Like many stories, it started with a kiss. Except for one 15-year-old girl, it wasn’t the start of a typical teenage first romance story, but the end of her life as she knew it. That one innocent act would see her expelled from school, shamed by a public caning, abandoned by her family and made a pariah in her community.
Her crime? Kissing a girl.
Forced out of school, Alice, whose name has been changed for safety reasons, underwent threats of assault, rigorous prayer sessions to banish her “demons” and complete social isolation. In the east African country of Uganda, Christianity dominates cultural and social attitudes. “In such a faith-based country, anything that the Bible says is wrong is wrong,” said Alice. “They called me evil.”
At the time, the punishment for homosexuality in Uganda was life imprisonment. As of 2014, it’s the death penalty.
“About 60 to 70% of asylum seekers we get are from [Uganda and Jamaica],” said Al Green, LGBT Asylum Task Force Director in Worcester, himself an asylum seeker from Jamaica. A ministry of Hadwen Park Church, it supports LGBTQI individuals who are fleeing such persecution in their home countries. Others come from other African countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Morocco as well as the South American nations of Brazil, Colombia and Honduras, along with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, same-sex relationships between consenting adults are criminalized in 70 countries. The Task Force readily supports these individuals, who oftentimes arrive with just the clothes on their back. In addition to helping navigate the asylum process, they provide a place to stay and help in finding work. While starting over in a new country under such circumstances is a daunting prospect, for people like Alice it is a challenge they gladly accept, as it cannot be worse than what it took to get here.
After her mother died, Alice’s father had her married off to an older man, the start of seven years of constant abuse. She called them, “the worst years of my life, forced to do unspeakable things, and punished for almost anything.” After a couple of years, she gave up trying to stay alive, and in fact, Alice said she “hoped that he would come back particularly drunk and kill me because I just wanted my life to end.”
After engineering a harrowing escape, Alice found out she was pregnant. In the end, she had little choice but to keep the baby since abortion is illegal in Uganda and there is no equivalent of Western-style adoption. With the help of good Samaritans, she finished her high school education, got a job, and began to support herself and her child, though her sexual orientation remained a closely guarded secret. However, when she learned that small grassroots organizations were trying to coordinate aid to the LGBTQI community in Uganda, despite the hostile climate, she joined the fledgling efforts.
Though the risks were substantial, until this point, Alice thought she had just been existing, with her only goal being making ends meet. Now she had bigger dreams — a larger purpose beyond just survival. “I had never felt like I was worth anything or good at anything,” she said, “but just to know that I had reached out and given others the strength to stand up for themselves was much more than I could ever have imagined.”
That was the impetus Alice needed to stop caring what others thought of her. “I said, to hell with all these things” and stepped up her involvement in activities like fundraising, grant writing, connecting people with medical services. She had started out wanting to tell her story so others would know they were not alone but she ended up doing much more than that.
Alice soon got involved in efforts to help LGBTQ Ugandans in rural areas of the country. This decision would set off a chain of events that would see her not only leave her home country but cross a continent and an ocean to end up in Worcester.
Though survival was no longer her only concern, it still rated quite high. During that time, the country passed the 2014 anti-homosexuality law that shifted the sentence for gay individuals from life in prison to death, “so the hate was total.” All activities to support LGBTQ individuals were still very much underground, regarding how information was disseminated and how venues for meetings were not shared until the day, for fear of police raids and other violence. The organization she worked for changed phone numbers almost every month, trying to stay ahead of the authorities tracking them. Police and other government investigators soon caught up, and after the organization’s director’s home was raided and computers confiscated, activities and initiatives stopped entirely.
By this point, Alice was living with her girlfriend. Because she had a child, she was often able to deflect suspicion, and neighbors and acquaintances just assumed she and her partner were sisters. However, the constant fear of whether any seized material or interrogated colleagues would reveal their identities took its toll, and after the raid, they broke up for fear of being found out. “You always lived in fear of what information was out there about you,” Alice explained.
