Jennifer Graham
Globe Correspondent 

Cayce, S. C. 7/13/2003 (Boston Globe) - For the Somali Bantu headed for South Carolina, the promised land is an air-conditioned apartment with a green door, gray shutters, and a clothesline out back.

"They'll probably think it's heaven," said Viola Hatten, who lives at the Pinewood Apartments, where a two-bedroom unit rents for $395 a month.

But there has been trouble in paradise since June 2, when Lutheran Family Services announced its decision to place an arriving contingent of Somali Bantu refugees in a single apartment complex in this city of 12,000, just south of Columbia and five minutes from the state Capitol.

On June 27, about 250 Cayce residents packed a room designed for 100 to protest the selection of Pinewood as home for the Bantu, who will begin to arrive this summer. By the end of 2004, Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas expects to have resettled about 120 Somalis here, a few families at a time.

The Cayce residents say it is not that they don't want tired and poor huddled masses; they just don't want all of them.

"We're happy to take an appropriate share, if they could spread them over the Midlands. But they're going forward with settling the whole tribe, if you will, in one location," City Manager John Sharpe said. "We don't feel we should be the dumping ground of the whole contingent."

The State Department has approved the resettlement of 10,000 to 12,000 Somali Bantu in about 50 US cities. Nearly two dozen have arrived in the past three weeks, settling in Chicago, Phoenix, Denver, Buffalo, and Syracuse, N. Y.

So far, Columbia is the only place where people have publicly objected to this resettlement, said Erol Kekic, associate director of immigration and refugee programs at Church World Service in New York, one of nine agencies coordinating the resettlement nationwide.

The Bantu "have been through so much, it's incomprehensible that anyone would object to this," Kekic said. "We're not trying to overwhelm a single community, and we're not bringing over people who will not adjust. People would be amazed at how quickly the refugees adapt. They have to." The school district that serves Cayce, Lexington District Two, has been particularly vocal in the dissent. The director of the district's English as a Second Language program, facing an influx of 40 to 50 children who don't speak English or read and write their own language, distributed 1,200 fliers in Cayce neighborhoods protesting the resettlement here. School administrators say the Bantu children will drain already scant resources and drag down the district's test scores. "We're the smallest urban district in the Columbia area, and we're going to have to shoulder this on our own," said Dr. Venus Holland, an assistant superintendent. "It's going to be a tremendous challenge in so many areas, and it threatens to overwhelm us financially."

But Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas, which is overseeing the resettlement of Somali Bantu in Columbia and in Charlotte, N. C., says some people are overreacting. South Carolina is taking 120 refugees out of 10,000 to 12,000 to be settled nationwide, said the Rev. Richard Robinson, a Baptist minister who is the state's refugee resettlement manager.

Robinson said he expects about seven families to arrive this year and about 13 more in 2004. He has not received specifics on the families and is unsure when the first group will arrive. The uncertainty is exacerbating the unhappiness at the District Two office.

"Our school starts Aug. 7; our teachers come back Aug. 1, and we're sitting here knowing nothing except somebody is coming of some age," Holland said. "We can't even have a comprehensive plan because we don't know who to plan for."

Undaunted, Robinson is holding informational meetings for Columbians who want to help when the Somalis arrive. Lutheran Family Services is seeking a sponsor for each family, asking that they pay rent and utilities for three months, assist with clothing and personal items for six months, and guide the Somalis through the intricacies of American life, such as obtaining Social Security cards and navigating the public transportation system. The host families also will have to help the Bantu get to English classes on time.

Most of the Somali Bantu, descendants of East Africans who were enslaved by Arabs centuries ago, have lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for 10 years while the United Nations debated how to alleviate their plight. The Bantu are not welcome - and do not want to live - in Somalia. Kenya, overrun with refugees from Rwanda, will not take them permanently. A few thousand were permitted to settle in Tanzania, but the rest had nowhere to go until the US State Department agreed to accept them.

Many of the Somali Bantu children have known no home but the refugee camps. Most speak Somali or Swahili but cannot read or write. They have not experienced indoor plumbing or light switches and know nothing of Wal-Mart or McDonald's. In their male-dominated culture, it is acceptable for a male to strike a female, even if the woman is his mother. The Bantu practice female circumcision, which is illegal in this country. Girls in their young teens marry and bear children, and some men have multiple wives.

Culture shock awaits not only the Bantu, but also their American hosts. Resettlement agencies are conducting classes in the refugee camps on American laws and life.

The City of Cayce and Lexington District Two are considering legal options, including injunctions, the Cayce city manager said. But it is unlikely that they will be able to completely thwart resettlement, as the city of Holyoke, Mass., did last year. In Holyoke, the City Council voted, 14 to 1, to reject almost $1 million in federal funds that would have relocated 60 Somali families there over three years. Instead, the Somalis are going to Springfield.

Three single men and a husband and wife with two children have moved to Springfield in the past three weeks, said Helen Caulton-Harris, Springfield's director of health and human services. The city expects a total of 54 Somalis over the next year.

Holyoke's mayor, Michael Sullivan, who wanted the Somalis to come to his city, said the fears of Cayce residents are legitimate: Standardized test score averages might go down, and the city's resources might be strained. But the city should focus on the opportunity to assist people who want a shot at a better life, he said. "The Bantus do have their challenges, but it's the right thing to do, to take on that challenge."

Opponents of the Bantu resettlement sometimes mention Lewiston, Maine, a city of about 37,000 that has seen 1,200 Somalis move there within the past three years. The influx of Somalis who needed jobs, cheap housing - and, in many cases, government assistance - strained city resources to the point where in October, the mayor pleaded publicly for no more Somalis to come.

But the situation there is different, said Phil Nadeau, Lewiston's assistant city administrator. The immigrants who moved to Lewiston were ethnic Somalis, not Bantu, who had lived in Atlanta and other US cities and were not overseen by a refugee resettlement agency. They moved to Lewiston because some Somalis had settled there successfully and began inviting family and friends to join them. Somalis are still moving to Lewiston at a rate of about a dozen each month.

Janice Johnson, who lives in West Columbia, is among those who have volunteered to help drive the arriving Somalis to stores and appointments and help them learn to manage their money when they find jobs. Nine churches and a mosque have signed on to sponsor families. "I think we need to embrace the tribe and make them feel welcome," Johnson said. "Perhaps they can teach us a thing or two."

But Johnson does not live in Cayce - a fact that resettlement opponents would point out. At an informational meeting conducted by Lutheran Family Services recently, a Cayce resident who would identify himself only as a "concerned citizen," asked the group of 14 how many lived in Cayce. No one raised a hand. "I thought so," he said and stalked out.

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