Loose Leaf Notes

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on October 8, 2020.

“I hope to create a village where legal asylum seekers can live and prosper. We give them a hand-up to help them get on their feet because when they get here they are at the absolute bottom,” said Floyd Friends of Asylum Seekers (FFOAS) founder Tara Orlando.

Orlando, who launched the non-profit, volunteer-based organization in December of 2018, was herself a refugee when she was five years old and her family was escaping a violent revolution in the Dominican Republic.  She was born in Florida to a Dominican mother who came to the U.S. through Ellis Island and was naturalized in 1959. Her father was a first generation American of Irish and Italian heritage.  She grew up in the Dominican Republic and Europe before coming to the U.S. when she was twelve and recalls spending a few months in barracks in Puerto Rico during her time as a refugee.

Today, the FFOAS has nearly 700 members with about 500 from Floyd County and others from the region, out of state or worldwide. Initially, the group of volunteers met South and Central American asylum seekers who were coming from ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention centers on their way to sponsors (usually family members) at bus stations in Roanoke and Wytheville. Before the coronavirus pandemic curbed easy travel and human interaction, they provided asylum seekers with backpack care packages, clothes, shoes, toiletries, snack bags, home-cooked meals and stuffed animals for the children.

Orlando gave each asylum seeker that she met a journal with a written welcome, an apology for the treatment they received during detention and her phone number in the event they needed help. Some did call and some settled in Floyd County, where they await their asylum court hearings, which takes an average of 3 – 5 years, Orlando said.

“We have nine families that have settled here in the county,” Orlando said.  “I’ve been watching them rise. They work hard. They just want to better themselves and their families, like all our ancestors did when they came here.”

Orlando is a mother and grandmother who runs a small business, Green Deva Bath & Body Products, but due to the pandemic and the cancellations of shows, her business is on hold. She estimates that she spends 70 – 80 volunteer hours a week supporting asylum seekers in the county, taking them to dental, doctor and attorney appointments, enrolling children in school and participating in twice-weekly ESL (English as a second language) with the help of literacy volunteers and VA Tech students.

Recently, Orlando attended a Refugee Resettlement Conference in Richmond where she learned that there are some local land federal resources for refugees, but there are zero services provided to asylum seekers fleeing what Orlando described as “just horrible situations.” “If they accept any government assistance their case will be denied.”

They come to this country with their prized possessions on them, along with passports and credentials, which are taken when they are detained, Orlando explained.  She is preparing to make a trip to the Mexican Embassy in Washington DC to see if she can help some of the Floyd asylum seekers retrieve their documents or have them reissued. “These are legal asylum seekers who have done everything right,” Orlando said.

The Trump administration recently passed an executive order, set to take effect in January, that no asylum seeker can get a green card, which would permit them to get a job, Orlando reported. But there is nothing in the order that blocks asylum seekers from being self-employed, which some of the Floyd asylum seekers currently are. A house painter, a master carpenter and a drywall installer have joined together to form a construction company, and they are fully booked, Orlando said.

“They are contributing members of our community already,” Orlando remarked, sharing that some work as gardeners and landscapers, one makes jewelry and another makes piñatas and sells them on the FFAS group page. She spoke of a couple of asylees who make tamales and empanadas and distribute them to FFOAS members.

Orlando would like to have a certified kitchen in the village she is working to create, so that asylum seekers could cater food for a living. She has organized a Gofundme page (which can be accessed via the FFOAS webpage at floydfriendsofasylumseekers.org) to raise money to buy land that would house a central building with a bathhouse and certified kitchen, a laundry facility, composting toilets and gathering space with gardens throughout a cluster of tiny houses in the round.

Currently the Floyd asylum seekers are in trailers, but Orlando is worried about how they will fare this winter and is focused on getting them out of the trailers.  “They have mold. They leak and are not insulated,” she said about the trailers.

At a recent ESL class, held outdoors under a tent and tarp, nineteen-year-old Magdalena practiced her English, stating her name and asking a visitor, ‘how are you?’ The young mother, who is Guatemalan and Mexican, speaks Native Mayan, but responded in Spanish when asked how she feels about living in the U.S. “I feel safer here. There, whenever I went out it was a big problem,” she said. When asked how she felt about what the FFOAS group does for her, she expressed her gratitude and said (via a translator), “Without them, we wouldn’t even know what to do.”

Linda Jilk, Executive Director of the Literacy Volunteers of the New River Valley (LVNRV), was on hand for the ESL classes (2), which involved reviewing conversational English, reciting the English alphabet, counting and making money transactions. Jilk explained that the organization provides English learning and basic literacy and GED training. They train and match volunteers with volunteer opportunities and placements. “Last year we served 294 adults in the NRV, all with amazing volunteers,” Jilk said. One of the LVNRV volunteers, Sophia Levine, who is a Virginia Tech student with a minor in Spanish, led the main ESL class. Other volunteers helped with small groups teaching.

The Jessie Peterman Library is also partnering with the FFOAS ESL program.  Assistant Branch Manager, Lisa Thompson has been helping take care of the babies and children while the adults in the community attend the ESL classes.  She brought crayons for coloring and books from the library to keep the youngest ones engaged.

“My intention here is to try and keep families together and to try to preserve their heritage, customs and languages,” Orlando said. She also organizes activities, such as a drumming circles in Lineberry Park, to help integrate the asylees and has helped deliver a couple of their babies. “We really need some donations to keep this going,” she stressed.

“They’re not interested in taking anything away from anyone,” Orlando said of the asylees. “They simply want to have the same chances as others to better their lives. They are land-based people who fit well in a rural setting, and they come to Floyd with contributable skills,” she said.

__________Colleen Redman

Photos: 1. Lisa Thompson, Jessie Peterman Library’s Assistant, keeps a young child engaged during the adult ESL class. 2. FFAS founder Tara Orlando (center) brought donated winter clothes for the migrants before the start of recent ESL classes. 3. A recent outdoor ESL class. 4. Asylees practice conversational English directed by literacy volunteers. Executive Director of the Literacy Volunteers of the New River Valley, Linda Jilk, is pictured to the far left.