Former Refugee Loves Living In U.S.
Yei Min Oo of Noel is a former refugee who came to the United States as a teenager. He said he loves being in the U.S.
He was born in Burma (now Myanmar). When he was a baby, he survived an enemy attack on his village.
“The Burma army came to our village and killed people at night. Everyone ran away and left me alone in the house. My grandfather came back looking for me. The enemy goes through every house looking for people and kills them. I just was lucky. Very, very lucky. God had a plan for me. That’s why he kept me alive.”
When he was still a small child, his village was burned down and his family was forced to move into a refugee camp in Thailand.
“Growing up in a refugee camp is very tough because we didn’t have any rights,” he said. “The Thai government didn’t want to teach us the language or give us any rights.”
At one point his father tried to get out of the camp to get a job, but he got caught by the police and sent back to Burma. He was separated from the family for about a year, Oo said.
“When you live in the refugee camp, you are safe, but you cannot do whatever you want. The environment and education are very poor,” he said.
The family lived in a bamboo house covered with leaves. They had to rebuild it every two years, he said. They lived in the camp for about 12 years, he added.
As for education in the refugee camp, grades 1 through 12 were all in the same building, and it was so noisy he couldn’t really understand what his teacher was saying.
People in the refugee camp were mostly Karen, a small people group from Burma which was persecuted
in its own country.
Oo said they did not have enough to eat in the camp. The U.N. gave them rice, but they did not have money to buy anything else.
After they got out of the refugee camp, Oo and his family came to the U.S. He was 16, and he came with his parents and siblings. They ended up in North Carolina, where he attended high school and learned English. He graduated from high school there.
Asked how he adjusted to the U.S., he said, “I like it because everybody treats you with dignity and respect. The first thing they teach you is the language. I love it here because everybody is treated with respect and, if you ask for help, people help you. Over there, no one helps you.”
After he graduated from high school, his grandparents were living in Noel and wanted his parents to come live with them. He moved to Noel with his parents.
He is now 23 years old. He got married in 2016 and has one daughter. He lives with his parents because he is the oldest child and needs to look after his parents, he said. He works at the Tyson plant in Noel as a translator. He is also the translator at Community Baptist Church in Noel, which has a large Karen population.
Asked about his future plans, he said, “I just want to live very simple. If I have a chance to go back to my country, I want to help all the children that don’t have parents because the children are the future. This is my goal and this is my dream that I just want to do it. A lot of children grow up in that situation.”