Worcester resident Lamar Brown-Noguera, who came to the U.S. in 2014 from Jamaica, agrees that inherent homophobia in a society has an insidious effect not only on those being actively targeted but also those doing their best to stay hidden. He also connected with the task force when he sought asylum and described his situation in his home country as debilitating — to not know when “you might receive ‘jungle justice’ and become another statistic.” The chronic stress and fear of looking over their shoulder impacts quality of life on all levels, from family to the social scene to the work space.
When Brown-Noguera first came to the U.S., he was torn between staying and going back home. But the “psychologically crippling” mental space that homophobia has created in the very masculine culture that dominates his country was what convinced him not to return. “There’s a religious cultural narrative that fosters a deep-seated element of homophobia and the queerness of men threatens that masculine cultural dominance,” he explained. In addition, there is no legal structure to protect those who may identify as LGBTQI, and by law, being gay is illegal and one can go to prison for 10 years maximum with “hard labor.”
The day Alice thought she might become a statistic came when she saw a car parked outside her workplace. As she kept her head down and kept walking, the car door opened and she said, “I just knew.” There had been stories about people being abducted and tortured so she started screaming for help when she was dragged to the car. “The next thing, I found myself in a room with that feeling where you think ‘this is it for me,’ that I would never see the light again.”
Two men interrogated her, claiming she was trying to overthrow the government, promote homosexuality, and take foreign aid to destabilize the country. She was held for over a week, tortured and assaulted and looking back on it, she admitted, “I think while I was there, part of me just died.” Shockingly, one of her captors smuggled her out in the back of a truck, only to leave her “in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.” Hitchhiking a ride back to town, she was able to make contact with her sister and was reunited with her son.
Unfortunately, this was only a momentary respite. Her sister’s family didn’t want her around — “trouble enough being a lesbian,” Alice explained, “but now that the authorities were after me, they wanted nothing to do with me.” Nevertheless, her sister borrowed money so Alice and her baby could flee the country to the U.S. Through the connections of a relative, she stayed with a Ugandan family where she did housework. With only one month on her legal visa and nowhere to turn, she was frantic about her future.
That was when she was assaulted by the man of the family, who threatened her into silence saying no one would believe her and he would have her son taken away to be “put in those cages because you’re illegal in this country.” Desperate for options, Alice wrote to an acquaintance about her situation, who invited her to a meeting of the LGBT Asylum Task Force in Worcester.
Asylum seekers are those who seek protection, often individually, because they have suffered persecution on the basis of race, religion, membership in a particular social or political group or for any other aspect of their identities. Refugees, on the other hand, come in larger groups under a government program.
Pastor Judy Hanlon, senior minister of Hadwen Park Congregational Church and co-founder of the Task Force, further clarifies that they cannot help refugees who get support, housing and “all the things that we provide our asylum seekers” from the federal government. The interchangeable use of the terms refugee and asylum seeker is common, according to her, but they try very hard to make sure that this essential difference is clear and it is why the Task Force exists. “It is a complicated situation and often difficult to understand but if they were refugees, there would be no need for us to spend thousands of dollars per month, which would come from the government.” Once refugees have been cleared for resettlement, the U.S. government works with national resettlement agencies to help them restart their lives in America.
At any time, the Task Force represents 24 to 28 asylum seekers, Green said, which costs around $30,000 per month. The task force has leases to several apartments in the city but last year, they were able to purchase a multi-unit building after a two-year search, which will go a long way toward reducing program costs.
“It has been a mixed year for us,” said Green, “while network events like monthly meals and workshops have been difficult, we have still been able to fundraise last year more than any other before.”
Though they took in more money, they are also spending more money during the pandemic, since quarantining incoming asylum seekers at hotels leads to more expenses. The Task Force has had to modify the intake process especially as the previous administration instituted a year-long pause on work permits, which meant they were supporting asylum seekers for that entire period while still receiving new arrivals. Usually asylum seekers are not allowed to work upon arrival but as they receive their authorization to work, they leave the program. Since that has been slow to happen in the past year, they were housing asylum seekers for longer than usual.
