{"id":2467,"date":"2016-02-18T00:37:15","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T00:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2016\/02\/18\/new-american-voices-family-escapes-repression-finds-peace-central-ohio\/"},"modified":"2016-02-18T00:37:15","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T00:37:15","slug":"new-american-voices-family-escapes-repression-finds-peace-central-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/new-american-voices-family-escapes-repression-finds-peace-central-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"New American Voices: Family Escapes Repression, Finds Peace In Central Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the latest installment of 89.7\u2019s New American Voices series, a profile of Tursunay Awut, a member of the Eurasian ethnic group known as Uyghurs. She and her family left China several years ago and eventually settled in Bexley.<\/p>\n

By SAM HENDREN
\nFEB 15, 2016<\/p>\n

In the latest installment of 89.7\u2019s New American Voices<\/em> series, a profile of Tursunay Awut, a member of the Eurasian ethnic group known as Uyghurs. She and her family left China several years ago and eventually settled in Bexley.<\/p>\n

For centuries, tensions have simmered between Uyghurs and their rulers especially in China where there are as many as 15 million.    <\/p>\n

TV Documentary: The Uyghurs are Turkic speaking Sunni Muslims who\u2019ve been ruled by local warlords, Chinese emperors, and Mongolian raiders, with only brief tastes of independence. <\/em><\/p>\n

In this documentary from Journeyman Pictures a group of Uyghurs complains about the injustices they suffer.  Equality with Chinese one Uyghur says, is a lie. <\/p>\n

The communist government says Uyghurs propagate separatist notions.  A Uyghur who came to Central Ohio from China says their customs, traditions and religion are all sources of friction.   Tursunay Awut says life under the Chinese regime was difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey push you, you know?  School.  Job.  Any place.  It\u2019s just hard to you. For China\u2019s peoples it\u2019s different. For us it\u2019s just hard and dangerous. <\/em><\/p>\n

So after 30 years, Tursunay, along with her husband, left China for Kazakhstan.  There they appealed for United Nations refugee status.  The UN told them to wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say, \u2018Okay, just wait.  They cannot choose which country they can send you to.\u2019 So my two daughters [were] born in Kazakhstan,\u201d Tursunay says. <\/em><\/p>\n

After three years the family learned they were headed to the U.S.  They settled outside Washington, D.C. But even with her husband working seven days a week, Tursunay says the family couldn\u2019t make ends meet.<\/p>\n

\u201cRent is very expensive.  For immigrants and refugees it\u2019s hard to live there, you know? And then we were just thinking, the United States have 50 states, you know?  We can choose like [a] cheaper [place],\u201d Tursunay says.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how they found Columbus. The family of five arrived in 2013, but after only a few months living on the South Side, Tursunay says they discovered a bullet hole in their front door. They were scared, she says.  So they recently moved to Bexley.<\/p>\n

\u201cBexley is a very nice and a clean and a quiet place.  The neighborhood is also very nice.  The school also.  The kids like it also.  The kids like anywhere.  They\u2019re happy for us,\u201d she says.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tursunay says she\u2019s just as happy with the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere is like you\u2019re free.  We like it here.  We like the USA, yeah, and religion\u2019s free and anything is free.  China is not a democracy,\u201d Tursunay says.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tursunay says she cannot understand the Chinese government\u2019s attitude toward Uyghurs where they\u2019re treated worse than second class citizens. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t understand why it is, you know, if China\u2019s government keeps us like this, you know, if China\u2019s government was not hard like pushing us, most of the people, they like us, but, I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s political.  I don\u2019t know,\u201d Tursunay says.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tursunay says her family has been spreading the word about Columbus to other Uyghurs. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter we came here last year [indistinct] families from California moved here, after we tell them, you know, what happened here.  California is also very expensive.  And then one family from Virginia, also.  Right now with us there are three families,\u201d Tursunay says.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tursunay says she\u2019s happy she\u2019s found her new home.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I\u2019m so happy.  We all like it, you know?  Yeah, I have job, my kids are in school, we live in Bexley right now.  Yeah.  We\u2019re okay now,\u201d Tursunay says.<\/em><\/p>\n

Support for New American Voices comes from Ohio Humanities.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the latest installment of 89.7\u2019s New American Voices series, a profile of Tursunay Awut, a member of the Eurasian ethnic group known as Uyghurs. She and her family left China several years ago and eventually settled in Bexley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2467"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}