In her latest column, Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel recounts a visit she paid to a family of Syrian refugees that recently relocated to Baton Rouge. Despite their financial struggles, Riegel says the family treated her as an honored guest, serving her strong black coffee and cinnamon tea with chocolate cookies.
“They don’t have a lot of money and they’re struggling with the language, but they’re happy to be here,” she writes. “The father is an unskilled worker, but has managed to cobble together two part-time jobs. The mom stays home and is trying to get some sort of catering business off the ground. It will be a while. She can’t drive yet or speak English, but she is learning.”
Riegel notes the family has five children—an eldest daughter in high school, a boy and a girl in middle school, another son in elementary school and a shy four-year-old girl who stays at home with the mom. The children are trying hard to embrace their new life, with varying degrees of success, she says.
The family, she writes, spent three years in a Jordanian refugee camp after fleeing their village on foot. They’re now apart of the Baton Rouge community.
“There are those who argue that we have enough troubles at home and should take care of our own before taking in any outsiders with baggage. On paper, that argument makes sense,” Riegel writes. “But those who are unwilling to help refugees from war-torn countries are often just as unwilling to help low-income residents of 70805. The people who hate Syrians also complain about wasting taxpayer dollars on welfare recipients they believe to be gaming the system.”
The family came to Baton Rouge through Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, which works with the federal government to resettle refugees, Riegel says. The agency doesn’t profit from the federal resettlement dollars it receives, she notes.
“It is likely, however, the Refugee Resettlement Program will not survive the Trump administration,” Riegel writes. “That is unfortunate. Refugees like the local Syrian family are an asset to our community. Though they need our resources and our help, they set an example of courage and perseverance from which we can all learn and grow.”
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