From War to “Refuge”:

A Case-Study of Liberian
Refugees Resettled in
South Bend, Indiana
By Mary Kathleen Dingeman
 INTRODUCTION
• The histories of the United
States and Liberia are
intimately tied through the
process of migration.

• Shortly after the dawn of the

Liberian civil war in 1989, the
United States Refugee Program
began to offer legal entry and
resettlement benefits to
Liberian refugees.

• A community of fifty-nine © Library of Congress, Geography and

Liberian refugees have been Map Division
resettled into South Bend,
Indiana since 2003.
 PURPOSE STATEMENT
• Grounded in the theory of
segmented assimilation and the
concepts of social capital, this
study employs ethnographic
methods to explore the link
between the characteristics of the
Liberian community and the
structure of American society.

• It identifies whether the

community currently possesses
the social antecedents necessary
to surmount downward
assimilation into America’s
“culture of poverty.”
 LITERATURE REVIEW

• “Traditional Assimilationists”:
• Park (1928)
• Warner and Srole (1945)
• Milton Gordon (1964)

• Segmented Assimilation
• Portes and Zhou (1993)
 SEGMENTED ASSIMILATION
• There are three possible ways in
which an immigrant group may
incorporate:
• Upward Assimilation
• Downward Assimilation
• Upward Economic Mobility paired
with Ethnic Solidarity

• Mode of incorporation is dependent

upon interaction between three
factors:
• Government Policy
• Societal Reception
© 2003 Los Angeles Times
• Co-ethnic Community
 SOCIAL CAPITAL THEORY
• The means by which an ethnic
community may strengthen its co-
ethnic community is through the
creation of social capital.

• Social capital is defined as, “those

expectations for action within a
collectivity that affect the
economic goals and goal-seeking
behavior of its members, even if
these expectations are not
orientated toward the economic
sphere” (Portes and
Sensenbrenner 1993:1323).
© 1999 by Phillip Martin
 BOUNDED SOLIDARITY
• Bounded solidarity is a form of
social capital that results in:
• Preference for co-ethnics in
economic transactions
• Altruistic support of community
members and goals

• There must be a presence of three

social antecedents for bounded
solidarity creation:
• Blockage of exit option
• Outside discrimination
• Preservation of an autonomous
cultural repertoire
 DATA AND METHODS
• Ethnographic methods on a case-
study of first generation refugees
resettled in South Bend, Indiana
between 2003 and 2005 by
Refugee and Immigration Services
of South Bend.

• Purposively chose five principle

informants.

• Two to three extensive interviews

with each principle informant.

• Attended community functions

 FINDINGS

“In the long journey of

becoming American, the
progress of immigrants
depends heavily on the
social structure of the host
society and the social
structure of the immigrant
groups” (Zhou and Bankston
1998:240).

© 2003 Los Angeles Times

 FINDINGS – Community Characteristics
• Fifty-nine community members

• Equal mix of men and women

• Indigenous Liberians mostly from

tribes found in west Liberia

• Speak tribal tongues and Liberian

English

• Largely illiterate and not formally

educated

• In Africa, mostly vendors, farmers,

and other unskilled workers © 1999 b Phillip Martin
 FINDINGS – Structural Barriers
• It is difficult to find full-time
employment with benefits:

“I come to this country from my

country where I was always
working, working. Africa is hard.
Now, I am here and I am just
sitting. There is no work for me.
I am sitting and sitting and eating
and eating and my children in
Africa, they are always calling me
crying, crying. There is nothing I
can do because I have no money
to send to them.”
© 1999 by Phillip Martin
 FINDINGS – Structural Barriers
• They have become dependent upon
welfare and subsidized housing.

“Ah, Corby Homes? O, you mean

the refugee camp!”

• They are in close proximity to

African American community, a
community into which they do not
want to assimilate.

“I hate lazy people; people who are

not trying to do better for themself
and their family. The Black
Americans, they are lazy people.
This is why I do not like them.”
 FINDINGS – Social Antecedents
• It is clear that there is a blockage of
exit option and that the Liberians
face structural discrimination. Do
they preserve an autonomous
cultural repertoire?

• Transportation
• Babysitting
• Liberian Association support

“Once you have this baby, it will

not be yours. It will belong to the
community. People will be coming
to check up on it to make sure you
are taking good care of it.”
 FINDINGS – The Co-Ethnic Community
• They recognize that there are certain
things that they need / would like
that cannot be done within the
community.

• One man states:

“I am a poor man. The other
Liberians, they are poor too.”

• His wife says:

“Oh, [Corby Homes] is good! We help
each other. Some people, they are
working; others, they are watching the
children.”

• He adds:
“But you (referring to me) know the
country. You can help to teach us
things that we can’t do ourself.”

• Frequently call employees of RISSB,

sponsors, members of their church,
and me to address “green card”
problems, tutor them in ESL, teach
them to use the Internet, etcetera.
 DISCUSSION
• At this point, the Liberians have
established a cultural repertoire.
However, it has not reached the point
of autonomy.

• This can be attributed to the small

number of refugees in South Bend, and
the relative homogeneity of the group.

• Discrimination prevents them from

accessing a lot of the country’s
resources, forcing them to reach out to
the few members of the “core” with
whom they have established
relationships.

• This could have important implications

for the future of the Liberian
population.
 DISCUSSION
• It is too early to determine how future
generations of Liberians will adapt to
American society.

• It is necessary to do more research.

Some suggested topics:

• Fieldwork in Liberia to analyze the

diffusion of American culture and
determine whether certain “American”
traits were present prior to migration
• Ethnographic work analyzing the
children’s experiences
• Network analysis to determine whether
the few ties to the “core” will serve to
be of equal or more importance then
the dense network to the community
• Analysis of relations between Liberian
refugees and Liberian immigrants
• Longitudinal analysis over many years