Coming to America: One Woman's Journey

In 1984, 18-year-old Rita Haile came to Georgia as a refugee from Eritrea.  She was a senior in high school and newly married.    

Haile's family left Eritrea much earlier than that, when Rita was just three years old. They lived in refugee camps in the U.S. through a lottery system. Her parents still live in the Sudan.    

“I was glad to come [to the States],” Haile said, “but leaving my family was so difficult.”

She did not see her parents again until six years after she arrived. She visited them in 1991, then again in 1998, but that was the last time. 

“My parents can’t come visit because there is no American embassy in the Sudan,” she said.  “Now they are aging.” 

She and her husband were initially settled in Clarkston, Ga., one of the prime refugee settlement areas in Georgia. Nearly 60,000 refugees have come through the area since the 1990s, according to refugee workers.

It took Haile about three months to begin to communicate in English.  

“I had a difficult time in high school because they had never seen anyone from another country,” she recalled, “so for them to hear me speak, they were like, ‘wow, that’s strange!’ because of my accent.”  

She was laughed at and mocked, and she eventually put in for a transfer with the help of her principal. She completed her education at North Fulton High School, a school that participated in the “majority-to-minority” program. Rooted in the Deep South's desegregation efforts, the program sent mostly students of neighborhoods that were majority black to schools in neighborshoods where there was little racial diversity. The program ended in 1999. There were numerous other refugees there, thanks to the efforts taken by schools systems to diversify schools. 

From the time she came to Georgia, Haile worked full time and attended classes. She graduated on time and put herself through training to become a translator. She has a degree in translation and interpretation and speaks Tigryna, Bilen, Tigre, Arabic, English, Amharic and Kunama. She is also certified for legal and medical translation and interpretation. 

As one of few people who speaks all those languages, she is in high demand.

Her work as an interpreter brings her to the homes of many new refugee families, as well as hospitals and court rooms all throughout Georgia.  She has worked with about 2,000 refugees in the Snellville area over a span of twenty years.  

A member of First Baptist Church of Snellville, Haile considers the town to be very welcoming to foreigners. 

“I have to show what kind of person I am,” she said.  “The people here see the value of the person. I’ve always been welcomed no matter what the color of my skin.” 

At times, she has witnessed prejudice against new people coming into the area, particularly if their culture or traditions are very different.  

“If you explain it to them, they are very quick to understand and accept other people,” she said.  “In general people are very good here about accepting others.” 

Haile has four children, ages 23, 21, 8 and 7. Her oldest is studying chemistry and physics at Georgia State University, and her second-oldest is studying biology at Emory University.  

In 2009, Human Rights Watch said that Eritrea’s “extensive detention and torture of its citizens and its policy of prolonged military conscription are creating a human rights crisis and prompting increasing numbers of Eritreans to flee the country.” 

Refugees from Eritrea continue to pour into the U.S.  The Kunama, a people group on the border of Ethiopia and Eritrea, have a strong presence in Clarkston. Haile works with them frequently.  

Next week, we will feature a church in Snellville that works with refugees on a regular basis.  We will also introduce you to another woman with an amazing story who came to Snellville as a refugee.