Anuwar Kasim knows firsthand the importance of true democracy. He’s a Rohingya refugee who was born in Burma, also known as Myanmar, where human rights violations have been reported for years. He said the Rohingya, an ethnic minority, were treated as subhuman and not considered citizens. When he was about 30 he escaped from a military work camp into Bangladesh and then took a harrowing boat ride to Malaysia. Life in the refugee camp was better, but he was still harassed. He met his wife and had two children during the dozen years he waited for resettlement in the U.S. He was sent to Milwaukee because he had a friend here. Luckily, he had been able to attend school in Myanmar and learn some English, so he now works as an interpreter for Aurora Health Care. Slowly he is overcoming what it meant to live with constant fear, though he still worries about relatives back in the camps. The number of Rohingya resettling here has grown since he came in 2015, and Milwaukee now has one of the largest Rohingya communities in the U.S. Anuwar co-founded the nonprofit Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin, which helps with interpretation, literacy training and workforce development.