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Utica is still a long way from its former prominence as one of New York's most prosperous cities. But housing values increased 52 percent between 2001 and 2006. In a fiscal analysis, Paul Hagstrom, a local economics professor at Hamilton College, found that the initial costs of refugee resettlement may be high, but after about 15 years, the city's investment bears fruit. Which is to say, Utica has developed a very effective long-term strategy for its economic survival.And for those who value diversity, there are cultural payoffs as well. About 12 percent of the city's population of 60,000 come from more than 30 foreign countries, and 31 different languages are spoken in the public schools. Utica now boasts a mosque, a Cambodian Buddhist temple, a Russian Orthodox church, and a dizzying array of ethnic restaurants and shops. Mayor Julian owns a laundry whose employees are all Asians and Bosnians -- and whose clientele is even more diverse. "The place will be jammed, and nobody's speaking English," Julian says. "Different cultures coming together though they don't understand each other's language: That's what makes a city."
Since 9/11, the United States has curtailed the influx of refugees because of security concerns. Only 41,277 were resettled in the last fiscal year, down from 99,974 in 1995. Still, refugees continue to land in Utica: the Somali Bantus, the Karen people of Burma and, in the spring of 2006, a group of Meskhetian Turks from Russia. Like some 11,000 others before them, they have a chance to start a new life.
If anyone is poised to seize that opportunity, it is Abdi Ibrahim, the young Somali Bantu so thrilled to be living in his own room. Having never encountered a flush toilet before coming to the United States, he has made remarkable progress. Since arriving, Ibrahim has learned English, gotten his driver's license, translated for the coach of a local soccer team and held a succession of upwardly mobile jobs -- the latest as an academic coach in Utica city schools. He is determined to one day become a doctor and says he won't rest until it happens. "That is my goal," he adds. "I am praying to God to help me." In a little-known American city that's become, for many, a land of opportunity, Ibrahim is likely to find the answer to those prayers.
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