impact on mobility, a topic that has not been fully developed elsewhere. 34. There is an extensive literature on cultural brokers, but it tends to focus on the role of children in helping their parents in key institutions. The role of religious volunteers and others outside of the family acting as cultural brokers has

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received less attention, but, among others, see Martinez-Cosio and Iannacone, “The Tenuous Role of Institutional Agents,” as well as Elcioglu, “Neoliberal Fatigue.” See Stanton-Salazar’s influential piece “A Social Capital Framework” for a longer exposition on the crucial role of institutional agents. Among others, Rendón, Stagnant Dreamers, shows the key role of institutional agents in mobility journeys. 35. For many families home ownership can be a strategy to build wealth, but these strategies have benefited White families more than Black ones; see Rothstein, The Color of Law. The benefits of home ownership have sometimes been questioned, however; see Shlay, “Low-Income Homeownership.” 36. See Douglas, “Best by, Sell by, Use by.” For many federally funded entitlement programs, such as welfare (now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF), states determine the rules and requirements for recipients, such as time limits for receiving aid; see Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Policy Basics. See Nathan and Gais, “Is Devolution Working?” for the decentralization of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996. 37. For a discussion of shifts toward neoliberalism, see Centeno and Cohen, “The Arc of Neoliberalism”; Anheier and Salamon, “The Nonprofit Sector”; Berman, Thinking Like an Economist. For a discussion of reductions in the social safety net, see, among others, DeParle, American Dream. 38. Katz, The Undeserving Poor. Studies that suggest actual rates of fraud are extremely low (ranging from 1 percent for food benefits to 10 percent for unemployment benefits). See, among others, Dalrymple, “IRS Can’t Do the Math.” Nor are all of the obstacles unintentional; some states try to reduce expenditures for welfare by asking for more documentation (Fifield, “What Happens When States Go Hunting for Welfare Fraud”). 39. In his work on high-risk technologies, Perrow, Normal Accidents, has demonstrated that in complex organizations such as nuclear power plants, system errors or “normal accidents” occur when multiple, unexpected hiccups or failures collide and interact “in some unexpected way.” Each error may be trivial by itself, but “the failures became serious when they interacted. It is the interaction of multiple failures that explains the accident.” As Perrow concludes, “The cause of the accident is to be found in the complexity of the system.” See also Vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision. In this book we apply these concepts to social service agencies. 40. These administrative burdens also make it harder for social service workers to do their jobs; see Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens. For resettlement caseworkers, see Fee, “Paper Integration.” 41. O’Neil, “Modernizing Access to the Safety Net.” 42. In studies on mobility researchers have often focused on individual characteristics such as aspirations, expectations, “grit,” “learned helplessness,” and



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other individual traits. For a useful overview, see Smeeding, “Multiple Barriers.” See also Reeves and Howard, “The Mobility Mentality”; Denby, “The Limits of ‘Grit’ ”; Nolen, “Learned Helplessness”; and Day and Fiske, “Movin’ on Up?” Yet, as the work of Pierre Bourdieu and others teaches us, fields, and navigating institutions, matter. Additionally, research on inequality downplays errors as rare and idiosyncratic. Some scholars have noted a “critical incident” that initiates a certain trajectory, such as Black, When a Heart Turns Rock Solid, who highlights how a car sliding into a snowbank triggered a set of events that lead to cumulative disadvantage. In Evicted, Desmond shows how a child throwing a snowball that broke a window led to an eviction. 43. Among others, see Lareau, Unequal Childhoods; Ray, “A Theory of Racialized Organizations”; Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 44. See Paik, Trapped in a Maze, for a discussion of how middle-class families were able to avoid getting caught in an institutional runaround. See Calarco, “Avoiding Us versus Them,” on middle-class parents and bending the rules in schools. 45. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” See also Kohler-Hausmann, “‘The Crime of Survival,’” for a discussion of President Reagan’s “welfare queen.” 46. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 47. Roberts, Torn Apart. 48. Some systems, such as air traffic control, have built in many programs of “slack” to be able to catch such errors and correct them through redundancy and oversight; see Vaughan, Dead Reckoning. 49. Lara-Millán, Redistributing the Poor. 50. In this book we focus on the family. Nonresidential family members and extended family may also be considered part of this unit. Thus, it isn’t coresidence that is key, but rather the relationship, which may be through marriage, blood, or as “fictive kin” (a relationship that is emotionally close and connected). The family structures of those in our study are varied. In some families, family members had been killed, adult children were coresidents with their parents, or men had multiple wives. Several families were single-parent households, and two didn’t have children. Ideally we would use the term families and households throughout the book to more precisely capture the two respondents who are single and childless, but we have used the term families as it is less cumbersome. For discussions of the contested nature of definitions of the family, see Powell et al., Counted Out. 51. See, among others, Singer et al., Recent Immigration to Philadelphia. For a classic study on refugee families in Philadelphia, see Kibria, Family Tightrope. 52. In “Rescaling Resettlement” Watson emphasizes the importance of local institutional context in shaping refugee experiences. We take up the case of Phil-

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adelphia, which was declared by Mayor Jim Kenney as a “Welcoming City” for immigrants. According to the Office of Immigration Affairs, this distinction refers to the city’s policy of restricting city employees from asking residents about their documentation status (Doyle, “Major Jim Kenney”). Scholars have similarly discussed the welcoming contexts and attitudes in everyday interactions between U.S.-born residents and immigrants in Philadelphia; see Okamoto et al., “Welcoming, Trust, and Civic Engagement.” 53. In the methodological appendix we explain in detail that there were four Congolese families in the class, and Blair did observations of all of them. To highlight theoretical variation, we ultimately settled on presenting extended discussions of three of these families. The fourth family is included in the sample of forty-four families. 54. Lareau and Rao, “Intensive Family Observations”; Lareau, Unequal Childhoods. 55. See, among others, Kusow, “Beyond Indigenous Authenticity”; Lareau, Listening to People. 56. Although there are debates about the capitalization of White in this context, we have chosen to capitalize it, influenced by Ewing, “I’m a Black Scholar,” among others. 57. See Lamont, Money, Morals, and Manners. 58. Studies have found that accounts of racism are more common among those who have lived in the United States for longer. See Waters, Black Identities; Kusow, “Migration and Racial Formations”; Woldemikael, “A Case Study of Race Consciousness”; Magan, “On Being Black, Muslim, and a Refugee”; Brown, “Refugees, Rights, and Race”; and Gowayed, “Resettled and Unsettled.” 59. Lee and Zhou, The Asian American Achievement Paradox, emphasize respondents’ own definitions and measures of success or a “subject-centered approach.” See appendix B for a discussion of socioeconomic mobility and incorporation. 60. Although Africa is a continent that comprises fifty-four countries, media and popular depictions sometimes conflate the region as a singular place. This has led to pushback, including the campaign “Africa is not a country,” to recognize the continent’s diversity. However, see also Ferguson, Global Shadows, for a discussion of circumstances in which “Africa” may have analytic salience as a category. 61. To increase readability, we have chosen to assign all members of a family the same last name for their pseudonyms. In Congolese families, however, the husband and wife typically use different last names. 62. Pew Research Center, “Religious Composition.” 63. Names have importance. In the United States, for example, names have economic consequences, and job applicants who have African American–sounding names face employment discrimination compared to those with White-



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sounding names (Bertrand and Mullainathan, “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal”). Some scholars even measure the level of integration of immigrants in their new home country based on the baby names they choose (Gerhards and Hans, “From Hasan to Herbert”). See also Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream.

1. journeys to america 1. As of 2022, environmental disasters alone usually do not provide a basis for obtaining legal status as a refugee, but this is contested. See, among others, Anderson, “New Zealand Considers Creating Climate Change Refugee Visas.” 2. UNHCR, “The 1951 Refugee Convention.” 3. Most are granted refugee status based on their individual or family case. Others receive refugee status determination on a prima facie basis, as when a group of migrants is given refugee status based on group characteristics, such as their nationality and the date that they f led (UNHCR, “Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2015”). 4. This definition is laid out in Article 1(A)2 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which also generated the mandate for the establishment of the UNHCR itself “in response to the refugee situation in Europe after World War II.” It was revised in the Protocol of 1965. See Milner, Refugees, the State, and the Politics of Asylum, 6; UNHCR, “The 1951 Refugee Convention”). 5. Menjívar, Fragmented Ties, 78. For instance, Menjívar highlights that while the U.S. government recognized political upheaval and major displacement in El Salvador, it denied Salvadorans admission to the United States as refugees. See also Zetter, “More Labels, Fewer Refugees”; Arar and FitzGerald, The Refugee System; Nguyê˜n and Arar, “Racial Politics of Refugee Hosting.” 6. Zetter, “More Labels, Fewer Refugees,” 174, argues that the contestation reflects the increasing complexity of the causes of migration, with national governments, particularly those in the Global North, as the “dominant power in forming, transforming, and politicizing the label.” For academic critiques, see FitzGerald and Arar, “The Sociology of Refugee Migration”; Hamlin, Crossing; and McAdam, “The Refugee Convention as a Rights Blueprint.” 7. Missirian and Schlenker, “Asylum Applications Respond to Temperature Fluctuations,” found that asylum applications to the European Union increased when temperatures deviated from the moderate optimum; by the end of this century, asylum applications are predicted to increase by anywhere from 28 to 188 percent. 8. FitzGerald and Arar, “The Sociology of Refugee Migration”; Arar and FitzGerald, The Refugee System.

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9. Due to these rights and entitlements, scholars have suggested that refugees have a “privileged immigration status” compared to other types of migrants; see Betts and Collier, Refuge. However, see Jensen, “Contexts of Reception Seen and Constituted from Below,” for the importance of the broader social and cultural context in tempering the experience of these benefits in day-to-day life. 10. National Immigration Forum, “Fact Sheet.” 11. Tran and Lara-García, “A New Beginning”; Connor, U.S. Resettles Fewer Refugees; and Connor and Krogstad, “For the First Time.” 12. García, The Refugee Challenge in Post–Cold War America. 13. García, The Refugee Challenge in Post–Cold War America. 14. Malo, “Congolese Refugees Outpace Syrian Arrivals.” 15. About thirty years ago the United States accepted 231,000 refugees annually; however, that figure has steadily decreased, with the annual ceiling reaching a low of 18,000 in 2020—despite the U.S. population having grown more than 32 percent since 1990. In addition, due to a lack of budgetary resources for resettlement agencies, even these lower quotas are often not reached. For instance, although the quota was 18,000 in 2020, the number of admitted refugees was only 11,814. See Migration Policy Institute, “U.S. Annual Refugee Resettlement Ceilings.” See also Krogstad, “Key Facts about Refugees to the U.S.” 16. Migration Policy Institute, “U.S. Annual Refugee Resettlement Ceilings.” 17. Other types of immigrants are not eligible for government entitlements; in particular, undocumented immigrants are barred from accessing many institutions (Gonzalez, Lives in Limbo). 18. Tang, Unsettled. 19. Many receive TANF benefits when they arrive, and those not eligible for TANF receive Refugee Cash Assistance benefits for up to eight months. 20. Most of the deaths were due to starvation and disease resulting from the war. See Bavier, “Congo War-Driven Crisis.” 21. New Humanitarian, “Congo: A Decades-Long Cycle of War.” 22. Gerdziunas, “Belgium’s Genocidal Colonial Legacy.” For a broader discussion of the relationship between colonialization and forced migration across African states, see Arar and FitzGerald, The Refugee System. For an in-depth discussion of the causes of internal wars in the Congo since 1960, see Kisangani, Civil Wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 23. Our respondents used the term “the Congo” in describing their country, including when referring to the period from 1971 to 1997, when it was officially called “Zaire.” Hence, in keeping with their words and to streamline the discussion, we follow their lead. 24. See Van Reybrouck, Congo, 20, for an excellent account. For instance, more than a millennium and a half before the invention of Morse code, the peoples of central Africa developed a drummed language (language tambourine) to send messages from village to village, which could reach up to 600 kilometers



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(370 miles) in a day. Before European trade, Arab traders from Zanzibar traded widely with various villages, including slaves. The Portuguese reached the region that is now the Congolese coast by 1482, bringing Christianity and new crops, like corn and manioc. 25. Van Reybrouck, Congo, 23. 26. The Congo Free State was the only colony owned personally; other colonies, such as French territories in Africa, were ruled by state governments and thus overseen by parliaments. King Leopold was a constitutional monarch in Belgium with limited powers, yet in Congo he was an “absolute ruler” (Van Reybrouck, Congo). 27. Van Reybrouck, Congo. 28. Van Reybrouck, Congo. 29. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second most ethnically diverse country in the world; see Karbo and Mutisi, “Ethnic Conflict.” Its many ethnic groups were joined together to become the Congo during colonialism, when colonial powers drew territorial lines and then used a divide-and-conquer strategy. Ethnic and linguistic differences continue to contribute to conflict in the country; see Snow, “DR Congo.” For more on the extractive economic legacy, seen by many as a form of neocolonialism, see Snow, “DR Congo,” and Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. For a critical discussion of Eurocentric assumptions of postcolonial progress, see Nyenyezi Bisoka and Vlassenroot, “60 Years After Congo’s Independence.” 30. Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. 31. World Bank, “GDP Per Capita—Congo, Dem. Rep.” 32. Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, 152. 33. World Bank, Education in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 34. Eichstaedt, Consuming the Congo. 35. The refugees included Hutu political and military leaders who used the camps and neighboring areas as a haven to plan retaliatory attacks. Tension and violence targeted not only Rwandese Tutsi but also Congolese Tutsi near the camps. See Polman and Waters, The Crisis Caravan. 36. See Carayannis, “The Complex Wars of the Congo,” for an overview of the dynamics leading to the First and Second War, including a discussion of the internal and interregional dynamics of the conf lict. While some scholars, like Zeilig, Renton, and Seddon, The Congo, emphasize a narrative of conflict rooted in economic exploitation (“greed over grievance”), Carayannis urges nuance and the recognition of political grievances among local Congolese. See also Turner, The Congo Wars, for a discussion of local politics, culture, and identity. 37. The opposition group, the Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération (AFDL), won international support, including from the Congolese diaspora and international powers; see Carayannis, “The Complex Wars of the Congo.”

