Burmese Immigant Helps Make Allen County Welcoming for All

So Min Oo remembers the day in January 1977 when the Burmese government bombed his family’s village. “It stays in my nightmares — the gunfire, the people screaming,” he recalls. He was 11. 

His parents and three siblings spent the next several months fleeing on foot to Thailand, where they built the refugee camp that became their home. Early on, there were no schools, healthcare facilities, or even clean water, and Oo saw many people die from preventable diseases. But he eventually attended school and taught himself English by repeating the things that aid workers said. “I always dreamed of traveling to first-world countries, and I knew English would be important,” he explains. 

In 2008, after a years-long vetting process, Oo’s family was granted refugee status. Like many other Burmese refugees, they found their way to Fort Wayne. But when Oo’s father died, he was left to support the family. Refugee resettlement services, other Burmese families and local food banks kept the family going for a short time. Still, finding work wasn’t easy. “When I went for my first job interview, when I was 20 years old, I didn’t even know what a CV was,” Oo says. “I wrote a whole essay about my life, and they had to explain to me that wasn’t what they needed.” 

Eventually, Oo found work as a translator, first for Catholic Charities — the same group that had helped him figure out how to write his CV — and later in East Allen County public schools.   

With stable employment, he was now able to give back to his community. In 2010, he helped found the Burmese Muslim Education and Community Center, which provides free funeral services for local families along with social and educational services. “Immigrants and refugees still need lots of help settling in,” Oo says. “Buying houses, using banks, starting businesses — these things are very hard if you don’t know how to do them.”  

He was also able to enroll in school and received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Indiana Institute of Technology. Before long, he’d become an operations manager at Kroger, overseeing 1000 people; he’s now working on his MBA, and expects to graduate by the end of the year. 

Today, Oo owns a house and a car, and is a U.S. citizen. The ceremony was especially moving, because his family came from a persecuted minority without citizenship in Burma. He’s proud to be raising his young children as Americans who know they truly belong. “This feels like one of my greatest accomplishments,” Oo says.