Exhibit captures faces of Utah's young refugees

Each year, about 1,100 refugees from around the world are resettled in Salt Lake City.

They come to escape persecution, conflict or disaster in their home countries, and while Utah is a "safe haven," there are still challenges these survivors face each day, according to Kent Miles, a Salt Lake-based photographer.

In 2000, Miles began a project with the Center for Documentary Arts to photograph refugees attending Salt Lake area schools. Along with the photographs, oral histories were gathered and compiled by Joyce and Leslie Kelen for an exhibit titled "Faces and Voices of Refugee Youth."

The exhibit has been displayed in schools, libraries and community centers throughout Utah and will be at Murray High School this month. The public is invited to view it during four scheduled open houses, including one this Monday.

Local students will have the opportunity to view the display during school hours.

Miles said he believes the exhibit is important because it can help the public to appreciate and better-understand the challenges refugees faced and still face since being relocated.

"These are children of remarkable courage, not only to have escaped the trauma, but to go through the process of a resettlement," he said. "That's not something anyone really wants to have to do, but they've done it. They're winning and they're achieving their hopes and dreams."

Many of the students Miles photographed came from places such as Sudan, Bosnia, Vietnam and even Cuba. The images are all black and white, and were mostly taken at the schools the students attended.

One image is of a young boy from Sudan named Yuran. Teachers said he used to pass out at school because of fear, but in the photograph Miles took of him, Yuran has a massive grin on his face and his arms are around two other little boys.

Another image is of a girl named Hong Ly. In the text that accompanies her photograph, Ly said she was sometimes called names and it hurt her feelings.

"They make fun of how I talk and they make fun of how I dress," said Ly, who was born to a Vietnamese mother in the Philippines. "I want to put some sense into people and tell them that the person they are making fun of is human. I want to tell kids that are making fun of me that I am not dumb. I am not invisible. I am not a stone."