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38. At least nine African countries sent soldiers. See Carayannis, “The Complex Wars of the Congo.” 39. See Arar and FitzGerald, The Refugee System, for a model of refugee household decision-making. 40. For a discussion of the multiple agendas and alliances of anti-Kabila insurgent groups, see Kisangani, “Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” 41. Cuvelier and Raeymaekers, “Supporting the War Economy in the DRC”; and Raeymaekers, “Network War.” 42. Wanless et al., The World’s Most Neglected Displacement Crises. For an overview of the conf lict, see Tsongo, “What Is the Latest Conf lict in the DR Congo About?” 43. Vos and Dempster, “Most Refugees Live in Cities, Not Camps.” Most Congolese, however, are displaced in countries where encampment is more common. For instance, in Uganda, the country hosting the most Congolese refugees, 80 percent resided in camp settlements and 20 percent in urban Kampala in 2014. In Rwanda only 2 percent of Congolese refugees resided in the city of Kigali and the vast majority (93 percent) lived in camps. See UNHCR, “Congolese Refugees: A Protracted Situation.” 44. Refugees often see aid workers as powerful, uncaring, and corrupt, and aid workers often view refugees as cunning. See Sackett, “A Uniform Front?”; Horst, Transnational Nomads. 45. World Food Programme, “WFP Year in Review.” 46. For instance, in Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania, the World Food Programme provides refugees with a food basket of fortif ied blended food, beans, and vegetable oil (World Food Program USA, “United Republic of Tanzania”). Recently aid organizations have shifted toward giving out food vouchers, which refugees can use to buy food of their choice at local markets and shops. In some contexts refugees receive a mix of food staples and vouchers (Flaherty et al., “Aligning Perceptions”; World Food Programme, “FoodRestricted Voucher”). 47. In Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, budget cuts and limited resources have led to several periods of reduced rations over the last five years (Gladstone, “As Supplies Dwindle”). In 2017, rations were cut in half for months. 48. See also Sackett, “Circuit Breakers in Social Networks.” 49. Many of the Congolese in this book expressed the desirability of large families. Studies suggest that this preference is common. However, lack of availability and a lack of knowledge about birth control are barriers in emergency contexts, such as Tanzanian refugee camps (Millington, “Family Planning for Refugees”). See also Okiror, “‘We’re Not Baby Factories.’ ” 50. Brankamp, “Community Policing.” 51. Mendenhall et al., “Teachers as Agents of Change.” 52. See also Bellino, “Youth Aspirations in Kakuma Refugee Camp.”



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53. For more on nation-states’ policies restricting refugees’ rights to work, see Zetter and Ruaudel, “Refugees’ Right to Work and Access to Labour Markets.” For more on Uganda’s progressive refugee management policies, see World Bank, An Assessment of Uganda’s Progressive Approach to Refugee Management. 54. Horst, Transnational Nomads. 55. Horst, Transnational Nomads; Ong, Buddha Is Hiding; Oka, “Coping with the Refugee Wait.” 56. In Uganda, for instance, all refugees receive a plot of land for farming (Coggio, “Can Uganda’s Breakthrough Refugee-Hosting Model Be Sustained?”). However, in some locations poor soil conditions and weather make it difficult to farm (Ikanda, “Deteriorating Conditions of Hosting Refugees”). 57. Horst, Transnational Nomads; Montclos and Kagwanja, “Refugee Camps or Cities?” 58. Sackett, “Circuit Breakers in Social Networks.” 59. The UNHCR, “The U.S. Refugee Resettlement,” indicates “it can take up to two years,” but some interviewees report that it takes longer. 60. Resettlement is overseen by the United Nations but is handled by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which is a “related organization” in the UN. The IOM is an intergovernmental organization that is widely seen as being autonomous. The IOM was f irst integrated in 2018 as a result of the Global Compacts (Ferris and Donato, Refugees, Migration and Global Governance). After the U.S. State Department preliminarily approves an application to begin the resettlement process, it is reviewed by officers from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) while it is also vetted by a variety of intelligence agencies (including the FBI, CIA, and others). See Cepla, “Fact Sheet: U.S. Refugee Resettlement.” 61. It is not possible to be declared to be a refugee if you are inside the United States when you apply; you must be outside the country. As a UNHCR report notes, “The UNHCR’s Resettlement Submission Categories are Legal and/or Physical Protection Needs, Survivors of Torture and/or Violence, Medical Needs, Women and Girls at Risk, Family Reunification, Children and Adolescents at Risk, and Lack of Foreseeable Alternative Durable Solutions” (UNHCR, “UNHCR: Resettlement Submission Categories”). 62. Thomson, “Black Boxes of Bureaucracy.” 63. García, The Refugee Challenge in Post–Cold War America. For more on the prioritization of resettlement based on disability, see Mirza, “Resettlement for Disabled Refugees.” 64. Some estimate that between 10 to 20 percent of refugee families have a disabled member; Bešić and Hochgatterer, “Refugee Families with Children with Disabilities.” 65. UNHCR, “Congolese Refugees.” 66. UNHCR, “U.S. Refugee Resettlement Fact Sheets.”

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67. For more on secondary moves, see Bloem and Loveridge, “The Secondary Migration of Refugees Resettled in the US.” 68. The IOM negotiates deep discounts for the flights; the average loan in recent years was $1,200 per person. If the families repay the IOM, the funds are used to help bring more refugees. See Westcott, “A Brief History of Refugees Paying.” 69. Office of Refugee Resettlement, “Resettlement Agencies.” 70. According to Brown and Scribner, “Unfulfilled Promises,” with inflation, the federal grant level for refugee resettlement has declined by more than 50 percent in recent decades. Decreased refugee quotas have led to decreased funding to resettlement agencies, leading to layoffs. See Nawyn, “Making a Place to Call Home”; Fee and Arar, “What Happens When.” 71. As this book was going to press, the U.S. State Department established the “Welcome Corp,” a private sponsorship program, modeled after the Canadian Privately Sponsored Refugee (PSR) program. In these programs, sponsorship groups identify refugees for resettlement and support them upon their arrival. (See U.S. Department of State, “Launch of the Welcome Corps.”) As we show in this book, even before Welcome Corp, volunteers played an important role in welcoming refugee families to the United States (Frazier and Alexander, “Welcome Corp”). Volunteers co-sponsored refugee families (similar to the Blended Visa Office-Referred program in Canada). Here, through U.S. federal programs, refugee families were assigned to interested volunteers. The refugee families usually had a caseworker and received government funding and services. This book focuses on volunteers in co-sponsorship programs. Yet, across a variety of programs, volunteers typically have worked closely with families and helped families navigate American institutions. 72. The volunteers we interviewed tended to be highly educated White women; to our knowledge, there is no nationally representative data available on the background of volunteers with refugee agencies in the United States. Survey studies in Canada suggest a similar volunteer profile. See Macklin et al., “A Preliminary Investigation into Private Refugee Sponsors.” 73. Even within a family, individual characteristics such as gender may play a role in institutional navigation. There are signs that within Vietnamese (Kibria, Family Tightrope) and Cambodian (Ong, Buddha Is Hiding) refugee families, women are more likely to interact with bureaucratic service organizations as an expansion of their role as family caretaker. Because these service interactions can lead to resource gains, these interactions shifted the power dynamics within the family, particularly between men and women. Notably, in our research with Congolese refugee families we did not find these same gender differences. Indeed, Congolese men typically took the primary navigational role, particularly in financial management. 74. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Why Employers Must Verify Employment Authorization.”



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75. For example, when the federal government suspended student loan payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of companies did not make adjustments per the new policy. Instead, they reported students’ debt as unpaid and significantly harmed the credit scores of their customers. More generally, no one knows with certainty how many errors are made by credit card companies, but thousands of Americans complain annually about credit card companies failing to accurately update records. See Carrns, “More Consumers Complain.” 76. When Blair asked the families about racism in the United States not long after their arrival, most reported that they and their family members had never experienced racial discrimination. Studies suggest that the longer immigrants and refugees spend in the United States, the more aware they are of racial inequality (Bashi and McDaniel, “A Theory of Immigration”; Waters, Black Identities; and Waters, Kasinitz, and Asad, “Immigrants and African Americans”). Scholars have found similar patterns among other refugees of color, including Somalis, Liberians, and Syrians, who were (at first) by and large unaware of and surprised by American racial categorization. See Kusow, “Migration and Racial Formations”; Magan, “On Being Black, Muslim, and a Refugee”; Brown, “Refugees, Rights, and Race.” Research suggests that many Black immigrants identify themselves more in terms of their ethnicity, language, culture, or nationality than by their skin color. See Waters, Black Identities; Woldemikael, “A Case Study of Race Consciousness”; Kusow, “Migration and Racial Formations.” 77. For a discussion of the process of racialization, see Sackett, “‘We Thought We Had Refuge.’” For more on racism and institutional obstacles, see Sackett and Lareau, “Institutional Entanglements.” 78. See Ray, “A Theory of Racialized Organizations”; Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System”; Pager and Shepard, “The Sociology of Discrimination.” 79. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens,” argue that administrative burdens are distributive. Racial minorities are more likely to be served by social service agencies with burdensome rules and requirements, such as meanstested programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Medicaid. 80. Katznelson, Fear Itself. 81. Smith and Reeves, “SAT Math Scores.” 82. While child welfare investigations are widespread overall, Black families are disproportionately affected. See Kim et al., “Lifetime Prevalence of Investigating”; Roberts, Shattered Bonds; Fong, “Getting Eyes in the Home.” In Torn Apart, Roberts also shows the racist roots of this system in slavery and the impact on not only families but also communities. 83. Experimental audit studies have found strong racial preferences in hiring; see Pager, “The Mark of a Criminal Record”; and Pager and Shepherd, “The Sociology of Discrimination.” Black workers also face discrimination in promotions and pay (Patten, “Racial, Gender Wage Gaps Persist”).

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84. Feldberg and Kim, “Fighting Bias on the Front Lines.” 85. Monnat, “The Color of Welfare Sanctioning”; Fording, Soss, and Schram, “Race and the Local Politics of Punishment.” See also Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System.” 86. Harvey, “ ‘Good,’ ‘Stupid,’ and ‘Fine’ ”; Lewis and Diamond, Despite the Best Intentions; Ispa-Landa, “Racial and Gender Inequality and School Discipline”; Cartwright, “A Theory of Racialized Cultural Capital”; Tyson, “Power and Peril”; Fenning and Rose, “Overrepresentation of African American Students.” 87. Ayres and Borowsky, A Study of Racially Disparate Outcomes; Voigt et al., “Language from Police Body Camera Footage.” 88. Salman, Le Coz, and Johnson, “Florida’s Broken Sentencing System.” 89. Ispa-Landa, “Racial and Gender Inequality”; Harvey, “ ‘Good’, ‘Stupid,’ and ‘Fine’ ”; Tyson, “Power and Peril”; Lewis and Diamond, Despite the Best Intentions. 90. See also Ferguson, Bad Boys.

2. hurdles and knots everywhere 1. This high level of child mortality is not unusual. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2000 (the year Honoria fled), the childhood mortality rate (the probability of a child dying before age five) was 161.3 per 1,000, or just under 1 in 6 children (UNICEF, “Democratic Republic of the Congo”). This rate was more than double the 2000 global rate, which was 77.1 in 1,000 live births (UNICEF, “Under-Five Mortality”). Infant mortality in the Congo increased during the war and was particularly high where conflict events and deaths were extreme (Lindskog, “The Effect of War on Infant Mortality”). 2. In some contexts this is not uncommon. In her research in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, Blair watched aid workers assign birthdays, asking a series of questions to estimate the year (“Was it before independence?” “Was it after the war started?”). If the date was unknown, “January 1” was often listed. 3. According to Wendy, Honoria’s case manager, Esther was born with significant physical disabilities, but doctors had told her that physical therapy and further treatments could help her gain strength and relieve some of her symptoms. Although Wendy indicated in July that she intended to follow up on the next steps for enrolling Esther in therapy, a year later Esther had not received any additional treatment. Honoria herself never mentioned the issue. When Blair asked Honoria, her young adult children, and her caseworkers what the name of Esther’s condition was, no one was able to provide a medical name. 4. See Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens,” for a discussion of administrative burdens as racialized.



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5. Notably, Honoria is not unusual in not knowing how to read or write. In 2005, around the time most of the refugees in our sample fled the country due to widespread violence, more than 56 percent of females and 34 percent of males over fifteen years of age in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had no formal schooling (Barro and Lee, “Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Dataset”). 6. See Bavier, “Congo War-Driven Crisis.” 7. Honoria recounted these events in an interview with Blair. The interview was audio recorded and transcribed in Swahili, and then the transcription was translated into English. Unless otherwise noted, all conversations in this chapter between Honoria and Blair were entirely in Swahili. In asking about Honoria’s past, Blair took care to follow Honoria’s lead, pausing to leave silences and letting Honoria decide the level of detail she wanted to recount. 8. Polygamy, or the practice of having more than one spouse at a time, is legal in Uganda. According to the 2014 national census, just under 8 percent of the married population in Uganda are in legal polygamous marriages (Uganda Bureau of Statistics, “The National Population”). Nor is polygamy uncommon in some other African countries, although there has been a striking decline over the last half century alongside rising levels of education during colonialism and independence (Fenske, “African Polygamy”). In the Congo, polygamy is not criminalized and continues to be practiced in some areas (Newbury, “Understanding Women’s Lives in Polygamous Marriages”). For instance, a DHS survey (2013– 14) estimates that in the Ituri province 25 percent of marriages are polygamous (Bresnihan, “Understanding Women’s Lives in Polygamous Marriages”). 9. During the research period there was no plan for Kiza to join Honoria, nor did she ever indicate to Blair that she wanted her husband to come to the United States. However, when he was resettled to the United States with his first wife, he later separated from her and moved in with Honoria. 10. Malu and Mari’s family arrived at roughly the same time as Honoria’s family. RFS placed them in an apartment in the same building in the hope that it might foster “community.” 11. According to the 2014 American Community Survey, just over 20 percent of households are below the poverty rate in the census tract in which this neighborhood is located (U.S. Census Bureau, “American Community Survey 2014”). 12. We have chosen to use the term Latino/a in this book, following other researchers who have chosen to use this term because it is how their respondents identify. See, among others, Vallejo and Canizales, “Ethnoracial Capitalism.” We omit the name of the neighborhood to protect the anonymity of both Congolese families. Based on Blair’s observations, the demographic profile of residents in this neighborhood varied block by block. Near Honoria residents were predominantly Asian and Latino/a, but only a few blocks away residents were predominantly White. In the larger census tract, nearly 30 percent of the residents were

