Portland took in close to 2,000 refugees yearly, until the U.S. State Department implemented lengthier background checks following the attacks. Now, about 1,200 refugees arrive in Portland each year.

It may be less than the pre-9/11 peak, but that number still keeps Outer Northeast Portland’s Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization’s (IRCO) employees, most of them former refugees themselves, scrambling to get their clients acclimated to Portland’s sometimes bewildering environment.

The refugees come from Eastern Europe and from countries like Burundi, Ethiopia, Somalia and Myanmar, said Rowanne Haley, manager of community and donor relationships.

“Some of them have never seen traffic, television or even running water,” she said.

And, certainly, many of the children of those refugees have never before been personally introduced to Santa Claus – until Thursday, Dec. 20, that is when IRCO invited Santa to its gymnasium at 10301 N.E. Glisan St. While the jolly old fellow held little ones on his lap, elves distributed gifts and tried to keep throngs of eager children from surging onto the stage.

“Some of them are the children of Burundian parents who have been living in refugee camps for 30 years,” Haley said.

For many refugees, Santa and his bountiful sack of toys symbolize the advantages the United States has to offer, like free education, abundant food and freedom from persecution.

And, for the adults, Santa’s main helper is the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization.

Wherever they flee from, initially, every adult refugee in Portland gets assessed at Outer Northeast Portland’s IRCO, where they are taught the ways of American culture and get help learning English and finding employment. While the parents learn tasks like how to take a bus, ride MAX and read signs, their children are already enrolled in local public schools.

Often, the first workshop a refugee takes at IRCO is on basic English language survival skills.

“Someone coming in from Cuba, that’s an easier client for us to deal with because they have great education and literacy,” Haley said. “But for a Somali Bantu, their language doesn’t even have a written form.”

Nevertheless, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, a nonprofit, does find jobs for the refugees, Haley said, even if it means some are hired to gut fish or slaughter chickens.

“The goal is self sufficiency,” she said.

At first, refugees earn about $8 to $10 an hour at their new jobs, but they tend to advance quickly, she said.

“They are willing to work. They will have two or three jobs each,” Haley said. “They see enormous opportunity here.”

By Merry Mackinnon

The Gresham Outlook

Immigrant children, many from conflict-torn nations, see Santa for the first time

By Nikole Hannah-Jones
The Oregonian

The children didn’t laugh or race about as they entered the winter wonderland with the sparkling white Christmas trees, dancing gingerbread men and enormous lollipops. They didn’t examine the mounds of brightly wrapped packages stuffed under the trees.

Instead, the babes folded somberly to the floor. No giggles. Barely even a fidget.

“Look at these children,” Victoria Libov says sadly. “They are not smiling. It doesn’t come naturally to them. But in America, it will.”

The world, with all its sorrows and conflicts and pain, came to see Santa Thursday. Children of every hue and scattered from their homes across the globe, gathered in a Northeast Portland gymnasium to find the joy of Christmas.

But as first they just didn’t know how. Long perilous journeys brought most of 240 children to the United States just months and for some just weeks ago. They escaped conflict-torn places such as Somalia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan and Myanmar, the nation formerly know as Burma. Some had lived their entire lives in refugee camps.

And now, the sat in a fantasyland put on by the Immigration and “Refugee community Organization, or IRCO, which helps refugees in Portland with jobs, Housing and language skills.

“Do you guys hear Santa?” a woman called out in a language they didn’t understand. The children stared, their eyes shifting back and forth and then locking on the white guy with the long beard and funny looking hat.

He snatched up a glass and chugged. “Santa Loves milk!”

Snickers escaped the mouths of a couple of kids. And prodded by adults, a few walked up timidly and shook his hand. Then they were directed to the presents, separated by gender and age, and told they each could have one.

A boy in a camouflage jacket grabbed the biggest one- a large rectangle sheathed in bright green. Girls in scarlet hijabs or in flowered head scarves took turns sitting on Santa’s lap and then picked packages for themselves.

They sat again, their arms wrapped around the gifts. As the first child tore into his box, smiles flooded the room. They threw paper to the floor as they unwrapped fire trucks and skateboards, soccer balls and baby dolls.

The room for the first time exploded with the laughter of children. A Burmese boy showed his new board game to a boy from the Ivory Coast who had just opened A Walkman.

“I’m happy and having a great time,” Khin Win Paw said through a translator. The Burmese girl had never live outside of Southeast Asian refugee camp until she came to Portland three months ago. She didn’t know who that red-suited man was, but she like him. Her father watched nearby.

“I’m so grateful,” Htay Win said. “I want my kids to be happy and have a Christmas because they’ve never had one before.” It doesn’t matter, he says, that the family is Buddhist. Life has been hard and he wants them to know joy.

That is why Luz Toledo, a job coach for IRCO and Venezuelan immigrant, started the Christmas party a year ago. “A lot of these kids have never seen Santa or had gifts,” Toledo said. “I wanted them to experience that, to be a part of it.”

She paused tearing up. “This is to welcome them and show them love. That we’re just one big family.”

The world came to see Santa Thursday, with all its sorrows and conflict and pain. And for just a few hours, the world smiled.