A REFUGE FOR THEM ALL

By Colleen Douglass

MY CITY —Los Angeles—is a real melting pot. A cornucopia of ethnicities. On one street where I lived, I had Black, Indian, Korean, White, Hispanic, and Chinese neighbors. We came from diverse socioeconomic and religious backgrounds. Some families, like mine, were Christian. Others were Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, atheist, and Islamic. Most on our immediate street were professionals—educators, writers, stock traders, importers, artists, composers, actors, and restaurateurs. Just a couple of blocks away, homes were filled with blue-collar workers. It was a rich neighborhood, not so much in money, but in cultural diversity.

In any town with a similar mix, almost everyone has a story about how they or their ancestors landed in America. Some tales are heartwarming; others heartbreaking. Our city becomes increasingly diverse, in part, by accepting refugees from every corner of the earth, including our own. While the melange in such a city is colorful and stimulating, some of our newest residents hint at a humanitarian challenge of global proportions. In the year 2001, estimates placed refugees at 14.9 million, and internally displaced persons at 22 million worldwide—not to mention those with no country. Among refugees, Palestinians are the oldest and largest group, constituting one fourth of that total population.

But another group, from Sudan's Darfur region, is particularly problematic. Recently on PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, United States Senator Bill Frist called the situation in Darfur "currently the greatest humanitarian tragedy of our times" ("Crisis in Sudan," September 15, 2004). More than one million Africans have been displaced and over 30,000 killed in what the United States government now calls genocide. This particular brand of ethnic cleansing is based on skin color, not religion.