Women danced in colorful sarong wraps that sparkled with silver thread, and a popular Nepali singer performed as the Bhutanese Nepali immigrant community celebrated a traditional Hindu festival Sunday attended by about 130 people.

The “Teej” festival, at AMVETS Post 13 in Riverside, marked the first major cultural event the community has organized in Buffalo. Members also used the occasion to discuss community issues, salute local politicians and express public gratitude for the opportunity to lead a better life in Buffalo.

“We will work hard, and I hope we will have a bright future in Buffalo,” said Kaji Sunwar, who organized the event.

Close to 500 Bhutanese Nepali immigrants have relocated in the past two years to the lower West Side, Black Rock and Riverside from refugee camps in southeastern Nepal.

Sunwar was the first Bhutanese Nepali refugee to arrive in Buffalo in 2008 and one of the first of 60,000 the United States agreed to resettle that year among 107,000 living in seven U. N. refugee camps.

Sunwar spent his teenage years in one such camp but was able to go to college in India, where he learned English and earned a degree in business management. He works as a case manager at Catholic Charities, helping to resettle newly arrived countrymen.

Sunwar’s four brothers and one sister followed him to Buffalo, with their parents expected. They and the other Bhutanese Nepali refugees in Buffalo are descendants of Nepalis who migrated in the 1800s to nearby Bhutan, a landlocked country in the Himalayan mountain range.

Fearing the growing numbers of Bhutanese Nepalis and other ethnic minorities as a potential political threat, that country’s monarchy began enacting policies in the 1980s to restrict cultural expression and civil rights.

“They were scared of our people because they were [educationally] advanced, owned a lot of land, worked hard,” Sunwar said.

“People in our village were told they faced imprisonment if found wearing their [native dress], or spoke their native language. People started going against the king, and he used armed force leading to torture, rape and killing,” Sunwar said.

Bhutan agreed to a monarchy-style democracy in 2008 due to international pressure, but the king continues to rule, Sunwar said.

Tamara Alsace, who directs multilingual education for Buffalo Public Schools, said there are about 100 Bhutanese Nepali students. Many already speak more than one language.

“I think this group tends to come with a higher level of education and have had a less-interrupted refugee camp experience,” Alsace said. “Overall, I find the students eager to learn, and once they learn English they tend to really excel.”

msommer@buffnews.comnull