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African American, 25 percent Asian, and 15 percent Latino/a (U.S. Census Bureau, “American Community Survey 2014.”) 13. An RFS caseworker explained to Blair that placing families that include someone who uses a wheelchair is “hard all the way around, because of the way the houses are in Philadelphia. Usually there are small bathrooms that they can’t navigate with a wheelchair, and very often there aren’t bathrooms on the first floor. Even getting into the house is usually a walk up a set of concrete steps.” The apartment the agency selected for Honoria and her family bypasses some of these problems: it’s on the first floor (although there are four steps to enter) and has a large bathroom with space for a wheelchair. 14. We were unable to confirm if she received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) after the Refugee Cash Assistance ended. These government benefits are comparable amounts, and both fail to increase household incomes above the poverty level. 15. As part of the ESL class, Honoria was also able to learn some basic literacy. Reading and writing skills, however, weren’t the focus of the course. 16. Language was a barrier for Honoria—and for all of the families in our study. Only one of the refugees spoke English upon arrival in the United States. However, the families with higher levels of cultural skills and literacy were able to use key tools, such as Google Translate or a dictionary, to prepare for office visits and other needs. Thus, although language was a challenge for all the families, it was more difficult for those with lower levels of literacy and cultural skills. 17. Greenberg, Ehri, and Perin, “Do Adult Literacy Students Make the Same Word-Reading and Spelling Errors,” find that adult literacy students use different strategies and make different mistakes than child learners. These challenges contribute to adult literacy learners’ difficulty in reading and spelling words. 18. Researcher and activist Horsman, “Moving beyond Stupid,” found that women who had experienced trauma had additional barriers to literacy learning, and teachers may approach these learners with a deficit perspective. The women themselves may feel that they are “too stupid” to learn. See Finn, “Overcoming Barriers,” and Söndergaard and Theorell, “Language Acquisition,” for more on how stress and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) negatively affect learning and academic achievement. 19. UNESCO, “Democratic Republic of the Congo Education and Literacy.” 20. It is difficult to adequately account for the role of family structure using a small sample. In our sample, for example, we did not have any single mothers from middle-class backgrounds, and the single mothers in our sample were all stalled or slow in their progress toward upward mobility (see appendix A for more information on the additional families). One single man in our sample was from a middle-class background and was quickly following a pathway to upward mobility; however, he did not have any children, and it is therefore difficult to compare these families. Notably, caseworkers did discuss single mothers who



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had more education and a middle-class background who made quick gains in the United States. 21. Social categories such as ethnicity and gender thus likely played a key role in structuring (and limiting) Honoria’s interactions and relationships. A full discussion of variation in networks is beyond the scope of this book. 22. Honoria’s most beneficial relationship was with her next-door neighbor, an elderly Cambodian woman who had lived in the United States for twelve years and sometimes watched Honoria’s youngest son, Daudi. However, because they lacked a common language, they struggled to communicate to develop a more robust relationship, Honoria explained. Sixteen months after arriving in the United States Honoria formed a tie with another Congolese neighbor, an orphaned eighteen-year-old girl who was from the same ethnic group and had recently arrived in the United States. While Honoria’s relationship with her new Congolese neighbor provided companionship and occasional childcare, she did not access material gains or knowledge about how to navigate day-to-day life in America. Instead, Honoria played a mentoring role in this relationship, which may have offered crucial social support nonetheless. 23. In interviews and focus groups with fifty-seven Congolese women resettled in the United States, including many single moms, Busch-Armendariz et al., “The Continuity of Risk,” found that although the women struggled to make ends meet, many reported that they felt a sense of personal safety and food security in the United States. 24. Honoria speaks Kinyarwanda as her native language. Although Honoria is fluent in Swahili and Wendy usually translated, it is common for aid agencies to provide a special interpreter for medical appointments. These interpreters are trained in medical terminology, and they relieve caseworkers from the extra responsibility of translating the entire interaction. 25. If Honoria had lived with another adult, such as her husband, the burden of balancing childcare demands may have been somewhat reduced, but we doubt that an additional adult in the household would have necessarily changed other events. For instance, unless her spouse was literate and had useful institutional know-how, we have no reason to believe that the family’s financial skills and money management would have been significantly different. 26. The current SSI asset limit was set in 1989 and has not been increased or adjusted for inf lation since, making it increasingly restrictive (Chen and Lerman, Do Asset Limits in Social Programs Affect the Accumulation of Wealth?). Across benefit programs, asset limits have been criticized for their intended effect of restricting beneficiaries, and for their unintended effect of decreasing savings among aid recipients (who must keep their assets low for continued benefits). These complicated rules are also costly for the program to administer, requiring 35 percent of the program’s budget (Romig and Washington, “Policymakers Should Expand and Simplify”).

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27. For a discussion of disproportionate discipline by race by welfare caseworkers, see Fenning and Rose, “Overrepresentation of African American Students”; and Wallace et al., “Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences.” 28. Lareau, Unequal Childhoods; Calarco, Negotiating Opportunities; Lewis and Diamond, Despite the Best Intentions; Ispa-Landa, “Racial and Gender Inequality and School Discipline”; Ferguson, Bad Boys; Tyson, “Power and Peril.” 29. Fenning and Rose, “Overrepresentation of African American Students.” For a review, see Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System.” 30. Data on the school and its students is publicly available. We have chosen to provide approximate statistics and withhold the source of the data to avoid identification of the school. 31. Housing discrimination and residential segregation contribute to school segregation in the United States, where public school zoning and funding is linked to the locality. See Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System,” for a review. 32. Bartlett, Ghaffar, and Mendenhall, “If You Need Help,” also document the extensive bullying refugee children face at school. 33. For Honoria, these hurdles led to “psychological costs” and “compliance costs,” which Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens, define as the stress and frustration of administrative processes and the time and money spent addressing these hurdles. 34. Schmitt, “Getting into High School.” 35. Roberts, Shattered Bonds; see also Fong, “Getting Eyes in the Home.” Black children are disproportionately subjected to child welfare investigations. Kim et al., “Lifetime Prevalence of Investigating,” estimate that while child welfare investigations are widespread, with over one-third (37.4 percent) of U.S. children subjected to such investigation before their eighteenth birthday, the rate is substantially higher among Black children (53 percent). See also Edwards et al., “Contact with Child Protective Services.” 36. Philadelphia Department of Human Services, Parent Handbook. 37. From Zeus and Honoria’s accounts, we don’t know why the children were not returned at this point. We only know that legally the children could have been returned, but they were not. 38. According to the 2005–2009 Current Population Survey (CPS), approximately 21 percent of children of immigrants live in single-parent households (Landale, Thomas, and Van Hook, “The Living Arrangements of Children Immigrants”). To our knowledge there is no public data on the number of single-parent households among refugees in particular. In the wave of Congolese refugees that resettled in the United States between 2014 and 2019 (which includes all the families we discuss in this book), at least 20 percent were expected to be “women-at-risk,” which “is widely operationalized in practice by UNHCR as refugees who are ‘single women and single mothers’ ” (Busch-Armendariz et al., “The Continuity of Risk”).



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39. Fong, “Getting Eyes in the Home.” 40. Desmond, Evicted. 41. Notably, Honoria’s limited social ties after she arrived in the United States were not linked to her personal preferences—she had many friends in the refugee camp—but to the social context in which she was abruptly placed. 42. Shedd, Unequal City; Nolan, Police in the Hallways; Ferguson, Bad Boys. Research has shown that siblings often have divergent pathways; see, for example, Conley, The Pecking Order. 43. Clifford, “Family of Black Man.” 44. Waters and Pineau, eds., The Integration of Immigrants into American Society; Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen; Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant America. For a discussion of this “adaptational advantage” thesis, see Watson, “Rescaling Resettlement.” 45. See, among others, Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens. 46. For additional examples, see also Sackett and Lareau, “Institutional Entanglements.” 47. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 48. See Paik, Trapped in a Maze, for a vivid account of the surveillance of lowincome Black New Yorkers and other families that are entangled in the juvenile court and health care systems. For more on the racialized nature of Child Protective Services, see also Roberts, Torn Apart.

3. problems reverberate 1. Malu never volunteered when or how he lost his leg. Given the sensitive nature of the matter and the ethical importance of researchers not retraumatizing participants, Blair never broached the topic. We do know, however, that he would like to have a prosthesis. Six years after his arrival, however, he still did not have one, suggesting that there are formidable institutional obstacles to him obtaining an artificial leg. As we note in chapter 1, families who have a family member with a disability have priority in being resettled to some countries. Having a family member with a disability also increases the number of institutional interactions a family member faces. 2. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 3. In the Congo, elementary and middle schools are combined; thus, primary schools run through eighth grade. 4. RFS is a pseudonym. Two of the other refugee families featured in this book, Honoria and Alain and Vana, were also resettled through RFS’s program and had Zeus as a caseworker. One exception is Joseph and Georgette and their children, the family in chapter 4, who were assisted by a group of volunteers from local religious institutions.

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5. In the United States school districts are zoned by residential area, affecting both enrollment and funding. Residential segregation thus contributes to segregation in schools and inequality in funding between schools. See Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System.” 6. Of course, Malu theoretically could have gotten a job and gotten off of SSI but it would have been risky, because if he were laid off it would have been very time-consuming to get back on SSI. Moreover, he did not speak English, lacked childcare for the young children, did not have a prosthesis, and did not see a path forward. 7. For more on Canada’s more extensive resettlement support, see Gowayed, Refuge. 8. It is not unusual in Congolese families for the oldest daughter present to take care of the younger children for parents. 9. Lloyd, Carlson, and Alvira-Hammond, “Federal Policies Can Address the Impact of Structural Racism.” 10. As Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens,” show, these hurdles create racialized administrative burdens, or navigational costs that disproportionately burden people of color. 11. Street names and locations have been changed to maintain confidentiality. 12. As noted earlier, more than half of Black children are ensnared in such investigations, a rate substantially higher than that for White children. See Kim et al., “Lifetime Prevalence of Investigating”; and Edwards et al., “Contact with Child Protective Services.” 13. In the United States Black households pay more for energy each year, possibly due to historical trends of discrimination in housing policy, racial segregation, and energy-inefficient housing. For instance, Lyubich, “The Race Gap in Residential Energy Expenditures,” found that “after controlling for year, income, household size, and city of residence, Black renters pay $273 more a year than White renters.” 14. This is also a racialized administrative burden since it disproportionately affects energy-burdened low-income and Black families. Overall, in large part due to the administrative burden of client application and insufficient funding for the program, only about 22 percent of households that qualify for LIHEAP receive assistance from the program each year on average (PECO, “LIHEAP: Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program”). Graff and Pirog, “Red Tape Is Not So Hot,” argue that application requirements, such as asset limits in certain states, hurt the lowest-income stratum the most, and that the administrative costs to conduct asset tests divert significant funds from household assistance. For more on racialized burdens, see Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 15. PECO, “LIHEAP: Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.” 16. Utility bills and energy expenses are a burden for low-income families, and unpaid utility bills are not uncommon. According to Graff and Pirog, “Red Tape



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Is Not So Hot,” almost fourteen million households in the United States have unpaid utility bills. For more, see Lyubich, “The Race Gap.” 17. By contrast, church volunteers helped Joseph and Georgette connect with a new group of Quaker volunteers when they also moved across the state to be closer to other Congolese (chapter 4). 18. For more on the overwhelming and often conf licting pressures facing caseworkers, see Fee, “Paper Integration.” 19. Our data are vague on whether Malu and Mari had initially told resettlement workers about their tie in Iowa, but our understanding is that the tie was tenuous (involving a distant relative). Malu and his uncle picked up communication once he and his family had arrived in the United States, thereby warming up the relationship. Still, as we show, support from the tie had limits. For more on the tenuousness of social ties, see Menjívar, Fragmented Ties. 20. Similarly, Menjívar, Fragmented Ties, finds co-ethnic social ties among Salvadoran immigrants to be fragile and at times limited in their ability to help, leading to fragmented ties. 21. Under federal guidelines Malu’s SSI benefits should have been transferred. The federal portion of SSI payment transfers across state lines and the total benefits are constant. Nonetheless, it is recommended that recipients notify Social Security of a change in address to ensure there are no delays in receiving benefits. Many states also supplement federal SSI benefits, with the amount of the supplement varying from state to state. In some states this supplementary benefit requires a separate application. For more information, see AARP, “Will My Social Security Disability Benefits Change?” 22. For more on the gaps between resettlement agencies and disability services, see Mirza and Heinemann, “Service Needs and Service Gaps.” 23. See also Sackett and Lareau, “Institutional Entanglements.” 24. Paik, Trapped in a Maze. 25. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.”

4. how cultural brokers help 1. Many of the volunteers in the group were Quakers, which is a relatively small religious group. As a result, we have given pseudonyms to the two communities. Springdale is a suburb of Philadelphia; Marion is a small city about two hours from Philadelphia, which has drawn many refugees as a “new destination.” See Flippen and Farrell-Bryan, “New Destinations.” 2. For an overview of the role of faith-based organizations in refugee resettlement and a survey of service provision to refugees among congregations in Philadelphia, see Ives, Sinha, and Cnaan, “Who Is Welcoming the Stranger?” 3. U.S. Department of State, “Launch of the Welcome Corps.”

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4. This figure is based on a combination of self-reports and interviewer probing. After the initial round of interviews, we added a question to our interview guide to probe whether refugees had received help from volunteers. However, the Swahili phrase for volunteer (mtu wa kujitolea) has a broader meaning and includes more informal help, and many of the respondents included informal assistance from Congolese pastors, caseworkers, and friends. Here, to the extent possible, we differentiate between volunteers who coordinated their assistance through a formal sponsorship program with resettlement agencies and these other forms of helpers, who can also act as cultural brokers. 5. In a literature review, Stovel and Shaw, “Brokerage,” characterize brokers as people who “bridge a gap in social structure” and who “help goods, information, opportunities, or knowledge flow across that gap.” In immigrant families, children can sometimes also act as brokers for parents in navigating U.S. institutions, including medical institutions (see Katz, “Children as Brokers”) and legal institutions (see Delgado, “‘They Think I’m a Lawyer’”). 6. In his interview Joseph stressed the importance of Blair asking more questions about the war and displacement, saying it was important for the book. As we explain in appendix C, Blair treated these painful stories with great respect. When people shared traumatic experiences, she introduced pauses and expressed sorrow (“very sorry”). The interviewee chose what to reveal and what level of detail to recount. 7. For more on the complex decisions that families make about migration, see Arar and FitzGerald, The Refugee System. 8. The family’s tragic experience wasn’t uncommon. During the war in the Congo, infant mortality increased. It was particularly high where conflict events and deaths were extreme, such as the areas experienced by the Ngomas; see Lindskog, “The Effect of War.” 9. Refugee Council USA, “Volunteer.” On variations in how different kinds of refugees are viewed, see Alim, “The West’s Obsession.” 10. In Canada, in some cases refugee families can be privately sponsored by families and groups, and the case isn’t processed or funded through the Canadian government (although they must approve it). At the time of this writing, this “private sponsorship” option isn’t available in the United States. 11. Sponsorship groups could say “no” to a potential family if they felt they could not meet their needs. However, they were not able to request a specific family. There was an element of chance or luck. See Sauder, “A Sociology of Luck.” 12. In our interviews volunteers in other groups reported similar backgrounds. To our knowledge, at the time of our writing no representative data is available on the demographics of volunteers with resettlement agencies. Surveys in Canada suggest that sponsors tend to be highly educated White women with household incomes above the Canadian median income (Macklin et al., “A Preliminary Investigation into Private Refugee Sponsors”). For a discussion of vol-



