History

For over 200 years, Utica, New York, a city of 60,000 has attracted immigrants and refugees.  The immigrant communities that have settled in the city include Italian, Irish, German, Polish, and Arab populations.  In the past 30 years, Utica has been host to more than 13,000 refugees. 

This phenomenon has been the subject of numerous national and international news articles and has provided Oneida County with the fourth highest concentration of refugees in the U.S. and the City of Utica with a refugee population of nearly 12%. 

Refugees have been resettled to the region by The Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees (MVRCR), one of the largest resettlement agencies in the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service network. 

The Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees grew out of the inspiration of Roberta Douglas whose concern for Amerasian children led her to work with refugees.  Her efforts began with the resettlement of a single Vietnamese man through Catholic Charities in Syracuse. 

With the assistance of her husband, a group of local clergy, the Superintendent of Utica Schools, the Oneida County Executive, and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the Center was officially established in 1979 and incorporated in 1981 with Roberta Douglas as the first executive director.

Since its inception, the Center has assisted refugees from more than 31 countries, including Bosnia, Cambodia, Czechoslovakia, Haiti, Hungary, Laos, Poland, Romania, the former Soviet Union, Vietnam, Sudan, Somalia Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, China, Somalia, Burma and others.

In 1983, Rose Marie Battisti became the executive director.  The Resource Center for Refugees grew and prospered during her 10-year term.  Refugee placement numbers continually increased, with the arrival of many Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese and Polish refugees.  By 1993, the refugee arrivals had increased to 370 per year.

A major accomplishment for Ms. Battisti and the Resource Center for Refugees was the establishment of the Welcome Home House, a part of the Amerasian Residential Program (ARP).  The Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1990 allowed outcast children fathered by American soldiers during the Vietnam War the right to come to their fathers’ homeland.

The concept of ARP was to eliminate the 6-month stop for Amerasians at the Philippines Processing Center before entry into the U.S.  Groups of 75 young people were brought to Utica every three months, beginning in July of 1991 and ending in October 1992. 

Housed in the former Dixhurst Building at the Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center on Court Street, they were taught English as a Second Language (ESL), vocational skills and cultural orientation to American life.  At the end of this training period, they were relocated to one of five centers around the country.

The third large wave of refugees began in 1988 with the arrival of the first families from the former Soviet Union.  These, mostly Pentecostal Russians, came to escape religious persecution.  At the close of 1996, the Russians were our largest group, numbering close to 1,400.

Richard P. Sessler became the executive director in 1993 when Rose Marie left the position to assume the directorship of the Welcome House Social Services for the Pearl S. Buck Foundation.  Sessler, a retired Air Force officer, had served the Refugee Resource Center as assistant director for three years. 

He brought sound management and diplomatic skills to the position.  Under his direction, refugee arrivals and staff members tripled in response to the resettlement of Bosnian refugees to the U.S.

The fourth major population influx began in 1993 when Congress voted to include Bosnian refugees in the U.S. refugee allotment.  In the first year of the program, the Resource Center for Refugees relocated 79 Bosnians. 

By the end of 1997 the agency had resettled nearly 2,500 Bosnians, making them our largest population to date.  Bosnian refugees and their sponsored families now equal a population of nearly 5,000, though today the numbers of new arrivals have greatly decreased. 

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 drastically impacted refugee resettlement to the U.S.  The number of resettled refugees has declined from an average of 70,000 annually before 2001 to 28,000 in 2003.  The impact on the Resource Center for Refugees has been substantial.  In 2003, the Center resettled only 256 refugees.

In 2002, Mr. Sessler retired and Peter D. Vogelaar became the executive director.  Mr. Vogelaar has lived and worked in the Middle East for much of his life.  Before coming to the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, he served with the Reformed, Lutheran, and Presbyterian Churches as director of the Joint Relief Ministry for refugees at St. Andrew’s United Church in Cairo.

In 2003, the Board of Directors instituted a formal strategic planning process to analyze the ongoing activities of the center, consider new directions, and propose revisions to the center’s mission.  Two strategic directions were proposed, each building on the strengths of the center’s experience and position in the community:

• Strengthen and solidify the center’s existing resettlement programs for refugees. 
• Enhance programs for non-refugee immigrants and position the center as a cultural broker to the community. 

In March 2004, the Board of Directors adopted a new mission statement:  We promote the well-being of culturally diverse individuals and families within our community by welcoming our new neighbors, refugees and immigrants, and by providing individual and community-centered activities designed to create opportunity and facilitate understanding.  The Center’s new vision is:  Many cultures, one community.

The new strategic directions of the center reflect the presence and needs of the growing refugee and non-refugee immigrants in our community, estimated to be approximately 15% of Utica’s population. 

MVRCR is already actively working to fulfill these new strategic directions. 

• MVRCR is focused on enabling individuals and communities to promote and sustain their cultural identity.  The center is collaborating with the Mohawk Valley Latino Association (MVLA) and the African Alliance as they work to solidify their organizations within the community.  MVRCR offers these groups and others an opportunity to share facilities and services that will provide the necessary tools to build long-term relationships in their respective ethnic communities and in the Utica community.  We are excited to announce that the Latino Association opened an office in April at our site.
• MVRCR is also striving to increase access to medical assistance to Limited English Proficiency (LEP) individuals within the community.  We recently completed contractual agreements with Faxton-St. Luke’s Healthcare and St. Elizabeth Medical Center to provide interpretation-translation services that will enhance the support system for Utica’s growing immigrant population.  These services provide Limited English Proficiency patients critical access to medical services.  Currently, the center is able to provide interpretation-translation services in 21 languages, including Albanian, Arabic (Iraqi and Sudanese Dialect), Arakanese, Bosnian, Burmese, Croatian, Hindu, Karen, Kiswahili, Kurdish, Mai Mai, Malaysian, Nepali, Pao, Russian, Serbian, Somalian, Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese. (Subject to change)  We are actively recruiting potential interpreters in these and other languages who will be professionally trained to provide quality interpretation.
• MVRCR seeks to enhance the provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate services in the community.  The center’s objective is to provide fee-based cross-cultural competence training and technical assistance.  The program is designed to help educators, service providers and business managers, effectively deliver service to clients and manage personnel from different cultural backgrounds.

 

MVRCR is poised to become a leader as a multi-cultural institute.  MVRCR remains a nationally recognized leader in refugee services.  Today the refugee population being resettled is increasingly diverse with individuals and families from the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Burma, Somalia, Liberia and many other countries. 

We attribute our success to the strength and dedication of the staff and their passionate concern for refugees and immigrants.  Equally important to our success is the warm welcome refugees and non-refugee immigrants continue to receive from Utica’s community.

Top