The Bhutanese-Nepali community in the U.S. drew national attention earlier this year when an Ohio Medicaid fraud investigation put parts of it under scrutiny, though advocates stressed the allegations involved a limited number of individuals. A very different picture of the community emerges in a recent NPR photo essay, where photographer Maansi Srivastava documents how soccer holds together the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese community of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
According to BCCPA, Pennsylvania is home to one of the largest Bhutanese refugee communities in the United States, with an estimated 45,000 Nepali-speaking Bhutanese individuals living in Central Pennsylvania and an additional 30,000–45,000 residents in the Greater Philadelphia region.
Below are the key points from Srivastava’s article:
- A game carried from the camps. Srivastava reports that thousands of Bhutanese refugees settled in Harrisburg starting in the late 2000s, after their families were expelled from Bhutan in an ethnic-cleansing campaign targeting the Lhotshampa people. They spent nearly two decades in camps in Nepal, where soccer became a lifeline, a way to cope with trauma after days spent building farms and schools.
- One coach’s legacy. Kalu Singh Tamang had been a national soccer star in Bhutan before the expulsion. In the Beldangi camps of Jhapa, he coached thousands of fellow refugees. He died in the camp, never getting the chance to leave.
- The tradition crossed the ocean. An annual memorial tournament in Tamang’s name now reunites refugees from across the country. Co-founder Birkha Gurung told Srivastava he started it because so many adults in the community carry mental health struggles from the camps. Proceeds fund Soccer for Success, a youth program serving more than 50 children a week.
- A community under pressure. Srivastava reports that dozens of community members have been deported over the past 18 months. Before March 2025, the U.S. did not deport these stateless refugees. Now they are flown to Bhutan, which still refuses to recognize them and expels them on arrival, leaving them stateless twice over. ICE did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment.
- From soccer to advocacy. Asian Refugees United co-founder Robin Gurung has traded running soccer programs for full-time advocacy work with immigration attorneys and lawmakers. “The immediate need is to stop the deportations,” he told Srivastava. Coach Bhagawat Dulal described a fear that has spread into ordinary life, with community members now asking him whether it is safe to go outside and garden.
Even so, Srivastava found the fields filling every week with children learning the game from their elders, festivals still celebrated, small businesses still growing. It is, as one ARU staff member put it, an effort to carry forward “a future of hope.”
Acknowledgement: This summary was generated using AI writing tools as part of my experimental learning process. For more information, check out the original articles listed below.