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unteers’ motivations in the United States, see Libal, Harding, and Champagne, “Solidarity Work as Political Action”; for Canada, see Macklin et al., “A Preliminary Investigation into Private Refugee Sponsors.” 13. Sociologist Gowayed, “Resettled and Unsettled,” finds that non-White immigrants, such as Syrian refugees, experience moments of acute racialization, or moments in which “one’s race is made salient due to macro policies or micro level infractions,” which can “prompt a sharpening of the recognition of one’s racialization.” 14. Yet see Elcioglu, “Neoliberal Fatigue,” for more on how program conditions can limit volunteers’ time and mental bandwidth to reflect on structural conditions. 15. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” See also Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens. 16. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 17. Joseph was meticulous about saving every piece of mail, most of which was junk mail. He was sure that he didn’t get the large white envelope. The U.S. Postal System has been beset with difficulties, and there is evidence of some mail never reaching the destination (see, among others, Shannon, McCoy, and Slack, “Empty Mailboxes, Missed Rent”). It’s possible, of course, that they did receive it and threw it away. We cannot know. 18. It is possible that the temp agency didn’t share the records of the employees with the employer. Hence, while employers do not routinely rehire employees they have previously fired, it is possible that Georgette benefited from the subcontracting system. Moreover, Joseph’s recommendation may have helped. 19. Historical and contemporary patterns of housing discrimination and racial segregation are integrally tied to educational segregation and patterns of educational inequality; see Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System.” 20. See Pager and Shepherd, “The Sociology of Discrimination,” for a review of findings on racial discrimination across multiple dimensions of the homebuying process. 21. Black and Hispanic applicants, like Joseph and Georgette, face discrimination and are substantially more likely to have their applications rejected. See Munnell et al., “Mortgage Lending in Boston.” 22. Homeownership is a wise fiscal investment for some families, but not all. There are, however, signs of a psychological payoff; see Saunders, “The Meaning of ‘Home.’ ” 23. Since we didn’t observe this event, and Georgette didn’t bring it up to Blair, we could not ask her about it without violating confidentiality. 24. For example, although most volunteers had cars, some insisted on accompanying the family they were assisting on the bus to help them learn the bus system. Some volunteers worried about the yawning gap in the size, furnishings,

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and cost of the volunteers’ residences compared to the apartments of the refugees; they made a policy of never inviting the refugees inside their homes. However, other volunteers disagreed, and this was a point of contention within some volunteer groups. 25. Beiser, “Resettling Refugees and Safeguarding Their Mental Health.” 26. On cultural brokering, see Martinez-Cosio and Iannacone, “The Tenuous Role,” and Jones and Trickett, “Immigrant Adolescents Behaving as Culture Brokers.” This research has focused on the role of young adult children, often within one institution. For legal institutions, see Delgado, “‘They Think I’m a Lawyer,’” and García Valdivia, “Legal Power in Action”; for the workplace, see Estrada, Kids at Work; for healthcare institutions, see Katz, “Children as Brokers,” and Lazarevic, “Effects of Cultural Brokering.” 27. For more on the role of economic disadvantage in adultification, see Burton, “Childhood Adultification in Economically Disadvantaged Families.” See also Lanuza, “My Family’s Keeper,” for a discussion of adultification in the context of migration. Scholars suggest that this dynamic is reinforced by an established pattern referred to as the “immigrant bargain,” in which immigrant parents’ sacrifices motivate their children to pitch in to help their families have a better life. See, among others, Louie, Keeping the Immigrant Bargain. 28. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” See also Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens. 29. See Reardon, Kalogrides, and Shores, “The Geography of Racial/Ethnic Test Scores Gaps,” for predictors of which children gain the most academically. Family characteristics are very powerful, but schools differ, and some appear to be more effective than others.

5. the power of people doing their jobs 1. We focused on cultural brokers in the last chapter, and here we center our discussion on institutional insiders, which we define as paid staff who work in institutions. By contrast, cultural brokers are institutional outsiders who help create a bridge between the family and institutions. Even if the cultural brokers are professionals with institutionalized knowledge, they are, along with the refugee family members, asking for assistance from the institution. For a similar distinction with different terminology, see the discussion of embedded versus external brokers, López-Sanders, “Embedded and External Brokers.” In both chapters the refugee families had important skills; they also worked with cultural brokers and institutional insiders. For Joseph and Georgette, however, the key people helping them were cultural brokers, and for Alain and Vana, much of their help came through institutional agents. Still, as we explain, Alain and Vana’s son David benefited enormously from Melissa, who acted as cultural broker.



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2. Paik, Trapped in a Maze, highlights how White middle-class families avoid and quickly exit the maze of burdensome institutions that trap poor families and non-White families. See also Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 3. To be sure, within the confines of our very small sample, our work is consistent with Feliciano and Lanuza, “An Immigrant Paradox,” which shows that immigrants arrive with differential relative educational backgrounds in their home countries and that these relative social class positions appear to be consequential in their subsequent life experiences. Nevertheless, regardless of refugees’ characteristics and backgrounds, institutions play a crucial role in mediating pathways toward upward mobility. Even the most highly educated refugees (and the Americans helping them) faced consequential organizational obstacles that impeded their progress. They also benefited from institutional programs, and the services delivered by these programs were crucial. 4. The absolute levels of educational attainment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are relatively low. In 2005, around the time most of the refugees in our sample fled the country due to widespread violence, only about 16 percent of men had a high school degree or more (Barro and Lee, “Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Dataset”). During that time, neither primary nor secondary education was free (IRIN News, “Millions Miss Out”). 5. In 2005, more than 56 percent of females over fifteen years of age in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had no formal schooling. Less than 12 percent of women had attended any secondary school (Barro and Lee, “Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Dataset”). 6. Bantu is both a language family and a broad social group that includes the Hutu. 7. In their interviews Alain and Vana did not volunteer if they also had experiences with infant mortality. Given the deeply sensitive nature of the death of a child, Blair did not ask them this question directly. By contrast, Honoria and Joseph mentioned the deaths of their children during observations and in their interviews, respectively. 8. Language barriers and the devaluation of foreign educational credentials and job experience are common across many immigrant groups. See Zeng and Xie, “Asian-Americans’ Earnings Disadvantage Examined”; Fuller and Martin, “Predicting Immigrant Employment”; Friedberg, “You Can’t Take It with You?” 9. Studies are clear that frontline workers vary in their levels of helpfulness and in their assessments about clients’ deservingness, which are often suffused with racialized views of groups. For research on frontline workers and immigrants, see, among others, Ong, Buddha Is Hiding; Fox, Three Worlds of Relief; Nga i, Impossible Subjects; a nd Ma r row, “Immig ra nt Bureaucratic Incorporation.”

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10. See Gowayed, “Resettled and Unsettled,” for a discussion of acute racialization. 11. Pager and Shepherd, “The Sociology of Discrimination,” 188, point to bias across multiple dimensions of the process, including, “less assistance with financing and steering into less wealthy communities and neighbors with a higher proportion of minority residents.” 12. One study, Mulhere, “Congress Just Made It a Lot Easier,” found that Black and Hispanic applicants for mortgages were 82 percent more likely to be rejected than White applicants with similar profiles. See also Ross and Yinger, “Does Discrimination in Mortgage Lending Exist?” 13. As we discuss briefly in appendix B, it is possible that Alain’s experience of working in a bureaucratic institution gave him cultural capital that transcended national boundaries. 14. In the United States Black credit holders face discrimination in credit markets and are charged higher annual percentage rate (APR) interest on average. Historically, creditors have also denied credit to Black people. Even though Congress has banned racial discrimination in credit, creditors still overcharge Black credit holders. See Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System.” 15. With this comment Alain reveals that he didn’t see a predominantly White, affluent neighborhood as appropriate for him and his family. 16. In addition, they used two additional institutions, the police and the eviction court, to ensure steady payment of the rent. 17. See Duncan and Murnane, Restoring Opportunity. 18. For a discussion of the relationship between residential and educational segregation as part of a larger system of discrimination, see Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System.” See also Pager and Shepherd, “The Sociology of Discrimination.” 19. On luck, see Sauder, “A Sociology of Luck.” 20. See Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, “What Are Benefits Cliffs?” for research on the benefits cliff. 21. See Kim et al., “Lifetime Prevalence of Investigating”; Roberts, Shattered Bonds; Roberts, Torn Apart; Fong, “Getting Eyes in the Home.” 22. We were not able to verify the official source of the investigation. 23. Mulhere, “Congress Just Made It a Lot Easier.” 24. Harrison University is a pseudonym to ensure confidentiality. 25. Many qualitative studies have portrayed teachers and others helping immigrants and first-generation students. See, among others, Stanton-Salazar, “A Social Capital Framework,” and Rendón, Stagnant Dreamers. Still, the positive role of institutional insiders in facilitating upward mobility—although tacitly understood as part of the role of schools—has not been sufficiently emphasized and conceptualized. In particular, research has largely overlooked the role of institutional agents across intersecting institutions.



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26. For more on the crucial role of supportive educators, see Bartlett, Ghaffar, and Mendenhall, “If You Need Help.” 27. See Zeng and Xie, “Asian Americans’ Earnings Disadvantage Examined”; Fuller and Martin, “Predicting Immigrant Employment”; Friedberg, “You Can’t Take It with You?” 28. See Gowayed, Refuge.

conclusion 1. Gowayed, Refuge. 2. Desmond, Evicted. 3. Our findings echo research on private sponsorship programs in Canada. Beiser, “Sponsorship and Resettlement Success,” found that compared to government sponsorship, private sponsorship predicted successful integration for refugees. Using multivariate analysis, Kaida, Hou, and Stick, “The Long-Term Economic Integration,” found an advantage in both the short term and the long term, particularly among less educated refugees. 4. As we explain in appendix B, despite the relatively new and dispersed nature of the Congolese community in the United States, we saw signs that coethnic social ties could also act as cultural brokers. On the role of co-ethnic communities, see, among others, Wilson and Portes, “Immigrant Enclaves,” and Zhou and Bankston, Growing Up American. 5. Paik, Trapped in a Maze. 6. Paik, Trapped in a Maze. 7. These findings are in line with those from other studies on organizations (see Ray, “A Theory of Racialized Organizations”) and workers’ racialized assessments about immigrants’ deservingness (see Fox, Three Worlds of Relief; Ngai Impossible Subjects; and Ong, Buddha Is Hiding). 8. For more on the role of institutions in the process of racialization for the Congolese familes, see Sackett, “‘We Thought We Had Refuge.’” 9. See also Sackett and Lareau, “Institutional Entanglements.” 10. Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 11. For more on slack, see Vaughan, Dead Reckoning. 12. On this point we echo Perrow, Normal Accidents, who stresses that normal accidents are not the fault of individual operators but rather of complex systems without the ability to course correct. 13. Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens. 14. Marrow, “Immigrant Bureaucratic Incorporation.” 15. For instance, see Moynihan, Gerzina, and Herd, “Kafka’s Bureaucracy,” for examples of administrative burdens facing immigrants, including undocumented immigrants.

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16. Paik, Trapped in a Maze. 17. However, see Elcioglu, “Neoliberal Fatigue,” for limits to racial reckonings and justice. 18. Volunteers can experience “compassion fatigue” and be choosy about who they help (Frazier and Alexander, “Welcome Corp”). See also Beiser, “Resettling Refugees and Safeguarding Their Mental Health,” for a discussion of how volunteers could be intrusive and the importance of respect for refugee families’ privacy. 19. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “Child Well-Being.” 20. For an excellent cross-national comparison of Canada and the United States, see Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen. 21. Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Refugee Resettlement.” 22. See Gowayed, Refuge, for a discussion of language training in different countries as well as the importance of gender in language training. 23. Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Refugee Resettlement.” 24. O’Neil, “Modernizing Access.” 25. See The Pew Charitable Trust, “Pursuing the American Dream.” Notably, substantial numbers of people do make more modest improvements in their lifetime, and there are also children in upper-middle-class families who experience downward mobility. Raj Chetty et al., “The Opportunity Atlas,” also demonstrate geographic variation in rates of upward mobility. For other discussions of barriers to mobility, see Desmond, Poverty, by America; Smeeding, “Multiple Barriers”; and Rendón, Stagnant Dreamers. Research has established that children in immigrant families are especially likely to achieve relatively high levels of education and job success. See Ho, Park, and Kao, Diversity. 26. Sherman and Trisi, “Safety Net More Effective.” 27. O’Neil, “Modernizing Access.” 28. See O’Neil, “Modernizing Access,” and Ko and Moffitt, “Take-up of Social Benefits.” 29. Perrow, Normal Accidents. 30. Shannon, McCoy, and Slack, “Empty Mailboxes, Missed Rent.” 31. Dalrymple, “IRS Can’t Do the Math.” 32. Perrow, Normal Accidents; Vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision; Vaughan, Dead Reckoning; Moy nihan, Gerzina , and Herd, “K af ka’s Bureaucracy.” 33. Baker and Goldstein, “Uvalde Had Prepared for School Shootings”; Robles et al., “Facing a Dire Storm Forecast in Florida.” 34. Yee, “The Unwritten Rules of Engagement”; Startz, “First Generation Students Face Unique Challenges.” 35. Zhou, “The Case against Means Testing.” For unemployment benefits, recipients need to bring the claimant’s information (social security number, home address, mailing address, telephone number, email, and alien registration



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number, if applicable); most recent employer information (name of employer, first and last dates working with employer, gross earnings during last week of employment, reason for loss of work, amount of severance, if applicable, and employment history of where you worked in the past eighteen months); and direct deposit information (bank name and address, bank telephone number, bank account number, and bank account routing number). In addition, recipients need to have been laid off (not quit) and be actively looking for work. 36. Kenney et al. “Simplification of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” 37. Kenney et al., “Simplification of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” 38. For instance, a report for the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (Romig and Washington, “Policymakers Should Expand and Simplify Supplemental Security Income”) notes, “SSI is expensive to administer because its complex rules require SSA [Social Security Administration] staff to continually monitor recipients’ living arrangements, incomes, savings, support from family and friends, marital status, and more. SSI benefits make up only 5 percent of the payments that SSA makes, but the program requires 35 percent of the agency’s budget to administer. In contrast, SSA spends 20 percent of its budget to administer SSDI [Social Security Disability Insurance], even though it has 1.5 million more beneficiaries than SSI.” 39. To be sure, the families also were sometimes placed in low-income neighborhoods, some of which were dangerous and harmful. See Tang, Unsettled. 40. In addition, due to very complex rules, similar to those we have highlighted in this book, some groups that many would think are refugees, such as people f leeing from Afghanistan and Ukraine, are admitted as humanitarian parolees, not legally recognized refugees, and they come to the United States with a temporary protected status. 41. UNHCR, “Resettlement.” 42. The quotes are from the statement “Who We Are” as well as “History” by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

appendix b. key ideas in more depth 1. In this book we focus on one aspect of incorporation, socioeconomic mobility, and the role of institutions in helping or hindering refugee families in this process. Our study provides an in-depth examination of the families’ experiences in their first few years after arrival. While we have chosen to use the term “upward mobility” instead of “incorporation” or “assimilation” throughout this book to indicate this narrower focus, we see these processes as fitting within broader conceptualizations of immigrant integration. Scholars measure immi-

