This story was written in partnership with LINK nky, Northern Kentucky University’s Advanced News Media Workshop class and The Northerner for this series on the changing face of Northern Kentucky.
Read the other stories in the series here:
- Breaking bread at immigrant-founded restaurants by The Northerner’s Isabella Huecker
- Congolese native’s journey inspires hope for others by The Northerner’s Elita St. Clair
- Five international markets share a slice of home by The Northerner’s Elita St. Clair (with video)
- Tiburcio Lince brings ‘alegría’ to Latino Student Initiatives at NKU by The Northerner’s Shae Meade
In the 10 years that Theresa Cruz has lived and worked in Northern Kentucky, she said she has witnessed the face of Northern Kentucky changing.
“I think people really need to open their eyes and accept that what Kentucky looked like before – it’s changing,” Cruz said. “It’s not going to look the same. You’re getting people from not just Hispanic and Latino countries; you’re getting people from all over – the Republic of Congo, from Haiti, from Somalia. You’re getting people from all over here. It’s starting to look different.”
In response to this change, Cruz started the nonprofit Fiesta NKY in January to help fill the service gap in NKY’s Latino communities.
“There’s such a discrepancy between the actual numbers and what we see and what has been recorded,” she said. “It’s because they come here, and they’re told to keep their head down. It’s a scary thing. And they’re asking you to fill out a government document that wants information about you.”
BE NKY Growth Partnership, using data from the U.S. census, estimates that just over 8,500 people born outside the U.S. came to live in Boone County between 2018 and 2023. In Kenton County, 6,161 people came to live from outside the country during that time; in Campbell County, it was 2,150.
According to KentuckyRefugees.org, as of July 31, 2023, Kentucky ranked fourth in the nation in the number of refugee arrivals compared to other states.
Cruz told LINK nky she believes those numbers are probably low, because immigrants and refugees are less likely than other communities to complete the census. That’s often because families fear sharing their personal information.
Cruz said that discrepancies and inaccurate reporting will continue without organizations that can build relationships with these communities. She said it’s important for them to know the organizations are there to help them. Fiesta NKY operates out of Florence at 7536 U.S. 42 and primarily serves Boone County.
Another nonprofit created to serve this growing population is RefugeeConnect, which started working in Northern Kentucky in April 2020. This was after Boone County schools reached out, asking for help welcoming the growing number of students born outside the U.S., said Kristen Burgoyne, RefugeeConnect’s executive director.
RefugeeConnect supports families in Southwest Ohio and NKY, primarily in Boone and Kenton counties.
“A lot of those gaps existed around resource connection,” Burgoyne said, “and what we know is that there are a lot of resources available to the community, but they were either not being connected to those resources, or they didn’t know that those resources existed.”
She said there are growing Congolese and Somali populations in Boone County and a growing Chin population – an ethnic group from Myanmar (often still called Burma) – in Kenton County.
“[The Chin community has] been here for a number of years, and with renewed violence in Burma against the Chin community, I think we can expect … additional members of the Chin community being resettled here,” Burgoyne said. “I think that the population overall has grown a lot. We also have an increasing number of Haitians moving into Northern Kentucky.”
One of the services Burgoyne and the organization have helped connect people with are government programs called family sponsorships and sponsor circles.
“They can come through that legal pathway through the government if they are sponsored by a family member, and that gives them also temporary protected status,” Burgoyne said.
Fiesta NKY and RefugeeConnect work with people regardless of their legal status.
The temporary protected status through the sponsorship programs means people can legally live and work in the U.S. for typically two years. Once they reach that mark, they can apply for asylum if it is not safe for them to return to their home country. Asylum is a form of protection that allows immigrants or refugees to remain in the U.S. instead of being deported.
NKY’s appeal
A lower cost of living, job availability and an established network of resources are some of the reasons immigrants and refugees want to live in Northern Kentucky.
“There’s already an established community of support for Venezuelans, Congolese, Somali and Chin because there’s already a significant number of people from those communities who live here, and they typically tend to live in the same area,” Burgoyne said. “Some of them have lived here a long time, so they’re able to kind of provide that support to newcomers and help them to navigate different resources and services.”
