Episcopal Press and News
Nicaraguan Family Finds a Home in Montana
Episcopal News Service. August 7, 1990 [90204]
David Skidmore
For the first time in 10 years, Juan Palacios is free from fear. He can walk out his front door now and not worry about neighborhood surveillance teams. His daughters can attend school without harassment from their classmates. And his past is now behind him.
Palacios, his wife, Rosa, and their daughters, Claudia and Carolina, ages 19 and 14, started a new life in Great Falls, Montana, this June under the refugee resettlement program of Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM).
The family fled Nicaragua in 1983 to escape persecution by the Sandinista government, which seized power following the 1979 revolution that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza. Because of a four-year stint as a security policeman in Somoza's army in the late 1960s, Palacios feared he would be imprisoned. The Sandinistas considered former military members outlaws, he says, and subject to 30-year prison terms.
Though he destroyed all his papers pertaining to his military service, Palacios still worried that his neighbors might reveal his past. In the final months before their escape, he was also under pressure to enlist in a combat unit fighting the Contras. "I would have had to fight against my own blood, and I couldn't do that," he says.
At 2 A.M., October 23, 1983, after the neighborhood watch committee quit its shift, the Palacios walked out of their house for the last time. They had mailed personal articles ahead of time to an aunt so as not to arouse any suspicion. At the bus station, they collected their bags from the aunt and boarded a bus to San Jose, Costa Rica. They arrived that evening to begin a seven-year wait for resettlement.
That wait ended June 22 when the Palacioses stepped off their plane at Great Falls International Airport. A dozen members of the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation and St. Francis Episcopal Church, which are sponsoring the family, greeted them with hugs. The warm welcome surprised them, says Palacios's older daughter, Claudia. "There were so few people on the aircraft. We weren't sure who all these people were waiting for. But it was us."
After two nights in a Roman Catholic retreat center, the Palacioses moved into a three-bedroom home leased for them by the churches' joint Service Committee. The committee, which is supervising their resettlement, also provided furniture, bedding, clothing, kitchenware, and a month's worth of groceries.
The friendliness the Palacioses have met with here is in marked contrast to the reception they were given in Costa Rica, says Juan. Neither the government nor citizens of Costa Rica, he says, were eager to host Nicaraguan refugees.
No one was waiting to greet the Palacioses when they stepped off the bus in San Jose. The first two weeks they stayed with a friend; then they moved out on the street. Over the next nine months they lived in a succession of small shacks for 15 to 20 days at a time. Their typical shelter was no bigger than a walk-in closet. "It was a wooden house, but the floor was so cold that we had to put cardboard on it and sleep on it because we didn't have anything," says Claudia. "We didn't have any clothes or any blankets."
Better housing was difficult to find, says Palacios, since the Costa Ricans would refuse to rent to them when they learned the family was Nicaraguan. Eventually they were able to lease a small house.
Jobs were hard to find since the government denied the Palacioses work permits. They made ends meet the first year by picking coffee beans. The next year Juan worked as a construction worker during the day and as a security guard at night. Rosa sold fruit and vegetables.
To make matters worse, the Palacioses faced frequent harassment from Costa Ricans. Carolina, who was in second grade at the time, was a primary target for taunts and ridicule. When asked about her memories of Costa Rica, she has little to say. It is too painful, says her sister.
In 1987 the family learned of a resettlement program offered by the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration (ICM), a multinational body representing various philanthropic and church agencies, including the Episcopal Migrations Ministry. The ICM's member agencies recruited sponsors for refugees, while the ICM staff oversaw refugee screening and processing. Refugees who had been barred from migration to the United States because they lacked friends and relatives there now had cause for hope. Included in this group were the Palacioses.
After three years and no word on their application, the Palacioses thought their chance was gone. "It was over three years," says Rosa. "We were desperate. We had lost all hope." Then in March they were told of the Great Falls offer. They accepted it immediately.
The Palacioses' arrival was a relief to the Service Committee members. After two setbacks earlier this year when refugee families elected to go elsewhere, the committee worried that they would lose the backing of church members.
Fortunately, that hasn't been the case, said Barbara Chambers, the committee's chair and assistant diocesan refugee coordinator. Church members, she says, have welcomed the family with open arms and donations of cash, goods, and services. There has also been help from outside the church. Of the 10 interpreters signed up, over half are unaffiliated with the church.
The positive response has been particularly gratifying, says Chambers, since the Palacioses are the first refugees to be sponsored in the diocese. The sponsorship was proposed to the committee a year ago by Chambers and the Rev. Sumith DeSilva, diocesan refugee coordinator and rector of St. Francis.
The initial goal was to have a family resettled in the diocese by Easter. The committee almost made that deadline, says DeSilva, when a 12-member Ukranian Pentacostal family accepted the committee's offer last March. But five hours before their arrival, the committee got a call from EMM saying the family had decided to settle with friends in San Francisco.
Though discouraged by the news, says Chambers, the committee didn't abandon its goal. A month after losing the Ukranians, the committee had agreed to sponsor the Palacioses.
The committee's efforts have not gone unnoticed by the rest of the diocese. The Rt. Rev. C.I. Jones, bishop of Montana, says Chambers, has proposed the funding of a diocesan refugee committee, with the Great Falls committee assuming that role for the interim.
While the family's immediate needs have been met, says Chambers, the committee is growing more concerned with their long-term support. The most pressing issue, she says, is finding regular employment for the parents.
Juan has a temporary job earning minimum wage as a gardener, and Rosa has picked up a housecleaning job. By working at other odd jobs, they're able to pay for their food and rent. But in a few months, Chambers notes, the first freeze will put an end to Juan's job.
Finding steady work may hinge on how quickly the Palacioses learn English. For three hours each weekday they attend English as a second language classes offered by the city's Adult Basic Education Program. It is not easy for them. They arrived knowing only a few words of English. But they will learn, they say. After all, this is their home.
"We feel very happy here because we feel like these are our family," says Rosa. "We are not alone anymore."
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