Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A south side church is being converted into a community center for Rohingya refugees in Milwaukee, believed to be home to one of the largest populations of Rohingya in the U.S. after they fled decades of systemic repression in their native Myanmar.
On Friday, the nonprofit Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin bought a church building in Clarke Square. Founder Anuwar Kasim hopes it will be a place for his people to gather, practice Islam and get help with everything from English language learning to housing and food.
"There is a lot of needs for my community," Kasim said. "This community center can assist them."
The New Life Hmong Alliance Church, which occupied the building at 2330 W. Scott St. for more than 20 years, plans to move to the north side, in part to be closer to the Hmong people it serves, Pastor Xenglong Thor said in an email.
The Rohingya organization previously leased a snug office space on Howell Avenue near Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. It has been without a brick-and-mortar home since 2019.
The center will serve as a launching site for services that Kasim hopes will address his people's biggest needs: English language help, tech support, help navigating the United States' immigration system, housing, child care, health care and more.
"It's hard if you don't know the system, if you don't know computers, if you don't know how to use internet, if you don't know the language," said Kasim, who arrived in Milwaukee in 2015 after escaping Myanmar, also known as Burma. "It's hard for people."
The COVID-19 pandemic only made it harder. In between his family and his job as a medical interpreter, Kasim made informational videos in his people's native language detailing the risks of COVID-19 and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Kasim himself contracted COVID-19 and spent two weeks in the hospital last May, only able to comfort his children with "air hugs."
Milwaukee is believed to be home to one of the nation's largest populations of Rohingya refugees. The Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, have faced decades of repression in Myanmar, which has denied them citizenship. The Myanmar military was accused of mounting a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya in 2017 that caused hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee the country.
The U.S. State Department publishes numbers of refugee arrivals to Wisconsin by country of origin, but its publicly available data do not include ethnicity or arrivals by city. In recent years, most refugees resettling in Wisconsin have been from Myanmar, according to those figures. That includes not only Rohingya, but people who are Karen, Chin and several other ethnicities.
Kasim's new center could become even more important as President Joe Biden's administration lifts historically low limits on refugee admissions put in place by his predecessor. Many Burmese, including hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled the country in 2017, remain in refugee camps in Southeast Asia.
The Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin is one of two groups for Rohingya in Milwaukee.
Shaukhat Ali is the founder of the other one, the Rohingya American Society, also called Masjid Mubarak.
Ali estimated about 3,000 Rohingya refugees live in Milwaukee. He previously worked for Catholic Charities in Milwaukee, helping resettle refugees here.
Ali arrived as a refugee in the Milwaukee area in 2002 after spending more than a decade in Malaysia, where he fled from Myanmar in 1989 after hearing military officers were looking to arrest him. Ali, who is Rohingya, said he was very involved in the pro-democracy student uprising of 1988 in Myanmar.
Ali's center also provides a space for Rohingya in Milwaukee to learn English, pray and get other help. He sees the opening of the other center as a positive thing for the community.
"One man cannot do everything. This is a collective job, collective duty," he said.
From left, Win Naing, Thinghi Zaw, Yasmin Kasim, Royhinga community group founder Anuwar Kasim and Hamid Abdul sign documents to officially purchase New Life Hmong … Show more
EBONY COX / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
For his part, Kasim wants to do more and hopes with the new center to expand the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin.
"We have to take one step at a time," he said.
Given its limited resources, it took time to get to the point where the Rohingya nonprofit could buy the building, said Andrew Trumbull, the organization's secretary.
Kasim, Trumbull and a core contingency of volunteers went door-to-door and conducted outreach with Milwaukee's Burmese community for weeks to raise money for their transition into a new home. They also established a GoFundMe fundraiser, which is still active.
During a visit on a recent afternoon, Kasim flicked the lights on and off in every room of their soon-to-be community center, careful not to miss a single detail in the three-story church's enormous, yawning interior — like which key went with which door or how many folding tables there were.
The space was mostly empty, aside from religious signage, dusty, beet red pews (which will likely to be removed), worn carpeting and stacked tables and chairs.
"This is a dream come true," Kasim said, opening hollow desk drawers in a room off the second-floor hallway that would soon become his office.
Anuwar Kasim steps out of the New Life Hmong Alliance Church in Milwaukee’s Clark Square neighborhood. Kasim is the head of the Rohingya community in … Show more
JULIA MARTINS DE SA / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
But Kasim dreams big — and his goals extend well beyond the walls of the community center. As he meandered his organization's future home, he was already ricocheting ideas for the future off his realtor — such as buying a cemetery for his community and opening a grocery store.
"We are very ambitious people," Kasim said.
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