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grants’ incorporation in many ways, often considering a combination of social and economic measures of long-term changes across decades and even generations. For instance, in considering immigrants’ progress in the process of assimilation, Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream, and Waters and Jiménez, “Assessing Immigrant Assimilation,” examine outcomes in four key areas: socioeconomic position, residential change, language assimilation, and intermarriage. In Immigrant America, Portes and Rumbaut consider similar arenas: education and occupation (common markers of socioeconomic status), spatial mobility, language, and ethnic identity and citizenship, adding on a separate consideration of religious affiliation. 2. FitzGerald and Arar, “The Sociology of Refugee Migration,” have convincingly argued that who is determined a refugee and how they differ from other types of migrants is contested. Because resettled refugees, like all of the families in our book, arrive in the United States under a legal refugee status that leads to a unique migration process, we use this legal conceptualization of refugees. We acknowledge, however, that this definition may exclude other migrants who might also be termed refugees based on a broader definition. See also Hamlin, Crossing. 3. For instance, see Hamilton, Immigration and the Remaking of Black America, for an excellent discussion of selectivity among Black immigrants. 4. Menjívar, Abrego, and Schmalzbauer, Immigrant Families. 5. Feliciano, “Educational Selectivity in U.S. Immigration.” 6. Studies on the children of immigrants find that social class background and dispositions (Fernández-Kelly, “The Back Pocket Map”) as well as cultural resources (Portes, Fernández-Kelly, and Haller, “The Adaptation of the Immigrant Second Generation”) are positively related to educational success and occupational outcomes. See also Feliciano and Lanuza, “An Immigrant Paradox?,” who show how relative educational achievement in the sending country shapes educational outcomes of immigrants’ children in the United States. 7. Ho, Park, and Kao, Diversity and the Transition to Adulthood in America. 8. Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream; Portes and Stepick, City on the Edge. 9. Higher education in one’s home country makes homeownership and greater educational attainment by their children more likely in their new country (Myers and Woo Lee, “Immigrant Trajectories into Homeownership”). Additionally, middle-class migrant parents’ cultural capital, or “know-how, information, values, and demeanor,” contribute to their children’s success in school and, later, to their job opportunities (Portes, Fernández-Kelly, and Haller, “The Adaptation of the Immigrant Second Generation”). See also Feliciano, “Educational Selectivity in U.S. Immigration.” 10. See Zeng and Xie, “Asian-Americans’ Earnings Disadvantage Examined”; Fuller and Martin, “Predicting Immigrant Employment”; Friedberg, “You Can’t Take It with You?”



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11. Gowayed, Refuge. 12. Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream, 190. 13. See, among others, Menjívar, Abrego, and Schmalzbauer, Immigrant Families. 14. As Marrow, “Immigrant Bureaucratic Incorporation,” has shown, other types of migrants also have significant interactions with American institutions, leading at times to a form of “bureaucratic incorporation.” This suggests that findings from refugee institutional interactions may be applicable to other types of immigrants as well; however, more research is needed to assess the extent of generalizability. 15. In particular, Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream, 57, point to expanded civil rights and values of diversity in government policies and agencies. 16. Waters and Pineau, eds., The Integration of Immigrants into American Society; Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen; Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant America. 17. For administrative burdens, see Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burdens; Moynihan, Gerzina, and Herd, “Kafka’s Bureaucracy.” 18. Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen. 19. Brown, “Refugees, Rights, and Race.” 20. Watson, “Rescaling Resettlement.” 21. Jensen, “Contexts of Reception Seen and Constituted from Below.” 22. For trends in funding, see Capps et al., The Integration Outcomes of U.S. Refugees. See Fee, “Paper Integration,” for the pressures that caseworkers face and their coping strategies. 23. Kreisberg, de Graauw, and Gleeson, “Explaining Refugee Employment Declines”; Gowayed, Refuge. 24. Gowayed, Refuge; Tran and Lara-García, “A New Beginning”; Kibria, Family Tightrope. For a discussion of caseworker strategies for getting refugees jobs, see Darrow, “Getting Refugees to Work.” 25. Kreisberg, de Graauw, and Gleeson, “Explaining Refugee Employment Declines.” 26. Kreisberg, de Graauw, and Gleeson, “Explaining Refugee Employment Declines.” 27. Over time we saw signs that the nature of obstacles shifted for the families. After years in the United States, obstacles that had been challenging in the initial days, such as withdrawing money from an ATM, were more manageable, but new obstacles emerged, such as applying for preapproval for a mortgage from a bank. Further research might examine how the type and complexity of obstacles change over time. 28. Portes and Zhou, “The New Second Generation”; Zhou, “Segmented Assimilation.”

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29. See Ray, “A Theory of Racialized Organizations.” For a review of the extensive literature showing patterns of racial discrimination in American public spaces and in interactions with institutional agents such as police officers and employers, see Reskin, “The Race Discrimination System,” and Pager and Shepard, “The Sociology of Discrimination.” 30. In “A Theory of Racialized Cultural Capital,” Cartwright provides a convincing discussion of cultural capital as not only classed, but also racialized. See also Ray, “A Theory of Racialized Organizations.” For a discussion of racialized administrative burdens, see Ray, Herd, and Moynihan, “Racialized Burdens.” 31. Ong, Buddha Is Hiding. 32. Fox, Three Worlds of Relief ; Ngai, Impossible Subjects. 33. Kusow, “Migration and Racial Formations.” 34. Magan, “On Being Black, Muslim, and a Refugee”; Brown, “Refugees, Rights, and Race”; Waters, Black Identities; Woldemikael, “A Case Study of Race.” 35. Gowayed, “Resettled and Unsettled.” See also Bashi and McDaniel, “A Theory of Immigration”; Waters, Black Identities; and Waters, Kasinitz, and Asad, “Immigrants and African Americans.” 36. Waters, Black Identities. 37. Brown, “Refugees, Rights, and Race.” 38. Waters, Black Identities; Hamilton, Immigration and the Remaking of Black America. 39. Indeed, there has been a growing flow of Black immigrants to the United States; in 2022, 10 percent of Black U.S. residents were immigrants. As a result, as sociologist Tod Hamilton shows, Black immigrants have been reshaping the makeup of Black America. 40. See also Sackett, “‘We Thought We Had Refuge.’ ” 41. See also Sackett and Lareau, “Institutional Entanglements.” 42. See, among others, Portes, “Social Capital.” 43. Massey and Espinosa “What Is Driving Mexico–U.S. Migration?”; Garip, “Social Capital and Migration.” 44. Aguilera, “The Impact of Social Capital”; Aguilera and Massey, “Social Capital and the Wages of Mexican Migrants.” 45. For more on ethnic enclaves, see Wilson and Portes, “Immigrant Enclaves”; Zhou and Bankston, Growing Up American. 46. Menjívar, Fragmented Ties. See also Sackett, “Circuit Breakers.” 47. Portes, “Social Capital.” 48. In some contexts refugees may even avoid social ties, a practice that Arar (“How Political Migrant Networks Differ”) terms “strategic anonymity.” 49. Before 2013 there were just over twenty thousand Congolese living across the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, “American Community Survey 2014”). Around that time the UN planned to resettle fifty thousand Congolese refugees



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from African host countries over a few years (UNHCR, “Congolese Refugees”). By 2016 Congolese refugees had become the largest nationality group resettled in the United States annually. 50. For more on refugee communities, see Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant America. For more on refugees’ secondary moves within the United States, see Bloem and Loveridge, “The Secondary Migration.” 51. For school success, see Zhou and Bankston, Growing Up American; for community building, see Aguilar–San Juan, Little Saigons. 52. Small, Unanticipated Gains. 53. Numerous scholars have highlighted the importance of social, cultural, and economic capital for immigrants. See, among others, Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream; Portes, “Social Capital”; Portes, Fernández-Kelly, and Haller, “The Adaptation of the Immigrant Second Generation”; FernándezKelly, “The Back Pocket Map”; Lee and Zhou, The Asian American Achievement Paradox; Crul et al., “The Multiplier Effect.” 54. Of course, cultural capital includes many elements other than institutional skills and knowledge. For a discussion of Bourdieu’s conceptions of capital and field, see Swartz, Culture and Power, and Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital.” See Lareau and Weininger, “Cultural Capital,” and Davies and Rizk, “The Three Generations of Cultural Capital Research,” as well as Weininger and Lareau, “Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociology of Education,” for an overview of research on cultural capital. See also Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, as well as Brubaker, “Rethinking Classical Theory.” 55. In this extensive field, see Swartz, Culture and Power, for an excellent overview, For social capital, see Lin, Social Capital; Small, Unanticipated Gains; Small, Someone to Talk To. 56. There are certainly other dimensions to Bourdieu’s complex theoretical ideas, including “habitus.” See, among others, Swartz, Culture and Power, for an overview, as well as Brubaker, “Rethinking Classical Theory,” and Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. 57. Although it is possible for people to acquire some of these dispositions later in life, as with language acquisition, they may have less fluidity than if they were raised from childhood in these settings. 58. See Block, “Social Class”; Lareau, Unequal Childhoods. 59. Many valuable studies of refugees and Americans more broadly examine obstacles in one type of institution at a time, such as housing (Tang, Unsettled; Desmond, Evicted), schools (Blackledge, “The Wrong Sort of Capital?”; Devine, “Mobilising Capitals?”; Calarco, Negotiating Opportunities; Lareau, Unequal Childhoods), courts (Clair, Privilege and Punishment), and welfare (Fox, Three Worlds of Relief; Watkins-Hayes, The New Welfare Bureaucrats). See Paik, Trapped in a Maze, for an exception, as well as Marrow, “Immigrant Bureaucratic Incorporation.”

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60. As Swartz notes “Bourdieu . . . wants a concept that can cover social worlds where practices are only weakly institutionalized and boundaries are not well established.” (Culture and Power, 120). 61. Swartz, Culture and Power, 120. 62. See Weininger, “Foundations of Pierre Bourdieu’s Class Analysis.” 63. Bourdieu, “Marriage Strategies as Strategies of Social Reproduction;” Bourdieu, Outline of the Theory of Practice. 64. Lareau, Unequal Childhoods, 363. 65. U NESCO, “Democratic Republic of the Congo Education and Literacy.” 66. Research suggests that migrants with a higher education are more likely to buy homes, and that they do so more quickly than others (Myers and Woo Lee, “Immigrant Trajectories into Homeownership”). Their children also complete more education (Feliciano, “Educational Selectivity in U.S. Immigration”). As Tran and Lara-García, “A New Beginning,” argue, refugees should not be viewed as blank slates. 67. See Calarco, Negotiating Opportunities, for work showing the key role of children in mobilizing capital to gain advantages. For cultural brokers, see Martinez-Cosio and Iannacone, “The Tenuous Role.” For the role of educators in rebuffing immigrant parents’ efforts to advocate for their children, see, among others, Kibria and Becerra, “Deserving Immigrants.”

appendix c. how we did the study 1. As table A.2 shows, most of the refugees we interviewed are married, but some are single. Still, to streamline our discussion, and since many of the single people lived with or helped other family members, we have chosen to use the term “families.” 2. Lareau, Unequal Childhoods; Lareau and Rao, “Intensive Family Observations.” 3. As with most of the chapters in this book, Blair drafted this chapter, but both authors worked on the revisions. 4. Blair’s eleven semesters of university-level Swahili language courses included one semester and one intensive summer of language study in Kenya with local university professors. 5. In addition to the IRB guidelines, I also assiduously followed additional ethical recommendations, including the International Organization for the Study of Forced Migration “Code of Ethics” (http://iasfm.org/blog/2018/11/30/ adoption-of-iasfm-research-code-of-ethics/). See also Krause, “Researching Forced Migration.”



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6. The IRB application underwent a full board review. Nonetheless, while researchers consider refugees to be a “vulnerable population,” refugees were not formally categorized as such in this particular IRB context. 7. In addition to creating a potential link to participants’ identities, consent forms may cause anxiety and distrust in research with forced migrant populations, particularly among research participants who are not literate. See Krause, “Researching Forced Migration.” 8. Nor is this uncommon. In Refuge, Gowayed found that many Syrian men had to quit language courses when they started work due to scheduling conflicts. 9. As table A.8 outlines, Baraka and Rozina were ultimately dropped from the case studies but were included in the interview study. We discuss this decision more below. 10. Lareau, Listening to People. 11. Ethnographic research is fraught with difficulties and contradictions, which are further compounded in cross-race dynamics. See, among others, the critiques by Rios, Punished, although Desmond’s ethnographic research in Evicted, also cross-race, did not yield to similar critiques. The “insider/outsider” dilemma creates challenges. There are both strengths and weaknesses associated with the researcher’s positionality in a study. In particular, power relations in research relationships are undeniable, and while they can be mitigated, they can’t be fully overcome (see Lareau, Listening to People). 12. In follow-up interviews years later, family members talked more directly about racial inequality, and especially police violence. 13. See also Elliott, McKelvy, and Bowen, “Marking Time in Ethnography.” 14. It is possible that the families agreed to be in the study because they thought it might be financially beneficial or beneficial in other ways. We do know that the families continued to participate even when there was no clear financial benefit. 15. Blair contacted the volunteers in the summer of 2016; her contact with the family was in early 2017. 16. See also Lareau, Unequal Childhoods, and Lareau, Listening to People. 17. See Burawoy, “The Extended Case Method.” We were surprised by this concern. After all, numerous influential books, particularly those using ethnographic data, have been based on studies that used small samples, such as those focused on one gang (Whyte, Street Corner Society), one school (Cucchiara, Marketing Schools, Marketing Cities), or three brothers (Black, When a Heart Turns Rock Solid). 18. In writing this book our goal was to offer a multifaceted account of people’s lives, but it would be incomplete without discussing the trauma that led to their forced displacement. For discussions of “damaged-centered research,” see

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Eve Tuck, “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.” For a set of related issues with the very different population of Black Americans, see Mary Pattillo, “Black Advantage Vision.” 19. Someone at her church also introduced Annette to other faith-based volunteer groups. 20. See Luker, Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences; Miles et al., Qualitative Data Analysis. 21. For a discussion of data analysis, see Lareau, Listening to People. As appendix B reveals, we were working with the literatures on refugees, immigration incorporation, administrative burden, street-level bureaucracy, cultural capital, organizational errors and “normal accidents,” and poverty in families. 22. Although we began using a formal coding program, we did not find it as helpful as this data immersion using Microsoft Word documents on key themes and Google Drive to create data matrices with deidentified data. For a similar approach, see Hirsch and Khan, Sexual Citizens, as well as Desmond, Evicted.

