Getting to know the Burmese people of Buffalo, it’s best to start the journey with them in Southeast Asia, and to understand why they call their homeland Burma, not Myanmar, as it is officially known today.
“It’s called Myanmar or Burma, but we usually say Burma, because it was changed to Myanmar by the military without the consent of the people of Burma,” says Steven Sanyu, the founder of Burmese Community Services in Buffalo.
Hundreds of ethnic groups, thousands of stories
Sanyu believes there are about 10,000 Burmese living in Buffalo, adding that knowing someone is Burmese is only the beginning of understanding someone’s background.
There are well over 100 ethnic groups in today’s Myanmar, and at least eight of them have sizable populations in Buffalo. While there are some similarities, each group brings their own language, religion and culture — and their own story.
Now that there are thousands of Burmese in Buffalo, the influence is clear across the handful of neighborhoods they call home. Restaurants, grocery stores, storefronts in Burmese — these are most visible near Grant St. and West Ferry St. and on Tonawanda St.
“Most Burmese people, except Muslim community, live on the West Side,” said Sanyu, with two exceptions. There is another sizable population in Riverside and many of the Muslim Rohingya live on the East Side, where there are more mosques and Islamic culture.
Over the years, when Burmese Community Services has created social media videos to communicate with Buffalo’s Burmese diaspora, they’ve created separate videos in the Burmese language and in Karen, Karenni, Chin, Mon, and Shan.
Sanyu said for many Burmese people, the ties to their ethnic, religious, or cultural group is much stronger than whatever ties they have to their national identity.
“Sometimes, some people from some ethnic groups might say, ‘I’m not Burmese,’" he said. "They say that because they have their own long story.”
Seeking refuge from unrest and persecution
Despite language, culture and religious differences, Sanyu said one title brings Buffalo's Burmese together: Refugee.
“Including me,” he said, “all our people have come as refugees, because of politics and because of the dictatorship [in Myanmar].”
Most of Buffalo’s Burmese refugees have made many stops — even across generations — from their ancestral homeland to Western New York. That path from political, cultural and religious persecution, more often than not, has involved time in refugee camps. There are many camps in Thailand, for example, just over the Burmese border. Others have come through Malaysia.
In 2016, Doris Noh spoke with BTPM’s Eileen Buckley. At the time, she was a senior at Lafayette High School, but her times as a small child in refugee camps weren’t too far away in her memory.
“You know, my family had to just run all the time," Noh said. "We were hiding. It's just part of my life since I was just born. When people live in the camp, they don’t have jobs, so some people do a lot of some illegal stuff.”
She explained there was a lot of stealing in the camps, and that even though they were poor, others were ever poorer.
“My mom said it's just a blessing,” Noh said, explaining that they were able to share with those who need it more.
Nay Thaw was also a teen when he spoke with BTPM in 2019 about his family's journey, which started before he was born.
“The Burmese army tore down, burned down the whole camp," Thaw said. "They burned down the whole camp twice. Then my mom moved to another camp. I was born there."
Although they've been forced to leave Burma behind, Buffalo's Burmese aren't likely to have forgotten the people still struggling at home.
“I love the U.S., but I still have my heart that I want to help my people in my own country, in refugee camps, they have no country,” said Smiler Greeley, speaking with BTPM in 2016, as he created signs for protest. “We're going to protest the government that tortures its own people.”
A spiritual cleanse as a way to move forward
While Buffalo's Burmese refugees want Americans to know about the struggles of their homeland, they also want to share its beauty. The traditional Burmese water festival is celebrated on Buffalo's West Side every summer.
As explained by one participant along Grant Street at the 2019 festival: “The idea of the water festival is to start anew, to clean things from the past, all these nasty things that we carried as human beings. With this sacred water we cleanse ourselves and start anew. That's why it is a water festival, and it signifies the New Year in Burmese lunar calendar.”
One key difference between the festival in Buffalo and the festival in Burma is the time of year.
The festival is held in April in Burma, but in Buffalo it's held at the height of summer so Western New Yorkers don’t have to dodge snowflakes to enjoy the water. Regardless of time or place, Sanyu said the festival is one event where everyone gets together to put the past in the past and celebrate things that make us all the same.
“We consider us all human," he said. "It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter skin, religion or ethnic group."
And even as the water sprayed at the sacred and uniquely Burmese festival, one of those Burmese Buffalonians joyfully celebrated the bringing together of his two homelands in the cleansing water.
“Burma is our home country and Buffalo is our home country now because Burma's already here.”
