No First Name: A Tibetan in Exile
by admin
When Tsering Dolma first arrived in New York City in 2004, she barely spoke a word of English. She came only with a determination to survive and support her family still living in the Tibetan refugee villages of India. Like many other older, less-educated Tibetan women in exile, she went to work as a nanny and house maid to the wealthy elites of New York City.
Her journey to this new life began in 1996 when she escaped her homeland of Tibet along with her husband and three children to the refugee villages in Dharmsala, India. She recounts a life of oppression and abuse by Chinese authorities in Tibet. Rape at 16 by two Chinese soldiers on her father’s farm, jailings, beatings, and intimidation. While pregnant with her third child, Tenzin Sangmo, she was dragged out of her home one evening, placed in jail and kicked in the belly repeatedly. As a result Sangmo was born with neurological handicaps that make it difficult for her to perform everyday physical tasks.
Since settling in the U.S. she has gained refugee status and is on her way to gaining permanent residency. In the two years of working and saving, she was able to reunite with her family with the support of a philanthropist whose children she was a nanny to.
Dolma’s story is just one of millions of people displaced in their own homeland.