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Index

1951 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, 20 Abdi, Cawo, 4n14 Abedi, 37–38 academic support, 141–42, 148–49 administrative burdens: creating knots and hurdles, 66–67; definition, 5; due to lack of coordination, 34–38, 163, 189; impact on social workers, 218n40; on Americans, 160; racialization of, 11, 158, 190– 91, 227n79, 234n14; types of, 216n21 adultification, 121, 130, 238n27 Africa term, 15, 220n60 agencies: hurdles created by, 59–63; interwoven nature of, 5, 151–52, 155, 157; lack of coordination between, 34–38, 163, 189; lack of room for mistakes in, 158– 59; Ngoma family receiving help with, 182t, 183t; social welfare, 176t, 178t; training volunteers on bureaucracy, 160–61 Aguilera, Michael Bernabé, 215n12, 246n44 Alba, Richard: context of reception 245n15, 247n53; Cuban refugees 244n8, 245n12; indicators of assimilation, 215n15, 221n63, 244n1

Alain and Vana. See Msafiri, Alain; Msafiri, Vana; Msafiri family American identity, 200 applications: complexity of as barrier, 88; for apartments, 102; for college, 146–47; for food stamps, 106–7, 179t; for income assistance, 36; for jobs, 74; for LIHEAP program, 81–82; for a mortgage, 115–16, 136–37, 138, 152; for Ngoma family, 98; for scholarships, 141, 142; for school programs, 3, 76–77, 143; possibility for mistakes and delays in, 7t. See also administrative burdens Arar, Rawan: colonialization, 222n22; household migration decisions 224n39, 236n7; refugee category, 221n5, 221n6, 221n8, 244n2; resettlement quotas, 226n70; strategic anonymity, 246n48 arrival: resettlement services upon, 1–2, 21–23 assassination, 25, 27 Atlantic slave trade, 24 Austin, 31–32, 36, 178t Australia, 153, 155–56 backstage information, 151, 152. See also institutional insiders

277

278

index

banking: Honoria and, 52–54; institutional benefits and, 178t; institutional interactions of, 177t; navigating mortgages, 9, 115–17; Ngoma family receiving help with, 104–5, 182t, 183t. See also home buying; mortgage approval Bantu ethnic group, 126, 239n6 Baraka, 19, 25, 171t Beatrice, 34, 36, 37, 172t Belgium, 24, 25 Bembe ethnic group, 16 Berlin Conference, 24 Biden administration, 21–22 bill payments, 52–53, 70, 75, 80–83, 135 birth certificates, 38 birthdays, 228n2 Black, Timothy, 217n33, 219n42, 249n17 Black Americans: Child Protective Services and, 39, 143–44, 227n82, 232n35, 234n12; housing and, 234n13; immigrants distinguishing themselves from, 191; police violence against, 99, 133, 180t; Social Security designed to exclude, 39 Black immigration, 191, 246n39 Blackness around the world, 190–91 Bloemraad, Irene, 189, 216n20 bounced checks, 104–5. See also banking Bourdieu, Pierre: 187, 193–94; card game analogy, 195, 248n63; cultural capital, 193–96, 247n54; fields, 193–95, 219n42, 247n54, 248n60, 248n62; habitus, 247n56 Brown, Hana E.: race and racial distancing, 220n58, 227n76, 246n34, 246n37; refugee assistance, 215n17, 245n19 bullying in schools, 2, 56–57, 109 bureaucracy: complexity of, 3, 156; in Congo Free State, 24; volunteers able to navigate, 92, 160. See also administrative burdens bureaucratic incorporation, 189, 216n20, 245n14. See also incorporation Burundi, 28, 127 bus service, 110, 176t. See also transportation Cambodian refugees, 190 CAMP scholarship program, 148–49. See also scholarships Canada: language classes in, 155–56; refugee financial support in, 162; resettlement process of, 75, 153, 226n71, 236n10

capital, distribution of, 194–95 caseworkers: as frontline service workers, 5; caseloads of, 33, 52; interviews with, 203; Mahamba family and, 84, 85; numbers in study, 197; providing financial management assistance, 52; role in arrival resettlement, 22; supporting Beatrice, 36; supporting Honoria, 2–3; variability in, 239n9 Catholicism, 141 Cathy: as a cultural broker, 108; helping with food stamps applications, 106–8; volunteer experience of, 119; volunteer with Ngoma family, 91, 106, 110–13 Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma, 198 Chetty, Raj, 214n8, 242n25 childcare: expense of, 49; from siblings, 234n8; Honoria’s challenges with, 61–62; institutions for, 176t; Child Protective Services (CPS): example of reverberation from, 6–9; fear of, 53; gender in, 2, 11, 62; Honoria’s children turned over to, 59–61, 62–63, 80; Malu fearing, 79; as a maze, 67; racism within, 39, 227n82, 232n35, 234n12; standards of, 60; welfare case for Msafiri family, 143–44 children: as cultural brokers, 121, 157; death of, 95, 228n1; Honoria’s, 59–61, 62–63, 80; interviews with, 210; of Alain and Vana, 124, 127–28, 130. See also individual families church: cultural brokers from, 120; donations from, 134; Honoria attending, 45, 50–51, 65; in Congo, 93; in refugee camps, 29, 47, 96; Mahamba family attending, 83; Msafiri family attending, 123, 131, 140; Ngoma family attending, 98; study recruitment from, 203–4; volunteers from, 38, 84, 89, 115–16, 161, 181t–83t. See also religion; religious organizations citizenship process, 2, 22, 59 Claude, 124, 144 climate change, 20 Cold War, 21 college: admissions, 39; application process, 146; children enrolled in, 171t, 173t, 174t, 175t; David’s experiences with, 147–49; enrollment, 36. See also financial aid colonialism, 19, 24–5, 222n22, 223n26, 223n29

commuting to work, 74, 85. See also transportation complexity of social services: consequences of for Mahamba family, 88; consequences of for Ngoma family, 156; errors arising within, 218n39; Honoria’s experience of, 67–68; overview of, 3; unequal impacts of, 163–65. See also bureaucracy; knots; policies and programs Congo. See Democratic Republic of the Congo Congo Free State, 24, 223n26 Conley, Dalton, 233n42 context of refugee reception, 187–93 coordination: lack of in services, 34–38, 163, 189. See also agencies; complexity of social services courts: appointment for tenant hearing, 139; Honoria navigating, 61, 62, 63, 67; obstacles with, 179t; racial bias in, 40, 190 COVID-19 pandemic, 21, 227n75 credit cards, 106, 136, 227n75 credit scores, 116, 136, 137, 240n14 Cuban refugees, 188, 192 cultural brokers: Cathy as, 108; children as, 121, 217n34; compared to institutional insiders, 238n1; definition of, 8t, 9; Faith as, 140; helping Ngoma family, 99–100; importance of, 195–96; introduction to concept, 91–92; in Marion, PA, 103; Melissa as, 150–51; perspectives on, 236n5; summary of, 156–57; volunteers as, 101, 112–13, 120, 208–9 cultural capital, 120, 193, 195, 247n54 cultural knowledge, 193 data analysis, 211–12 death: in Congo Wars, 23, 222n20; from police killings, 65, 99, 133, 191; of children, 43, 94–95, 96, 228n1, 239n7 debt, 4, 32, 150, 226n68, 227n75 decision process in resettlement, 30 delays in resettlement: leading to knots, 156; pregnancy, 31; resulting from errors, 107–8; waiting for caseworker help, 52–53; with program enrollment, 77–78 Delphin, 25, 30 Democratic Republic of the Congo: civil war in, 1, 19, 26–27; colloquial term for, 222n23; cultural diversity of, 223n29; education in, 233n3, 239n4, 239n5; history of, 24–25; majority of refugees in

index

279

study from, 12; portraits of families from, 5–6 DeParle, Jason, 217n30, 218n37 Department of Motor Vehicles, 41 dependency, worries about, 118–19 deservedness: scrutinizing, 11, 158–59; of social services, 10, 164 Desmond, Matthew: critical incidents, 219n42; ethnography, 249n11, 250n22; obstacles in housing, 247n59; police visit and risk of eviction, 233n40, 241n2 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 121 devaluation of prior education and skills, 4, 129, 153, 239n8 Diane, 91, 97, 98–99, 100–101 disability: benefits not coordinated with other agencies, 87, 155; Esther’s, 44; in refugee families, 225n64; Malu’s, 73–74, 75, 233n1; within resettlement process, 30; support for, 86–87 donations, 134, 135, 160 downward mobility, 70, 214n8, 242n25. See also upward mobility driver’s licenses, 41, 84, 176t Early Head Start program, 76–79, 155 Earned Income Tax Credit, 11, 163 economic capital. See economic resources economic resources, 137, 138, 188, 193 education: Alain and Vana valuing, 140; educational support, 9, 145, 146, 152, 157; homeownership and, 244n9, 248n66; immigrant success and, 244n6; in Democratic Republic of the Congo, 239n4, 239n5; inequality in, 237n19; in refugee camps, 29; institutional benefits and, 178t; institutions for, 176t; lack of formal, 229n5; levels of families’, 171t, 172t, 173t, 174t; Ngoma family receiving help with, 109–13, 182t, 183t; predictors of success in, 238n29 educators showing racial bias, 39–40 eligibility: exclusion from, 39; for citizenship, 23t; for resettlement, 2, 21, 31, 213n3, 213n4; for school programs, 57, 76–77, 141, 148; for social programs, 35, 81–82, 164, 222n17, 222n19; not guaranteeing social safety net support, 11, 163; refugees compared to immigrants, 66, 159, 190; scrutiny on, 10 employment: as a way to assess incorporation, 4; benefits for, 242n35; declines in refugee rates of, 189–90, 214n9; eligibility

280

index

employment (continued) for, 37; racial discrimination in, 220n63; status of refugees in study, 171–75t; struggles to obtain, 100–101. See also jobs English as a Second Language (ESL): Blair assisting with classes for, 12, 198–99; Honoria attending classes, 2, 49–50; Malu attending class, 75–76; math class for, 112–13; Msafiri children learning quickly, 141, 142; Ngoma family receiving help with, 182t; no time to learn in US, 214n9; program for at Washington high school, 145; Vana taking classes in, 134 English language: Alain’s skills with, 129; children learning quickly, 121; Honoria’s challenge with, 45, 49–50, 60; Joseph’s skills in, 106–7; lack of training for, 155– 56; Ngoma children’s scores in, 111; skills of Ngoma family, 98 entitlements ending, 86–87. See also eligibility environmental disasters, 20 errors disrupting service access: as research focus, 216n23; as a result of deservedness focus, 165; burden on clients to catch, 164; by credit card companies, 227n75; data analysis of, 250n21; with food stamp access, 107–8; introduction to concept, 10–12; in utility bills, 135; needing system slack, 10, 11, 156, 158– 59, 218n39; routine, 9, 155; scholarly context of, 217n33, 218n42; systems needing slack, 219n48. See also knots; mistakes ethnic communities, 191, 192 ethnic differences, 200 ethnography: benefits of, 13, 14–15, 203; description of study, 12–15, 197–212; emergent nature of, 175t, 203; ethical considerations, 198, 203, 206, 210–11, 233n1, 248n5; gaining consent, 12, 198–199, 203, 204, 249n7; gaining entry to the families, 12–13, 198–200; honoraria and gifts to families, 185t, 202, 206, 210–11; race and positionality, 13–14, 200, 220n55; respecting respondents’ level of disclosure 203, 233n1, 237n23; role in the field, 12, 13–14, 200–02. See also interviews, data analysis Etienne, 83, 84 exploitation, 25–26

Faith, 140, 192 families: as unit of analysis, 13, 153, 219n50; numbers in study, 197; schedules of participation in study, 201; size of, 201, 224n49; structures of, 125–26, 230n20; within resettlement process, 32 family court, 61, 62 farming, 71, 72, 93, 225n56 Farrell-Bryan, Dylan, 235n1 Fee, Molly, 216n24, 218n40, 226n70, 235n18, 245n22 Feliciano, Cynthia: contextual educational attainment, 214n8, 239n3, 244n6, 244n9, 248n66; selectivity, 244n5 fields, 194–95 financial aid, 146–47, 149, 150–51, 155. See also college financial management: Honoria’s, 52–54; Ngoma family receiving help with, 104–5, 106; of Alain and Vana, 134 First Congo War 1996–1997, 23, 71 FitzGerald, David Scott: colonialization, 222n22; household migration decisions, 224n39, 236n7; refugee category, 221n5, 221n6, 221n8, 244n2 flights, 4, 226n68 Flippen, Chenoa, 235n1 Floyd, George, 99, 133 food: cultural tension over, 118; Honoria’s preparation of, 49; in refugee camps, 28, 30, 47, 95, 224n46, 224n47; of Msafiri family, 130; of Ngoma family, 90 food stamps: colloquial use of term, 15; deservedness and, 10; getting reinstated, 86; Honoria’s family on, 49; institutional interactions to get, 176t; losing access to, 69, 85, 156; Mahamba family receiving, 81; Ngoma family receiving and losing, 106–8; obstacles with, 69, 179t; qualification while employed, 22; varying across states, 88; Zainab appreciative of, 35 foster care, 60–61, 144. See also Child Protective Services (CPS) Fox, Cybelle, 239n9, 241n7, 246n32, 247n59 France, 194 fraud: fear of, 10, 218n38. See also deservedness Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), 146–47. See also college French language, 16, 98, 126, 129, 131 frontline service workers, 5 Furaha, 124, 130–31

