GRANVILLE, Ohio — South Asia remains one of the most impoverished regions in the world. While overall poverty has declined, caste-based inequality continues to shape who escapes hardship and who remains trapped in it. Among the most affected are Dalits and displaced communities living in marginalized villages, urban slums and Nepali refugee settlements. In these areas, restricted freedoms, social exclusion and economic exploitation are everyday realities.

On November 11, 2025, The Borgen Project interviewed Jhuma Acharya, Director of Family Engagement at Licking Heights School District in Pataskala, Ohio. Before resettling in the United States in 2012, Acharya spent nearly two decades in a refugee camp in Nepal. His story reveals the human cost of ethnic cleansing, caste hierarchy and a global refugee system stretched to its limits.

Evicted From Bhutan

Acharya grew up in Bhutan, a small landlocked country between India and China. Although Bhutan officially abolished caste, Nepali-speaking communities continued to observe traditional social hierarchies. “I belonged to the higher class of the social strata,” Acharya said. “That’s where I was born and raised for my early childhood. Because Bhutan is such an isolated landlocked country, exposure to the outside world is very limited.”

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Bhutan stripped tens of thousands of ethnic Nepalis of their citizenship. Through discriminatory laws and targeted violence, Bhutanese elites carried out what human rights organizations later described as ethnic cleansing. “I was evicted from my country when I was 14 years old,” Acharya said. “There was a kind of civil war forcefully targeting the Nepali-speaking community. We were evicted because of the language, because of the culture and the religion. We were forced to go and stay in Nepal because we speak Nepali.”

That eviction shaped the rest of his life. “I ended up living in a refugee camp for an entire 20 years,” he said. “Within [those]20 years, I’ve seen the world so differently than what I would have seen in the village back home.” Today, more than 100,000 Bhutanese-Nepali refugees remain in Nepal, still barred from Bhutan.

Life as a Nepali Refugee in the Caste System

Across South Asia, caste remains a powerful determinant of poverty. For Acharya, displacement meant being pushed into a system that treated refugees as social outcasts. According to Acharya, poverty in Nepal is rooted in the caste system, hitting the lower strata of society the hardest. These groups are often called “sew makers,” “iron workers,” “blackest mates” or “goldest mates,” and they mostly work in factories. They are considered “untouchable,” and people do not eat with them. Socially, they remain highly isolated.

Additionally, education was often denied. “Many people from the lower caste were not even sent to school,” Acharya said. “They were barred. They had to work for others. That’s how these upper-class people went to school.” Although he came from a higher caste background, life as a Nepali refugee erased those distinctions. “When I came to Nepal, I started teaching when I was 15 years old,” he said. “I stayed in refugee camps. I experienced the poverty of being a refugee in the overall landscape of life.”

Nepal has no formal refugee law. “Refugees are seen as unwanted human beings,” Acharya said. “You are captive within the refugee camp wall. You have no authority to go outside. There is no work permit. You’re not allowed to go to school. If they find you outside, they put you back.” Social stigma compounded the hardship. “Refugees are seen as the lowest level of human beings,” he said. “People think whatever food is given in refugee camps is third-class food nobody else will eat. It’s very dire, socially isolated and stigmatized.”

A Rare Pathway: UN Resettlement

For years, attempts to repatriate Bhutanese-Nepali refugees failed. Bhutan refused to take them back. Nepal would not grant citizenship. “There was a generation growing up in the refugee camp,” Acharya said. “So the U.N. came [up]with this idea of third-country resettlement.” That pathway is extremely limited. “Not every refugee gets that opportunity,” he said. “You don’t get it quickly. I was evicted in 1990. I applied in 2009.”

Selection is stringent. “The U.N. has to recognize you as vulnerable,” he explained. “Among refugees, you have to be the most vulnerable. There are refugees all across the world, from Ukraine, Afghanistan, everywhere. I’m among that small, lucky minority to be resettled.” In 2020, 1.44 million refugees sought U.N. resettlement. However, the organization was only able to resettle 22,800. This marked the lowest resettlement figures in nearly two decades, driven by the pandemic and rising xenophobia and skepticism toward immigration.

Resettlement in the United States

Acharya arrived in the U.S. through the refugee resettlement program in 2011. Established in 1980, the U.S. Resettlement Program coordinates the acceptance and support of refugees. Each year, the President and Congress set a cap on refugee admissions and the State Department and USCIS screen and process applicants, a process that can take 18 to 24 months.

He was first placed in Rhode Island, but soon moved to Ohio. Columbus, Ohio, is now home to the largest Bhutanese-Nepali population in the United States. “I would say 98 to 99% of Nepali-speaking families here are descendants of refugees,” Acharya said. “They’re about 19% of the student population” at Licking Heights.

After resettling, Acharya worked for more than a decade at a local refugee agency. “I was helped by someone,” he said. Yet the challenges facing newly arrived Nepali refugees remain severe. “When you come to the United States, there are laws that govern what you can and cannot do,” he explained. “You can get a driver’s license, buy property, even join the military, but you can’t vote.”

Support is short-lived. “Refugee policy assumes people become self-sufficient in 90 days,” Acharya said. “That’s not practical. After 90 days, the support system ends.” Language barriers make survival harder. “Less than 40% of refugees speak some English when they arrive,” he said. “But everyone needs a job. If they don’t find one, they rely on government assistance or family. Then they feel like a burden.”

He has seen the consequences firsthand. “There’s trauma and mental health issues associated with not having enough support,” he said. “It’s hard.”

Why Stories Matter

For Acharya, sharing personal testimony is essential to addressing poverty and displacement. “Sometimes [the]media plays a very different role,” he said. “They write narratives that may or may not be true. The real part of the story is always unspoken. It gets lost.” Stories like his bring clarity to abstract debates. They reveal how caste discrimination, forced displacement, language barriers and shrinking safety nets intersect to trap people in poverty.

Behind every statistic is a life like Acharya’s, a Nepali refugee who survived eviction, decades of statelessness and systemic exclusion and who now works to ensure the next generation has a better chance. Stories like Acharya’s remind us that behind every policy debate are real people navigating systems not designed for them.

– Dylan Kretchmar

Dylan Kretchmar is based in Granville, OH, USA and focuses on Good News and Politics for The Borgen Project.

Image: Unsplash