“Can we ever sleep in peace?”: Resettlement experiences of Burundian Refugees in an East Tennessee Community

Social, economic, behavioral, and environmental factors interact to influence the health and well-being of individuals worldwide. Research indicates that refugees often experience limited access to health and social services. Even more, many political refugees who experience post migratory adaptation in a foreign country can experience inordinate shortages of most resources that would otherwise be available to them in their countries of origin. Important to assisting in the successful integration of political refugees into a given community is the detection of the resource base to which each person may or may not have access, in addition to the lack of cultural appropriateness of services and treatment, and the limited capacity of resources that address displacement-related psychological stress. During the summer of 2007, a surge of Burundian arrivals stressed an otherwise unprepared systemic infrastructure in TN. System agencies were overloaded with the resource demand necessary to address the unique needs of significant numbers of arriving Burundian families. In order to assess the needs of the local Burundian population, 6 focus groups were conducted between June 2008–February 2009. The Burundians who participated in these focus groups talked at great length about the migration process from Africa to America and their frustrations with the resettlement process. Four themes emerged in the course of these interviews. These themes were: Loss of Family, Inaccessible Resources, the Role of Powerful Others, and Broken Expectations. Each theme will be discussed in detail as well as other persistent social justice themes noted throughout the focus group transcripts.