New Year's celebrations and traditions are about to get underway, to welcome 2023, members of the region's diverse refugee communities are celebrating with practices from their native countries or traditions they couldn't have back home.
Onondaga County resettled more than 400 refugees this last fiscal year, the second highest in the state. Most come from Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria and Burma, and more recently, Ukraine.
Ludmila Matsyuk fled Ukraine 30 years ago because her family was persecuted for being Christian. She now works with the nonprofit Rise, Refugee and Immigrant Self-Empowerment. At a lively year-end Rise celebration, Matsyuk said faith plays a significant role in her New Year’s.
“We are thankful you're thanking God for you that fast, and we ask him for blessing for a new year," Matsyuk said.
Omar Ahmed said holidays in his country of Somalia drew people out of their homes to connect with their communities.
“You need to go outside to meet your neighborhood," Ahmed said. "And, also, your relative. You have to meet together, talk to each other and how you guys should do in and then what is in the future.”
But not all cultures share the same new year’s date. Rise care manager, Nancy Yae said that's also the case in her native country of Burma, also known as Myanmar, when it falls in the spring. She said the nation celebrates with what’s called a water festival when revelers throw water to toss away the past year.
"We have four days of celebrating the water festival, just like our neighbor country Thailand," Yae said. "And then after, some people will enjoy the water festival, and some people will go to Montessori to meditate and all that. And then for Christians, we’ll go to church, and then we have a lot of food, a lot of fun.”
She said resettling in the U.S. means she can celebrate the new year twice, on Myanmar New Year's, which lasts from April 12 to 16, and during the U.S. new year’s on Dec. 31.