Cruz echoed Burgoyne. She said many people are coming to Boone and Kenton counties, specifically, because they have family members here that they can live with until they can stand on their own feet.
“The needs that we see here are food, clothing and work,” Cruz said. “Those are the three main things that people come in for. It boils down to their basic needs that need to be met. Before I can do anything else, I can’t talk to you about financial literacy or ESL classes if you don’t have food on your table. I can’t talk to you about being a part of your child’s school, volunteering or helping them with their homework.”
Wilson Mejia, the resettlement director at Kentucky Refugee Ministries, also emphasized the need for jobs. Mejia said the organization works with employers and the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce to place their clients in jobs.
“Workforce is a big topic in Northern Kentucky,” he said. “It has been noted that, based on population trends, we don’t have enough workforce in the region to fill some of the jobs.”
Covington-based Kentucky Refugee Ministries works to resettle refugees and welcome immigrants. Because the organization receives federal dollars from the Office of Refugee Resettlement Services, it must follow federal regulations, meaning the people it serves must be in the country legally. If they aren’t, Mejia said his organization directs them to other agencies like Fiesta NKY and RefugeeConnect.
Even with the services available in NKY, many people from outside the United States face many barriers when moving here. Language is a significant one, said Fiesta’s Cruz.
“These families that look different, that have the language barrier, that don’t know how to navigate the system here, they don’t know where to go,” she said. “They don’t know where to go for whatever it is that they need. That’s huge.
“When you get here, no one looks like you. You don’t speak the language. You don’t have anything. You come here with nothing. What do you do?”
Fiesta NKY’s goal is to be a local hub for the Latino community. It’s a place where Cruz said people will feel welcomed and respected and where they can come to be heard.
Another barrier people new to the U.S. face is health care, said Burgoyne. She said the size and complexity of the U.S. health care system, coupled with the language and cultural barriers, creates inequity in the delivery of health care.
“Families are not being educated about the health care system, and our providers are not being educated about how to better support newcomers,” said Burgoyne. “So that’s actually why we started the Health Navigator Program – to really address that because it is such a huge issue in the community.”
Burgoyne said that a lot of families come from destabilized countries. She said, for example, families that fled Afghanistan in 2021 because of the Taliban already didn’t have a solid health care system. They may have come to the U.S. with chronic medical conditions that have never been treated, and Burgoyne said organizations like RefugeeConnect have to explain to them what that means and why they need to see a doctor.
There is also a mental health crisis within the community, she said, due to the traumas many families have experienced on their journeys.
“They’re usually leaving because of some threat against their life, in fear for their safety,” Burgoyne said. “It’s usually a very real threat to their safety and their livelihood. A lot of people have experienced torture or have PTSD because of what is happening in their own country.
“And just the process of migration is traumatizing. Then, the resettling in a country that you’ve never lived in and you don’t speak the language, and they’re not immune to the discrimination that happens in our country. And that’s an extra layer of trauma.”
Mejia said he sees the most significant barrier in housing and transportation. That’s why each client through Kentucky Refugee Ministries gets $1,125 that can be put toward a deposit for an apartment and the first month’s rent.
“That person doesn’t have much money to play around with, especially since we use it right away,” he said. “Housing is very expensive, and it’s hard to find affordable housing near sensible transportation.”
Because most clients rely on the bus system for transportation, Mejia said it makes their housing options even more limited. Most are placed in river cities that have bus routes. He said roughly 70% move to Covington, and the other 30% disperse among Newport, Bellevue and Dayton.
“They can easily take the bus to get to us, get to their ESL classes. Buses often go to CVG hubs,” he said.
When Kentucky Refugee Ministries opened in Covington in 2017, one part-time person worked to resettle clients. Since it opened its doors full-time in October 2021, it has resettled 511 clients and has grown to 19 full-time employees.
“Two and a half years and 511 clients, it’s very remarkable,” Mejia said. “I think it speaks a lot to the support that we have received from the community.”
Cruz encourages everyone in Northern Kentucky to embrace the region’s changing face. “We’re missing out on so much rich culture and so many amazing people that we just choose not to interact with, and we’re missing out.”