The organization assists asylum seekers who are here legally by providing housing, food, a small monthly stipend, a connection to pro bono attorneys, healthcare providers and mental health support. In addition, the organization also provides workshops that help asylum seekers acquire bank accounts and learn about their rights. It works with organizations across the city, including the Family Health Center of Worcester, Inc., which connects asylum seekers with primary care doctors and resources to help them through the process, focusing on a trauma-informed approach.
To be granted a work permit and a Social Security number, it may take asylum seekers more than a year — Alice only just received her work permit, despite having arrived in 2019. During that time, they are not eligible for most forms of governmental support, which can lead to desperate times. In fact, the Task Force was begun to help an asylum seeker from Jamaica who was starving and homeless while he was going through the process. Since 2008, it has helped more than 200 people from more than 20 countries gain asylum. “We have a 100 percent success rate,” said Green, who noted that because the task force provides housing and a stipend, it gives asylum seekers ample time to prepare a solid case.
Social, as well as legal, integration can be a bumpy road. Coming to Worcester in April 2014, Brown-Noguera had heard how Massachusetts is painted as a more liberal, open environment but he finds that he still has to moderate how vocal he can be about certain issues even in the LGBT community. “The complexities of my identity do not afford me the same opportunities as other activists may have,” so he tries to work more on the back end rather than being on the forefront of protests and causes that he supports. “Going to marches opens people up more to interactions with law enforcement and as a queer person of color, those encounters can entangle you in legal situations that could put an end to your immigration status.”
For example, he could attend a protest with an American citizen, and if they both got arrested, the American would be bailed and go home but for Brown-Noguera, ICE could be called in.
He calls it a “struggle to communicate with other queer activists” since it is difficult to be the voice that individuals expect you to be “when I don’t know what statements will affect my own immigration status/security.”
Brown-Noguera currently works for AIDS Project Worcester and runs the LGBTQ youth program. He also works with Fenway Health and is a member of Boston Public Health Commission HIV/AIDs initiative. In addition, he is part of Queer the Scene, a creative agency of Worcester queer community members working to raise queer and BIPOC voices through local partnerships, and help LGBTQ immigrants integrate into the community and further intersectionality.
That last one is close to Brown-Noguera’s heart and he remembers that black queer individuals first shouldered the burden of spotlighting queer issues. He is passionate about the importance of recognizing the importance of intersectionality in America, where queer life is painted as perfect but glosses over the struggles of those “integrating into American life” like people of color and newcomers.
“White privilege transcends all social groups and even being a white gay male offers a certain naivete, creates a bubble and insulates but cuts off curiosity to learn more ‘since it doesn’t affect me.’” Americans, he feels, want evidence of how being white makes their life easier rather than how not being white makes your life harder.
At the end of Alice’s first Task Force meeting, the organizers directed her to Hanlon as someone who could help her, who was understandably hesitant with the religious connection, as fundamentalist Christianity plays a major role in Uganda’s anti-LGBT policies. “My experience with church and pastors was different,” she commented darkly, “but Pastor Judy was amazing.”
Hanlon connected Alice with a gay couple who invited her to stay with them till the Task Force found a place for her to live, but her circumstances were further complicated when she found she was pregnant again from the assaults by the man in the family that she had trusted. “It felt like my life was going in circles,” she said. Discovering the Task Force changed everything and Alice was able to find legal resources and get a roof over her head. But, most importantly, the Task Force accepted and welcomed her as part of a new community.
They helped her choose between her options for the pregnancy and where Alice was once planning to give the newborn up for adoption, she changed her mind. Presently, having received her work authorization last month, she is now looking for work. “Here we are 11 months later.”
Seeking asylum is a lengthy process, but one that LGBT individuals are willing to wait out. They have usually spent time hiding out in their own countries before collecting enough money to get out. While they may never recover from their trauma and human rights violations, from being treated as second class citizens in their own countries, they look to the promise of a better life.
“We’re in it for the long haul,” Green said. “Until you can legally work to support yourself, we’ll be there supporting you.”
