Van Te

ENG 2010

March 31, 2017

Prof. Charlotte Howe

Refugees and Immigration

There are refugees everywhere in every country, trying to emigrate

and live in another country for a better future. I was a refugee from

Myanmar, trying to immigrate here in the United State. My parents wanted

us to live a better life and didn't want us to grow up in a country which was

broken and bad. I was born and raised in Myanmar which is bordered by

Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand. It was back in 2007, when

there was protesting and rioting in the city of Yangon. The soldier would just

attack and kill those who participated in those actions.

Myanmar is a Buddhist country, almost everyone is Buddhist. Monks

are treated highly in Myanmar, they are like gods and prophets. The monks

took an action because they knew that the government was doing things in a

wrong way, but when the groups of Monks protested in the city, the soldiers

started shooting the monks too. That was unexpected, everyone was

shocked and the country was in chaos. They could not believe what they saw

and couldn't imagine what was happening. That's when everyone in the

country started fearing the government and trying to flee out from the

country. Some ran to Thailand and some in Malaysia. The UNHCR were taking
 Burmese Refugee in Malaysia

sia, contributing to making it the country with the highest number of resettlement submissions worldwide plann

people at that time so we took the chance and went to Malaysia to get here

in the United States.

I believe that Myanmar is not the only country where things like this

are happening. Every country has its own problem and situations. For

example, like in Middle East, there are wars and bad things happening.
 It is an era of violence in the Middle East and North Africa, with nine

civil wars now going on in Islamic countries between Pakistan and Nigeria.

This is why there are so many refugees fleeing for their lives. Half of the 23

million population of Syria have been forced from their homes, with four

million becoming refugees in other countries.

Many people were broken and have nothing. No one wants to leave

their own country, but they have to leave in order for them and their children

to live a better life and escape the wars. I also love Myanmar, that's where I

grew up and familiar with but I would rather live here forever than to live in

Malaysian crimes

ion Foundation found a three-fold increase in juvenile crime in 2012 over 2011.
nt, the violent crime rate actually doubled from 2000 to 2009 before declining. Still, 2013 may actually see crim
ce showed violent gun crimes, including murder and robbery, rose in the first half of 2013 when compared with

Myanmar. United States is a safest place for me and my family. It is sad that
many people who lives in a great country never appreciate what they have,

they tend to compare everything with what other countries have better,

which makes them see things in a negative way.

Being a refugee in Malaysia and Thailand was the worst for all the

refugees. I was a refugee in Malaysia for three years. We lived with many

other families in the same houses but we were scared to even take a step

outside the house. All the refugee are scared of the Malaysian, especially the

police. The police usually throw us in jails if they see us. There are many

KUALA LUMPUR: A 26year-old Myanmar

woman who holds a UNHCR (United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)
card was found dead with several stab
wounds and a slashed wrist on the first
floor of a shoplift

robbers and murderers. Most of the people would get robbed and hurt by the

robbers as soon as they are outside their house. Even when they are in their

houses, they were still robbed and many of victims were killed during the

robbery.
 Malaysia was the scariest place to live for me, so getting to resettle

here was the best thing that ever happened to me. I believe that it is the

same for other refugees. This country is much better than where we used to

live. Everything was just great. Us, refugees life has changed because we

According could live here. There are still many of our family and relatives back
to the U.S.
Census in the country but at least we could help them somehow from here.
Bureau,
2010 In Myanmar, people get paid so little and we could barely pay for our
Census, The
population needs.
of Burmese
immigrants Refugee and immigrants should be more welcomed here.
is 100,200,
0.03% of According to the survey, opinions about immigrants has changed a
the U.S.
population lot from many years ago. Many people accept and welcomed them. I
(2010).
believe that as the years go by, people will accept and think better

about immigrants.

Cockburn, Patrick. "Refugee crisis: Where are all these people

coming from and why?" The Independent. Independent Digital News
and Media, 07 Sept. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.

Jones, Bradley. "Americans' views of immigrants marked by

widening partisan, generational
divides." Pew Research Center. N.p., 15 Apr. 2016. Web. 31 Mar.

2017.

"Malaysia: Among The Most Dangerous Countries In The World?"

ValueWalk. VWArticles, 28 Aug. 2014. Web. 29 Mar. 2017.
"EU Resettlement Network." Burmese refugees in Thailand &
Malaysia | European Resettlement Network. N.p., 2013. Web. 30 Mar.
2017.

Statement of Goals and Choices

I didnt really know what I want to write about refugee and immigrants,

but my goal is to point out the reasons why there are refugees and their
struggle of immigrating. This Assignment is hard for me because I dont have

many connection topics with my previous project. I couldnt really find any

resource about Burmese refugee. I wanted to do it on that to connect with

my own story of being a refugee and things that happened during my

journey.

My goals and purpose for writing on this topic is to convince and let

other know about the reason for immigration or being a refugee and change

how people viewed them. I hope that refugee and immigrants are more

welcomed here and to be treated equally. While doing this assignment, I

found out that there are way more refugees and immigrants here in the

United States than what I was thought. Im also very thankful that refugees

are accepted here. I hope that more and more could be accepted.

In my project, I wrote about my country and what we Burmese

refugees are like in Malaysia. I wrote about being a refugee in Malaysia

because I want to point out the differences between being a refugee there in

Malaysia and here. I dont want to say any bad things about Malaysia but I

just want to show how many refugee lives are changing getting to resettle

here and show what its like to be in another country that dont accept

refugees.