A quest for home

It's a tiny Himalayan Kingdom locked between India and China that locals call it the Land of the Thunder Dragon. It's a country that receives hardly 20,000 tourists annually through a controlled policy. Its pristine valleys resonate the bells from the Buddhist monasteries. It hasn't attracted any attention of the media either. But the expelled Bhutanese refugees who are now being resettled in third countries like the United States are bringing tales of lost homes and lost hopes amid the discrimination they faced at the hands of the Druk regime that they know it as "ethnic cleansing."

In 1992 Hemlal Subba, 43, walked two hours with his pregnant wife, their 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter to catch a truck to flee a land they thought that also belonged to them. They marched toward neighboring Nepal where thousands others have found shelters in one of the seven camps set up the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

"We were 28 people in the group. Four families, all relatives," recollects Sukmati, Subba's wife of the same age.

By mid-1992 nearly 90,000 people were expelled, mostly the inhabitants of southern Bhutan. These new settlers came in the late 19th century from neighboring Nepal when Bhutan opened up the settlement to increase cultivation.

There is no statistic that shows how many of these refugees actually came from Nepal and how many from northeast India. They settled in the sparsely populated temperate and semitropical zone in the south.

Subba's parents acquired citizenship in the 1958 citizenship act that legalized the entire population known as the Lhotshampas, the Nepali speaking Bhutanese.

The wealth in the southern belt brought prosperity among the migrant community some of whom went on to occupy positions in politics and bureaucracy. This became a threat to the political order dominated by the Ngalongs and the Sharchhops.

The modest lifestyle of many southerners like Subba came to a threat when in 1985 they were asked to provide evidence of their settlement in 1958 or risk being expelled.

It is that political decision that begins the story of nearly 110,000 refugees living in the impoverished camps. The King proclaimed that this action would boost the Gross National Happiness of the average Bhutanese. Subba is unaware of what Gross National Happiness is that Bhutan prides itself of, but he knows that India's business interests in water-resource rich country has much to do with unsolved refugee crises.

For 17 years Hemlal Subba lived with his family in a thatched roof in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal. It was their home. They guarded it zealously and prayed that the house be spared from the erratic fires in the camps. When his youngest daughter was born in the camp, he feared she would first be identified as a refugee and her identity will be questioned in a land where her ancestors once belonged to.

"Living in a camp is just survival," Subba says.

Even the thought of a modest living in a refugee camp is a luxury. The odds they encounter become a routine. A lifestyle.

Now Subba has a different routine. Almost a fictional lifestyle.

The fallout of 15-rounds of failed talks between the governments of Nepal and Bhutan spurred United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, UK to announce they would absorb all the refugees into their countries. Tek Nath Rizal, the leader of the refugees fighting for the right to return went on a hunger strike to pressurize Bhutan.

"It's now all about my children and a better life that I had hoped for them," says Subba. Though he agrees with Rizal, he knows a different future lay unfolded for him in the United States.

The transition from a stoned-roof, wooden house in Bhutan to about two decades of misery in the camps makes a stark contrast to a modest two-bedroom apartment in Akron.

"The government takes care of everything here for them until they become independent," said Goran Debelnogich, Director of the International Institute of Akron that facilitated the arrival of Subba's family.

Resettlement is not just a physical relocation, it's everything about settlement in a normal way. It's adjusting one's mindset to the environment. It's acceptance and searching for as sense of belongingness that has long been lost.

The International Institute gave the Subba's the power of speech by teaching them, and other settlers, to learn to speak English. But it's a slightly different story for the kids.

"They give food here in schools," says Kamala, the youngest daughter in grade 9.

With a new found hope and a secured legal status, Subba's soul seems to have rejuvenated to forgive the torture and humiliation he once faced.

"I had never dreamed I would own a car," he says talking about his first Kia possession that he bought by paying $3,200. Cash.

Happiness is about independence, being able to do what one wants.

It wasn't a new lifestyle he sought, neither did he seek a home in a developed world. His only subtle quest was to reaffirm his identity that he could proudly claim his own with an unalienable birthright.