Garip, Filiz, 246n43 gender: Child Protective Services expectations and, 2, 11, 62; expectations for home life, 118; expectations for men, 74–75; in refugee process, 226n73 generational transmission of advantage, 193, 194 gifts, 134–35 Gonzalez, Roberto: barriers to accessing institutions, 222n17 government agencies, 59–63. See also agencies; complexity of social services Gowayed, Heba: Canada, 217n31, 234n7, 241n1, 245n11; employment, 216n25, 245n23, 245n24; language training, 214n9, 241n28, 242n22, 249n8; racialization, 220n58, 237n13, 240n10,246n35 green cards, 22, 37, 63, 64 Hamilton, Tod G.: black immigration to US, 214n10, 246n39; employment, 246n38; markers of immigrant incorporation, 215n14; selectivity of immigrants, 244n2 Hamisi: duration in refugee camp, 31; hoping to move to Tennessee, 32; identification confusion of, 67; life facts of, 172t; on life under Mobutu, 25; recollections of civil war, 26–27 Hamlin, Rebecca, 221n6, 244n2 Harrison University, 147 Head Start. See Early Head Start program health: care, 105–6, 176t, 179t, 182t, 183t, 233n1; care in refugee camps, 29; challenges, 105–6, 108, 118–19; screenings, 31 heat in housing, 59–60, 70, 80–83 Herd, Pamela: costs of administrative burdens, 217n32, 217n33, 218n40, 232n33; how administrative burdens differ from this book, 216n21; racialization and administrative burdens, 234n10, 234n14, 246n39; unequal nature of administrative burdens, 227n79, 228n4, 239n2, 246n30; types of administrative burdens, 216n21, 241n15; burdens as policy, 217n33, 245n17. See also racialized burdens hiccups. See obstacles high school: graduation, 64, 93, 114, 117, 121; selection, 57–58, 143, 145. See also education; schools

index

281

Hmong people, 192 home buying process: of Msafiri family, 136– 38; of Ngoma family, 104–5, 114–17; racial discrimination in, 134, 218n35, 240n12 homeownership: as goal of Ngoma family, 104, 117; benefits of, 237n22; education and, 244n9; hurdles of, 115–16, 133– 34; institutions involved in, 115–16, 138–40; knowledge about buying process, 136–37; status of families, 171t–75t. See also housing HOME program, 136, 137–38 home visits in research, 199–200, 203 Honoria. See Kimenyerwa, Honoria housing: accessibility and, 230n13; buying process, 104–5; help with air conditioners, 135; high costs in Springdale, PA, 100–101; Honoria’s family’s in Philadelphia, 48–49, 63; for Mahamba family, 73, 80–83; institutional benefits and, 178t; institutional interactions of, 177t; institutions involved in, 240n16; in Iowa City, 84; lack of heat, 59–60; moving to affordable, 101–2; obstacles with, 179t; of Msafiri family, 128–29, 133–35, 137– 40; of Ngoma family, 97, 114–17, 181t, 183t; racism in, 134, 180t, 218n35, 234n13, 240n12 hurdles: affecting Americans, 160; costs of, 217n32, 232n33; cultural brokers in help with, 92, 101, 104–05, 106, 109– 10, 112; definition of, 6, 7t, 36; discussion of, 44–45, 51–68; in bills, 51–53, 80,135; in education, 54–59, 141–43, 146–48; in food stamps, 85, 88, 106– 108; in government agencies 59–63,144; in Head Start, 76–79; in heating assistance, 81–82; in moving, 85–86, 88; in home buying, 114–16 136–38; in resettlement, 30–32; in Social Security Income (SSI), 54, 85; increased complexity, 156; racialized nature of, 243n10, 234n13; relationship to knots, 45; routine nature of, 163–64; summary of, 155; systemic nature of, 158–59. See also cultural brokers, racial discrimination Hutu ethnic group, 26, 126, 223n35 identification, 67, 155, 181t immigrant reception, 187–92 immigrant selectivity, 187–88 immigration status, 37, 159, 177t

282

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income: of Mahamba family, 74, 85; of Msafiri family, 127, 130, 134–36, 138; of Ngoma family, 100–101, 102–3, 114–15. See also employment; jobs incorporation: bureaucratic, 189, 216n20, 245n14; definition of, 4; individual characteristics, 193; institutions shaping context for, 189; legal status and, 213n5; prior research into, 5; racism within, 190–91; term use, 243n1 inequality: among resettlement organizations, 125; Bourdieu’s work on maintenance of, 193; faced by refugees, 3–4; within institutional systems, 11, 152–53; racial, in refugee incorporation, 190–91; in service access, 162, 163–64; in United States, 3, 154–55; of experiences with institutions, 67 institutional benefits, 35–36, 178t institutional gatekeepers: in financial aid, 150–51; interwoven nature of, 138, 157; racial bias in, 40, 158 institutional insiders: Alain and Vana benefitting from, 125, 134, 137–139, 141– 143,146; compared to cultural brokers, 238n1; definition of, 8t, 9; helping with financial aid, 150–51; help in upward mobility, 152, 240n25; summary of, 157 Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects (IRB), 198, 204 institutions: benefits from, 178t; determining value of forms of capital, 193–94; disconnection of, 34–38; errors of, 5; interwoven nature of, 138, 188; obstacles from, 7t, 157–58; racial inequality in, 190–91; role of in refugee reception, 188–90; rules binding, 215n16; wide array of institutions, 176t–77t. See also agencies Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 9, 150, 157, 163 International Organization for Migration (IOM), 32, 225n60, 226n68 interpreters, 51–52, 179t interviews: adding Ngoma family, 203–4; conducting additional, 205–9; follow-up, 209–11; with initial families, 202–3 Iowa City, IA, 82–83, 84 IRB. See Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects (IRB) Janvier, 120–21, 173t Jensen, Katherine, 189 jobs: caseworkers help with, 22, 102; in refu-

gee camp, 29–30, 47, 72, 95–96, 127; institutions surrounding, 176t; in the Congo 25, 45, 93,126; in the U.S.: Alain, 129, David, 150, Georgette, 101–102, 105, 108, 237n18, Honoria, 49, 64, Joseph, 100, 102–3, 181t, Malu 73–5, Mari 73–4, 84–5, Vana, 129–30; low wages of, 22; racism in hiring process, 227n83; status of families, 171–5t; volunteers lacking leads for, 100, 122 Joseph. See Ngoma, Joseph Kabila, Joseph, 27 Kabila, Laurent-Désiré, 26, 27, 93–94 Kakuma refugee camp, 200, 224n47, 228n2 Kasumba, 35–36, 173t, 180t Kibria, Nazli: educators rebuffing parents’ interventions, 248n67; gendered institutional navigation, 226n73; incorporation, 215n14, 245n24; Philadelphia, 219n51 Kimenyerwa, Alisa, 44, 55 Kimenyerwa, Daudi, 44, 49, 59, 64 Kimenyerwa, Esther: attending school, 55; daughter of Honoria, 44, 49; disability of, 2, 228n3; high school graduation of, 64 Kimenyerwa, Grace: as daughter of Honoria, 44; at Lindwell School, 55; bullied at school, 56, 65; disillusioned with America, 2, 65; Georgette’s sister, 95; practicing writing, 50; recalling separation from mother, 61; summary table of, 172t; views on father Kiza, 64; work in refugee camp of, 30 Kimenyerwa, Honoria: background of as a refugee,1–3, 43–45, 171t; bank account monitoring of, 155; English language learning of, 49–50, 229n5, 230n15, 230n16; experience of leaving the Congo, 45–47; financial management and banking of, 52–54; finding for follow up interview, 209; friendship with Gloria, 64; frustration at childcare expectations, 61–62; government agency hurdles of, 59–63, 232n33; interview with, 229n7; Kiza moving in with, 229n9; life in a refugee camp of, 47–48; native language of, 231n24; resettlement experience in America, 66; school system hurdles of, 54–58; settling in America, 48–52; single parenthood of, 231n25; social ties of, 231n21, 231n22, 233n41; summary of hurdles and knots of, 65–68, 156 Kimenyerwa, Peter, 44, 55, 56–57, 58, 64–65

King Leopold II, 24 Kinyarwanda language, 231n24 Kiza, Honoria’s husband, 47–48, 64, 229n9 knots: avoidance of, 104–05, 110, 135; definition of, 6, 7t; cultural brokers help with 106–108, 149–151; Honoria forming with accumulated hurdles, 51, 54, 59; in education 78, 112–13; in finances, 36–7, 54, 80,171t; in financial aid, 149–51; in food stamps, 106–08; in heath care, 144; with police 60–2, 67; mistakes causing, 107–8; routine nature of, 163–64; summary of, 156; systemic nature of, 158–59 Kusow, Abdi Mohamed, 220n55, 220n58, 227n76, 246n33 Lake Tanganyika, 27, 71 Lamont, Michèle, 220n57 landlords, 63, 176t language: barriers, 83–84, 98, 141, 155–56, 239n8; classes, 2, 162, 214n6, 230n16; learning, 155–56, 247n57 Lanuza, Yader, 238n27, 239n3 Lara-Millán, Armando, 216n27, 217n33, 219n49 Levine, Judith, 217n33 Lindwell School, 55, 57–58, 73. See also schools Lipsky, Michael, 216n22 literacy, 71, 193–94, 229n5, 230n17, 230n18. See also education; English as a Second Language (ESL) local variability in services, 162–63 Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), 81–82, 234n14. See also housing low wage jobs. See jobs Lubumbashi, Congo, 93 Lumumba, Patrice, 25 Lyoya, Patrick, 65 Mahamba, Bilali and Amani, 70, 75 Mahamba, Malu Malu: challenge of not working, 74–75, 234n6; disability benefits of, 155; driving, 84; helping Vana, 129; introduction to, 69; limited mobility of, 233n1; living in a refugee camp, 71–72; neighbor of Honoria, 60, 62; receiving support on Early Head Start program, 77; recounting fleeing his village, 71; regretting move to Iowa and United States, 85–86; SSI benefits of, 235n21; summary table of, 171t

index

283

Mahamba, Mariamu: introduction to, 69; job at Walmart, 84; living in a refugee camp, 71–72; neighbor of Honoria, 60; receiving support on Early Head Start program application, 77; summary table of, 171t, 173t Mahamba, Safi, 69 Mahamba, Sivi, 70, 75–76 Mahamba, Victoria, 69–70, 174t Mahamba family: apartment of, 73; children in, 69–70; fleeing the Congo, 70–71; follow up interview with, 209–10; learning from Honoria’s foster care experience, 80–81; living in a refugee camp, 71–72; moving back to Philadelphia, 86; moving to Iowa, 82–83, 192, 235n19; obstacles to Early Head Start program of, 76–79; resettlement of, 70, 72–76; summary table of, 171t Maia: as cultural broker, 105–6, 115, 116; helping with banking, 104–5; on racial privilege, 100; Quaker meeting volunteer, 103 Maina, Wendy: as Honoria’s caseworker, 49, 52–53, 54, 63; high caseload of, 33; shadowing as part of research, 203 Malu and Mari. See Mahamba family Maria, 120–21 Marion, PA, 91, 102–3, 109 Marrow, Helen B.: bureaucratic incorporation, 189, 216n20, 216n23, 241n14, 245n14; front-line workers, 239n9; multiple institutions, 247n59 Massey, Douglas S., 215n12, 215n15, 246n43, 246n44 math class, 112–13 mazes. See Paik, Leslie “means tested” programs, 164 meatpacking plant, 129–30. See also jobs Medicaid, 88, 179t medical care. See health Melissa, 131–32, 134–35, 147–48, 150 Menjívar, Cecilia: institutions, 245n13; legality, 214n5; refugee category, 221n5; selectivity, 244n4; social capital, 235n19, 235n20, 247n46 mining industries, 25, 27 mistakes: blamed on individual characteristics, 193; impacts of, 217n33; impeding social safety net access, 163; increasing under neoliberalism, 158–59; in mail, 237n17; leading to knots, 156; of volunteers, 92; system design for, 219n48

284

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Mobutu, Joseph-Désiré, 25, 94 mortality. See death mortgage approval: of Msafiri family, 136– 38; of Ngoma family, 115–16; often challenging for Black Americans, 134; racism in, 237n21, 240n12. See also banking; housing motherhood, 47, 49 moving: after initial resettlement, 32; common among resettled refugees, 88, 208; consequences of, 85–86; disconnection from safety net after, 87, 235n21; Honoria moving to live near Gloria, 64; Ngoma family’s desire to, 101–2 Moynihan, Donald: burdens as policy, 217n33, 245n17; costs of administrative burdens, 217n32, 217n33, 218n40, 232n33; how administrative burdens differ from this book, 216n21; racialization and administrative burdens, 234n10, 234n14, 246n39; types of administrative burdens, 216n21, 241n15; unequal nature of administrative burdens, 227n79, 228n4, 239n2, 246n30. See also racialized burdens Msafiri, Alain: becoming aware of racism, 133; in Child Protective Services case, 143–44; cultural capital of, 240n13; devalued skills of, 129; ethnic tension within family of, 125–26; introduction to, 123–25; job in refugee camp, 127; on college expenses, 149; on money in America, 129; schedule of, 130, 131; summary table of, 171t; thoughts on housing, 240n15; valuing education, 142–43, 153 Msafiri, Alex, 124, 131, 133 Msafiri, Christine: daughter of Alain and Vana, 124, 127; helping with younger siblings, 130; relationship with her father, 131; school performance of, 141; starting high school, 143 Msafiri, David: as cultural broker, 138–39; college admission of, 147; connection with Melissa, 192; donated clothes of, 134; expectations of America of, 128; first year in college of, 148–49; helping with younger siblings, 130; loving soccer, 131; on financial aid setback, 150; resolving financial aid situation, 150–51, 155; school summer programs helping, 145, 146; son of Alain and Vana, 123, 124, 128

Msafiri, Deo, 124 Msafiri, Vana: as Tutsi, 126; introduction to, 123–25; job in Philadelphia, 129–30; job in refugee camp, 127; summary table of, 171t; taking ESL classes, 134; valuing education, 140 Msafiri family: children of, 239n7; devalued skills of, 153; examples of help received by, 9; finding tax forms for financial aid, 147; fleeing the Congo, 125–27; increased income of, 135–36; living in Burundian refugee camp, 127–28; private school enrollment of, 140–42; rental income of, 139–40; settling in America, 128–33; skill in bureaucracy of, 135; summary table of, 171t; upward mobility of, 151 names, 220n62, 220n63 nationalism, 25–26 Nawyn, Stephanie J., 226n70 neoliberalism, 10, 158–59 Nee, Victor, 215n15, 221n63, 244n1, 244n8, 245n12, 245n15, 247n53 Nevin, 77–79 Ngai, Mae M., 239n9, 241n7, 246n32 Ngbandi ethnic group, 25 Ngoma, Amina, 91, 111, 113 Ngoma, Emmanuel, 91, 128, 172t Ngoma, Georgette: difficulty in job finding, 108; eager to work, 100–101; fear of racism of, 99; firing of, 105; forming a family with Joseph, 93–94; health problems of, 105–6; introduction to, 13, 90; on educational help, 109; summary table of, 171t, 172t; volunteer views on, 117–18; working in factory, 103, 114 Ngoma, Joseph: as a pastor, 93, 96; on American school system, 109; clothing packing job of, 102–3, 114; interview with, 236n6; introduction to, 90; landscaping job of, 100; language skills of, 92, 98; life in Congo of, 93–94; reflections on racism of, 99; summary table of, 171t; volunteer views on, 117 Ngoma, Kalenga, 91, 109, 111, 113 Ngoma, Musa, 91, 109, 111, 113–14 Ngoma, Riziki: daughter of Joseph and Georgette, 90–91; living in refugee camp, 95; marriage and move of, 101; as a toddler during Congo war, 94 Ngoma family: accruing savings, 104–5; education and, 109–14; fleeing the Congo,

