Tacoma Refugee Choir helps members find hope and home through song

Over the past 10 years, more than 30,000 refugees, from more than 70 countries have resettled in Washington state through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

It’s one thing to welcome refugees; it’s another to make them feel at home. The Tacoma Refugee Choir has helped give that feeling to refugees, as well as immigrants and native U.S. citizens. The members find belonging through song and so much more.

In 2016, Tacoma resident and classically trained singer and voice coach, Erin Guinup, was at a church conference learning about the Syrian refugee crisis. She was moved by the stories and felt compelled to get involved.

“And then the thought was so clear, in my mind, use the gift you have. And so I thought, 'Well, singing has always been a safe place for me. Perhaps it would be a safe place for other people,'” she said.

Guinup worked with Tacoma Community House to set up a six-week choral program and signed up 22 participants. She thought that would be the end of the experience, but members of the choir had other ideas, particularly a 20-year-old man from Kurdistan, who had been in the United States for four months. He kept asking Guinup when they were going to sing again, despite choirs not being native to Kurdistan and this being his first choir experience.

Guinup said his persistence made her realize something.

“The music was just a tool, he had found a community,” she said.

So, she kept the choir going. Over the last seven years, the choir has welcomed 700 participants from 65 nations. Refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers, and native U.S. citizens are all welcome to join.

Over time, the choir has had to adapt and make changes. Guinup was trained to use sheet music in choirs, but when choir members struggled with retention, Guinup found the sheet music was a barrier.

“A lot of the countries from which refugees are arriving in our community, sheet music is not part of their music-making practice," Guinup explained. "So we were adding another foreign language on top of that process. So we got back to work and figured out how we needed to create a space that really served everyone that we want that belongs in that space.”

The choir now uses a projector to display the lyrics, members play instruments, and between songs, Guinup checks in with the members to see how they’re feeling about the music.

Every week is a little bit different, but Guinup said she's optimistic about the choir's direction.

“Trying to create space in that model where there can be lots of contributions is not always easy, but I think we're doing a better job of doing so,” she said.

The choir meets once a week for rehearsals in Tacoma. Typically, 40 to 55 people attend. Choir member Ala Talo-Rhule said she leaves every rehearsal feeling rejuvenated. The songs they sing resonate deeply with her.

“The messages in those songs really mean something," Talo-Rhule said. "The choir really gives me a voice as an immigrant in the United States. It gave me a voice that I didn't know I had. So that really means a lot to me.”

Members of the choir have written 20 of their own songs, either individually or as a group. The lyrics reflect the experiences and emotions of their lives. One song that the group wrote about the concept of “finding a home” hit hard for Talo-Rhule when the choir was recently performing the song in front of 300 people.

“For some reason, I couldn't finish the song because I was so emotional," Talo-Rhule said. "Because home, it may be different to you. Maybe a home to you, it's your home, but maybe a home to me, it's something else. So that's why I love everything about this new family that I'm blessed with.”

In addition to singing, the choir also allows members to tap into communal knowledge and help each other. Choir members update each other on what resources are available in different parts of Tacoma and give away items they think could be useful to each other.

For some, joining the choir can be daunting. It can be difficult to sing in a second language or learn a style of music you don’t know. But some say there’s value in that unease.

Bhagirath Bhatt came to the US as a refugee in the 1980s; now he's a board member of the choir. He encourages anyone to join, and explains the benefits he sees.

“The choir I think, opens up the window of opportunity for members or individuals to be able to, to flourish, to shine," Bhatt said. "When you arrive in a different location, a different country, different culture, different environments, something you have never been exposed to, or have no idea what it's all about. And then you have to say, ‘Well, now I've got to survive here,’ your very best comes out whatever your strengths are, it comes out, it's I think it's one of those inert, built-in survival skills that are within all human beings. So when you have to step up to a plate, you'll develop the skills to be able to do that. Which allows you to have the confidence to say, ‘OK, well, I can do something, or I can do this. And if I can do this, I can do anything else I set my mind to,’ and when you have the support of every community member of the choir, to encourage, regardless of whether you have the skills or not, it just makes you blossom.”

Singing together and doing it well takes skill and trust. By uniting in song, choir members build harmony in many ways, said choir member Tishiku Henry.

“Many of us come here, we come from conflicted countries, for example, we have the issue of Russia, Ukraine, we have the issue of Congo, Rwanda, Iran, Iraq," Henry said. "Back there, we believed that we couldn't coexist. But here it's proved the contrary. We are coexisting and living together. I'm living with people from different countries that my country and their country are still up to now enemies. But here we don't have that. That's a very big lesson for me.”

Henry is Washington’s delegate to the Refugee Congress, which advocates for refugees’ rights.

“My main job is just advocacy to meet with representatives, and community leaders organization to talk with them, because most of our leaders, sometimes they really don't know about what refugees and immigrants are facing," he explained. "So I tried to talk with them. I know, I'm not powerful enough to change, but at least powerful enough to influence.”

Henry said the choir has helped him in that role, too. In January, he and the rest of the choir were invited to sing the national anthem before Washington’s State of the State address. It was a dream come true for him. He met the governor and got to speak to the House speaker. He said it was especially important that they hear directly from refugees.

“Most of the time, they hear only one side of that story. They don't hear the other story, our own stories, refugees," Henry said. "And the real story of refugees is resiliency, positivity, as well as looking for freedom and peace. That's the real story of refugees.”

Guinup said this mindset is represented best in the choir's theme song, “Everyone Can Love Someone.” They sing it every rehearsal and every performance. It was born from discussions about the depth and weight of some of the stories the songs are about.

“One of the members said, ‘We need happier songs, we are joyful, and this is what we need,’” Guinup explained. “And I feel like that joy, that interaction, really guided the direction of the choir saying we don't want to just sing our sad stories. Sometimes it's important and necessary to acknowledge the past, more often than not, we need to experience joy, we need to see the promise in the future and the possibilities. That is what's powerful. That's what powers us forward.”