Executive Editor

A showcase of music, art and dance on Carlyle Street behind Handmap Brewing Thursday night in Battle Creek was a gift from Joseph Lin.

“I wanted to give it to the community,” said Lin, a fashion designer who is moving to New York City. “I’ve been wanting to do it for so long but I didn’t want to do it under a brand or anything. I wanted to do it as a person.”

So he spent the past two months, with the help of Color the Creek founder and director, Justin Andert and of Jenny Mualhlun of Morning Light, planning the Burma: “Through Our Eyes” planning the event that was billed as being part of last week’s mural festival.

Lin said that rather than staging a fashion show, he wanted to 

“I wanted to showcase the community and what’s happening in the culture, so, I decided to bring the culture to this…and portray it more of an art form,” said Lin during the event, “rather than how we portray society as a culture.”

The event not only showcased vocal music but traditional dance from three of Burma’s eight ethnic groups.

“Depending on which region you’re coming from,” said the emcee, “we have our own, traditional different languages, different culture, different food so it’s just such a diverse country.”

Battle Creek has been home to Burmese refugees since the 1989 military declaration of martial law in the Asian country that was then renamed Myanmar.

Currently, there are reportedly more than 2,000 people of Burmese heritage living in Battle Creek, due in part to resettlement efforts of First Baptist Church and what was originally known as Lutheran Social Services.

Until the 1988 uprising led by Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced “Awng San Soochi”) who co-founded the National League for Democracy (NLD), the country had been under military dictatorship for more than 50 years.

In 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest after 15 years, and in 20212, she won a parliament seat, followed in 2015 by an NLD landslide victory in the country’s first democratic elections.

In 2016, she assumed the role of state counsellor, a de facto leadership position created to sidestep constitutional provisions barring her from the presidency, according to a timeline distributed at the showcase.

In 2017, the military launched a crackdown in Rakhine state, sending almost 750,000 Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh, the flyer reads. 

“Suu Kyi acknowledges the intensity of the violence, but refuses to blame any specific group,” according to the literature.

After defending the country against accusations of genocide in 2019, Myanmar held its second democratic elections in November of 2020 sweeping the NLD to another landslide victory.

But on Feb. 1, after weeks of alleging voting irregularities, the military arrested Suu Kyi and the country remains under military rule.

Shortly thereafter, on Feb. 3, the Burma Center in Battle Creek hosted a Demonstration for Democracy at Sojourner Truth Monument, led by Director Tha Par, to condemn the coup and rally support for efforts to urge the U.S. government to help the people of Mayanmar, including many family members and friends of Battle Creek residents.

“In Myanmar, people are scrambling for hospital beds and looking for oxygen for their COVID-hit family members and friends,” according to the literature outlining the current situation. “With economic desperation and a deadly virus ravaging the population, neither the military, despite its de facto power, nor the parallel government, with its international influence, has managed to turn the tide of the pandemic or break the political deadlock.”

Now, according to the literature, the two sides are gearing up for a critical diplomatic battle in the United Nations where the Credentials Committee is scheduled to convene in September and each side is positioning for recognition.

“I believe in our people,” said Lin. “We’ll get through it. We’ll stay strong and there’s a lot of our whole families who are still over there and suffering so it’s hard but we’ll push through, I believe.”

Lin, who came to Battle Creek as a refugee in 2010 and graduated from St. Philip Catholic Central High School in 2014, said all of his contemporaries in Battle Creek were also born in Burma.

“A lot of them grew up here, a lot of them all migrated here as refugees,” he said, “and we came to search for opportunities, right?”

He said that at the start of his residency in his new country and in city, it was difficult.

“It was tough in the beginning, new faces is always tough,” said Lin, “but, I think those situations only makes us stronger and I appreciate it, even with the bad, the good, I appreciate it and nowadays, a lot of people are very open arms and very welcoming.

“In this community,” he continued, “there’s a lot of us so we embrace each other and have each other.”

And, Battle Creek is now his hometown.

“This community personally means a lot,” said Lin. “I used to go to school in San Francisco and New York and every time I come home, it always makes me feel like home no matter where I’m at and it means a lot, growing up here, having lots of friends here in my American community and hopefully we can build a bridges among all of us to connect each other.”

At the same time, Lin is looking forward to his new career working for a fashion design firm in New York City.

Looking around during a song by Esther, and instrumentals by Lal, Alex and Sam, Lin mentioned that it was beautiful so see so many people - including Battle Creek Public Schools Superintendent Kim Carter and Lakeview School District Superintendent Blake Prewitt - gathered to celebrate art with the Burmese youth.

“I wanted to bring out the community and give them space, let them do what they do,” he said of his friends. “I’m very blessed. It makes it a lot easier to organize and let them enjoy.”

Also at the event, there was ethnic food from the Burmese restaurant, Shwe Mandalay and an information booth about the new childcare center about to open at The Burma Center at 765 Upton Avenue in Springfield.

An open house for Catching the Dream Learning Center is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 31 from 5-8 p.m. when the public can meet program director Sayama Lashi Mai, family advocate Sayama Sonia Thiri and office secretary, Ra Nei Kim.

The mission statement: “Catching the Dream Learning Center exists to ensure that our children are intellectually, spiritually and emotionally ready for kindergarten while preserving their identity, culture and language.”

The center is being opened in conjunction with the New Level Sports Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, according to spokesperson, Gena Reed.