93–95, 236n8; gratitude of for volunteers, 119; home purchase of, 114–17; introduction to, 90; learning about racism, 99; living in Nyarugusu refugee camp, 95–96; losing food stamps, 107; meeting with local police, 99–100; moving, 192; navigating volunteer help, 161; resettling in Springdale, PA, 97–101; resources and skills of, 92, 120; summary table of, 171t; support from caseworker, 121–22; supports from church volunteers, 181t, 182t, 183t Nee, Victor, 215n15, 221n63, 244n1, 244n8, 245n12, 245n15, 247n53 Ngai, Mae M., 239n9, 241n7, 246n32 Nicole, 34, 174t nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 22, 28 Norwegian Refugee Council, 27 Nyarugusu refugee camp, 19, 224n46 obstacles: blamed on individual characteristics, 193; cleared by volunteers as cultural brokers, 120; commonly faced by refugees, 159–60; in accessing social safety net, 36–38; institutional, 7t, 157–58; intersecting nature of, 6, 9; of refugees interviewed, 179t; resources for removing, 8t; shifting over time, 245n27; summary of Mahamba family’s, 87–89; to Early Head Start program, 76–79; unrecognized, 165. See also hurdles; knots; reverberations Ong, Aihwa, 225n55, 226n73, 239n9, 241n7, 245n31 pace of life, 98–99, 130, 201 Pager, Devah: in hiring, 227n83; in home buying, 237n20, 240n11; in education, 240n18; racial discrimination, 214n10, 227n78; with police, 246n29 Paik, Leslie: Child Protective Services, 67, 216n28, 233n48; institutional mazes, 5, 67, 88, 157, 160, 216n28, 247n59; middle-class families, 219n44, 239n2; surveillance, 233 paperwork, 77, 155, 156, 160. See also administrative burdens; errors disrupting service access; mistakes parent advocacy, 54–55 Parent Handbook, 60 participant-observations, 12–13, 203. See also ethnography

index

285

Perrow, Charles, 218n39, 241n12, 242n29, 242n32 perspectives: insider vs outsider, 14 Philadelphia, PA: accessible housing in, 230n13; cost of living in, 82–83; Honoria arriving in, 1, 2, 43–45; as a “Welcoming City,” 12, 219n52 physical labor, 129–30. See also employment; jobs Pierre: institutional benefits received by, 178t; racism in housing, 40–41, 180t; recollections of refugee camp life, 28, 29; summary table of, 174t. See also jobs, volunteers police: advising on tenant situation, 139; Honoria fearing, 62–63; institutional interactions with, 177t; obstacles with, 179t; race and, 180t; racial bias in, 40; racial killings of, 65, 99, 133, 191; taking Honoria’s children, 59–60 policies and programs: complexity of, 63, 92, 157; need for simpler, 165; overview of, 10–12; refugee in United States, 20, 21–22, 162–63; streamlining to serve all, 163–64; varying across United States, 87 polygamy, 229n8 Portes, Alejandro: Cuban refugees, 244n8; favorable reception of refugees, 215n19, 233n44, 245n16; indicators of incorporation, 244n1; refugee communities, 247n50; role of cultural resources, 215n14, 244n6, 244n9; role of social capital, 241n4, 246n42, 246n45, 246n47, 247n53; segmented assimilation, 245n28 positionality, 12–14, 207, 249n11 poverty, 163. See also inequality pregnancy, 31 premigration characteristics, 188 prior education and skills, 4 protests against police brutality, 133 public transportation, 31–32, 53, 66, 176t, 237n24 Quaker Friends church, 98, 103, 116, 235n1, 235n17. See also religious organizations quotas for resettlement, 21, 31 racial bias: administrative burdens and, 11; in educators, 39–40; in homeownership, 218n35; in service workers, 39, 40, 190, 240n11

286

index

racial discrimination: experiences of, 227n76; examples of, 180t; in credit cards, 240n14; in hiring, 227n83; in home buying, 134, 138; in schools, 234n5; institutional obstacles and, 158; names and, 220n63; research reviews on, 214n10; within Child Protective Services (CPS), 39, 143–44, 232n35, 234n12 racism: administrative burdens and, 158; anti-Black in Brazil, 189; David exposed to through soccer, 132–33; discussed in research interviews, 14; experienced by refugees, 3–4, 220n58; Grace experienced at school, 56; Grace observing in America, 65; in context of US refugee incorporation, 190–91; in immigrant experience, 237n13; in system rules, 38–41, 158; Ngoma family learning about, 99; through lack of support at school, 57; within refugee support systems, 67–68 Ray, Victor E.: on the unequal distribution of burdens, 227n79, 234n14, 239n2; racialized administrative burdens, 219n43, 219n45, 228n4, 234n10; racialized organizations, 219n43, 227n78, 241n7, 246n29, 246n30 recertification for food stamps, 106–7. See also food stamps recruitment for study, 199, 203 refugee camps: background on, 28–30, 224n43; fleeing to, 27; food in, 224n46; Honoria and her family in, 47–48; Msafiri family living in, 127–28 Refugee Cash Assistance, 49 Refugee Family Services (RFS): as a pseudonym, 233n4; Blair meeting with, 198; learning about Mahamba family move, 84; serving Mahamba family, 72; serving Msafiri family, 128; Zeus as a caseworker for, 48 refugees: characteristics of families studied, 170t; context of entering in the United States, 189; definitions of, 20–21; experiencing the brunt of institutional complexity, 67–68; interactions with multiple institutions, 34–38; learning about American racism, 38–39; legal status of, 213n5; policies on, 162–63; screenings for in United States, 165; special services for, 4; statistics about, 222n15; temporary protected status, 243n40; views on aid workers, 224n44

refugee status: challenges despite, 4–5; criteria for, 221n1, 221n3, 221n6, 244n2; Honoria earning, 1–2; privilege of, 222n9; process of, 225n61; rights of, 19–21; starting in refugee camps, 28; statistics, 213n2 relationship building within research, 201–3. See also research methodologies religion: Catholicism, 141; Honoria receiving support through, 64; important to Msafiri family, 96, 123; involvement of Ngoma family in, 90; involvement of Ngoma family in (more), 98; Ngoma family receiving help with, 182t, 183t religious organizations: institutional interactions with, 177t; Mahamba family receiving support from, 83–84; sponsoring refugees, 96–97; supporting immigration volunteers, 91; volunteering through, 161 Rendón, María, 218n34, 240n25 rent: of Mahamba family, 75; of Msafiri family, 128; of Ngoma family, 100–101; Ngoma family finding lower, 102. See also housing research methodologies: Blair’s account of, 198–203; changes to, 203–4; design and timelines, 184–85t; interviewing beyond the focal families, 205–9; language choices in, 15–16; overview of, 12–15. See also interviews resettlement agencies: challenges facing, 33; dispersing of refugees around country, 192; fee structure of, 22; humanitarian mission of, 215n18; inequality among, 125; institutional benefits and, 178t; International Organization for Migration (IMO), 225n60; providing training and guidelines, 33; supporting Ngoma family, 181t resettlement process: Canadian model of, 153; differences in different countries, 2, 66, 154, 162, 214n6; legal steps in, 23t; length of, 41–42; overview of, 30–32; services upon arrival, 21–23; shortening of assistance period of, 33, 153, 214n9; starting in refugee camps, 28 Reskin, Barbara: on racial discrimination in policing, 246n29; on racial discrimination with credit, 240n14; on residential segregation in schools, 234n5, 237n19, 240n18; on the systemic nature of racial discrimination in institutions, 214n10, 232n31, 246n29

reverberations: definition of, 6–7, 7t; examples of, 70; from green card delays, 37; institutional insiders and, 157; Mahamba family’s to affordable housing, 80–83; Mahamba family’s to Head Start Program, 76–79; Mahamba family’s to moving, 83–87; positive, 144–45; summary of, 156 Roberts, Dorothy, 217n33, 219n47, 227n82, 232n35, 233n48, 241n21 “rules of the game,” 193–96 Rumbaut, Rubén G., 215n15, 215n19, 233n44, 244n1, 245n16, 247n50 Rwanda, 26 Sackett, Blair, 12, 199–200, 202 safety in neighborhoods, 2 Saint, 124, 130 Salvadoran refugees, 221n5 SAT scores, 39, 146 savings: accruing, 104–5. See also banking scheduling, 98–99, 130, 201 scholarships, 36, 141, 142. See also education schools: bullying in, 2, 56; free lunches at, 49; Honoria’s children struggling in, 56–58; meetings, 112–13, 176t; parent advocacy expected in, 54–55; placements in, 111–13; public vs private, 140, 143, 152, 153; racism in, 40, 142; segregation in, 232n31, 234n5; supplies for, 134; uniforms for, 55–56, 176t; zoning for, 234n5 Second Congo War 1998–2003, 23, 45–47 selectivity: immigrant, 187–88 Sifuna, 27, 28, 174t, 180t Simon, 25, 174t simplification of systems, 164 single motherhood, 61–62, 229n20, 230n23, 232n38. See also motherhood single parent households, 232n38 slave trade, 132 SNAP. See food stamps soccer, 110, 124, 128, 131–32, 183t social capital. See social ties social class, 11, 122. See also downward mobility; inequality; upward mobility social networks. See social ties social safety net: applications for Ngoma family, 98; changes in for Mahamba family, 85; effective in reducing poverty, 163; European countries with stronger, 162; hurdles within, 59–63; local variability in,

index

287

163; Msafiri family above income cut off for, 130; obstacles in accessing, 36–38; resources and support in, 35–36; shrinking of, 189–90 Social Security, 39 social ties: fragility of, 235n20; Honoria lacking in Philadelphia, 50–51, 231n21, 231n22; in Iowa, 235n19; Malu missing, 75–76; of volunteers, 122; role of in reception, 191–93 sponsorship groups, 33, 96–97, 236n10, 236n11, 236n12 Springdale, PA, 91, 96, 97 Stanton-Salazar Ricardo D., 218n34, 240n25 Steven, 91, 109, 111, 113, 119 “street-level bureaucrats,” 5 stress, 85–86 summer school programs, 36, 57, 145, 148 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). See food stamps Supplemental Security Income (SSI): $2000 limit on, 214n7, 231n26; costs to administer, 243n38; getting reinstated, 86; Honoria as a recipient, 3, 49, 54; of Mahamba family, 74, 85, 235n21; varying across states, 87–88 Swahili language: Blair studying, 14, 198, 200; Honoria speaking, 1; Malu and Mari’s literacy in, 71; speaking at school, 109; Zeus speaking, 2, 48 Swartz, David, 194 systems, 158–59 Tang, Eric, 214n9, 222n18, 243n39, 247n59 Tanzania, 27, 28 taxes, 136–37, 147, 159, 181t teachers, 141–42, 157 temp agencies, 102, 105, 108, 237n18. See also jobs Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), 230n14 tenants, 138–39 tensions, cross-cultural, 117–19, 127, 161, 200–201 terms and names, 15–16 Thom, 145, 147, 148 Tran, Van C., 217n29, 222n11, 245n24, 248n66 translation, 12, 77, 98, 199 transportation: driving for, 84, 92; inaccessibility of, 74, 79; institutional aspects of,

288

index

transportation (continued) 176t; Ngoma family receiving help with, 182t, 183t; school buses, 35–36, 110; support in using public, 53, 237n24; to Quaker meeting, 103 Trapped in a Maze See Paik trauma: avoiding provoking in research, 198; coming up in interviews, 207–8, 236n6, 236n8; language learning and, 50; of Child Protective Services intervention, 63; rampant in refugees, 165 Trump administration, 21 tuition, 141, 142–43 tutoring, 111–12, 121, 160, 161, 176t Tutsi ethnic group, 26, 126, 127, 223n35 Uganda, 1, 28, 51, 225n56, 229n8 undocumented immigrants: administrative burdens faced by, 241n15; hurdles experienced by, 217n33; importance of social ties to, 191; precarious legal status of, 213n5; receiving less support than refugees, 66, 67, 159, 222n17 unemployment benefits, 242n35 United Nations (UN) reception center, 1, 19 United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 20, 26, 27, 28, 127 United States: Congolese refugees in, 246n49; declines in refugee support in, 164–65, 189–90, 222n15, 226n70; expectations for, 2, 154; federal structure of, 194; getting ahead in, 3–5; need for more generous policies in, 164–66; refugee screening process of, 31; resettlement services at arrival, 21–23, 226n71; resettlement support compared to other countries, 6; weak central government of, 10 upward mobility: access to resources and, 144–45; of Alain and Vana, 134, 137, 151; barriers to, 153, 157–58; blocked by institutional errors, 5, 10–11; difficult in America, 163–64; individual characteristics and, 218n42; institutions mediating path toward, 239n3, 240n25; interacting with institutions for, 4; knots and hurdles preventing, 67–68; obstacles on path toward, 88–89; occurrences of, 242n25; refugees starting at the bottom, 3–4; research on, 214n8; slow progress toward, 63; struggle for, 70; supported by institutional insiders, 152; term in research, 243n1; through problem prevention, 160–61

utility bills: as obstacles to Mahamba family, 80–83; Ngoma family supported in navigating, 181t; unpaid, 234n16 Van Reybrouck, David, 222n24, 223n25, 223n26, 223n27, 223n28 Vaughan, Diane, 218n39, 219n48, 241n11, 242n32 vegetable packing plant job, 74, 77. See also jobs; work Vietnamese refugees, 189, 192 violence: descriptions of in Congo wars, 94; in low-income neighborhoods, 22; in refugee camps, 29, 96; in school, 109; many types not recognized in refugee status, 20; of police killings, 65, 99, 133, 191 volunteers: as cultural brokers, 91–92, 115– 16, 120; connecting Joseph and Georgette to Quakers, 235n17; demographics of, 226n72; faith-based, 38, 84, 89, 161, 181t–83t; frustrations of, 113–14; gifts and limits of, 160–62; helping Ngoma family with move, 101–2; helping with bus system, 237n24; helping with education, 98, 109–13; intensive involvement of, 120–21; interviews with, 203, 208–9; limits to expertise, 121–22; mistakes of, 92, 105–8; numbers in study, 197; range of activities of, 33–34; reporting racism, 41; tensions with, 117–19. See also cultural brokers, religious organizations Waters, Mary C.: employment discrimination, 191, 246n38; favorable reception of refugees, 215n19, 233n44, 245n16; indicators of incorporation, 215n15, 244n1; racialization, 220n58, 227n76, 246n34, 246n35, 246n36 Watkins-Hayes, Celeste, 217n33, 247n59 Weininger, Elliot B., 247n54, 248n62 “Welcome Corp” of U.S. State Department, 91, 226n71 West Indian immigrants, 191 White privilege of volunteers, 99–100 wives, multiple, 125–26, 219n50 work: in refugee camps, 29–30; work permits, 22; working conditions, 74, 77, 102–3; workplaces, 176t, 180t. See also employment; jobs worthiness as refugee, 21. See also deservedness writing, 211–12

Zainab, 32, 35, 175t Zaire, 25. See also Democratic Republic of the Congo Zamari, 175t Zawadi, 38, 70, 93 Zeus: caseload of, 33; as Honoria’s caseworker, 48, 52, 60–61; caseworker of Mahamba family, 72–73; caseworker of

index

289

Msafiri family, 128, 145; helping with home buying process, 136; speaking Swahili, 2, 199; teaching bill payments, 80 Zhou, Min: incorporation, 215n14; indicators of success, 220n59; segmented assimilation, 245n28; social capital and co-ethnic communities, 241n4, 246n45, 247n51, 247n53

Founded in 1893,

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