City of Refugees: The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town

 by Susan Hartman, 2022, 256 pages, hardback, e-book, and audiobook

In this engaging book, journalist Susan Hartman followed three refugee families living in Utica, New York for eight years.  She shows how the influx of refugees into Utica has helped revive this struggling upstate old manufacturing city.

In the 1970’s, the factories in Utica downsized then closed. Thousands of people lost their jobs. Utica’s population, which was 100,000 in 1960, dropped to 60,000 in 2000. The city’s economic decline led to gang violence, drug dealing, and frequent arson, but left behind plentiful and inexpensive housing.

 

The inexpensive housing provided homes for the refugee families, including the three Hartman profiled in this book:

·         Mersiha Omeragic, a refugee from Bosnia, runs a bakery business from her home, teaches English at the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, and recently opened a café/bakery downtown.

·         Sadia, a Somali Bantu teen, arrived with her family from a Kenyan refugee camp. She struggles with her mother about Americanizing too fast and  tries to cope with the demands of an American high school.

·         Ali, an Iraqi with traumatic war experiences, returns to Iraq as a translator for the American army to provide for his family in Utica.

 

As their lives changed, so did the city of Utica. The population of the city is now 65,000 people, a quarter of which are refugees and their families. Downtown has been revitalized, including construction of a big new hospital and new apartment buildings. People are moving into the city, instead of moving out.

 

In this immersive study, Hartman illuminates the humanity of these outsiders, while demonstrating the crucial role immigrants play in the economy and society of America.