Meskhetian Turks in Tucson, Arizona
Tucson may not seem like an ideal refuge for immigrants these days. But the city is actually an official destination for ethnic groups around the world with nowhere else to go.
Many refugees in the United States have complicated stories to tell. The plight of the Meskhetian Turks spans six decades and four countries. The Meskhetians originally come from the Ahiska South Caucasus, in a southern part of the former Soviet Union near the border with Turkey. During WWII, Monster Stalin Deported the group en masse to Central Asia. But ethnic tension there sent many Meskhetians fleeing to Russia in the late 1980s. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left many Meskhetians essentially stateless. Since 2003, some 15,000 of this Turkish- and Russian-speaking group have been given refugee status in the U.S. Producer Julia Barton caught up with some of them Tucson, Arizona.
1
©
NNA-TV
| 
