They say there’s magic in new beginnings.
Our story starts about 20 miles northeast of downtown Austin, over a railroad crossing, and down a two-lane road. Go past an archway of giant tree limbs and toward the end of a long gravel driveway. There sits the Refugee Collective’s Farm in Elgin, where new beginnings are as plentiful as fresh produce.
The week before Thanksgiving, the sun was shining against a bright cerulean sky over small plots of garden beds full of Afghan leeks and mustard greens. The farm is surrounded by trees. On this Friday, temperatures hovered around 56 degrees. By 9:00 a.m., the folks running the farm were well into their workday.
Three refugees huddled at a table in front of a small, beige storage shed. Two of the workers, women from Myanmar, were peeling and coring little red-magenta fruits brighter than cherries and unrecognizable to most of the farm’s guests, with long tentacles shaped like spikes. They sat bundled up with sweaters and hats in front of a large crate of deep red fruit and little green buckets for the cores. One by one, the women grabbed the pieces, took the cores out, and separated them. The third worker, an 80-year-old Afghan man named Sayar, had a big, bright smile and a full gray beard. He greeted farm guests as they arrived for a tour of the property wearing jeans, a sage green jacket, and a matching hat to cover the sun. Sayar was adamant about putting newcomers to work — the same way an uncle tells kids at a family gathering to “make themselves useful.”
“You turn it! You can do it! Try this one!” Sayar said in a beautiful, rich accent — evidence that he was lucky enough to know two languages: English and his native Pashto. He joined the collective’s community farm program in 2023.
Amidst some laughter and cheers, and after a few attempts from visitors to core the fruit, the farm tour continued. The fruit — hibiscus — was a new discovery for most of the farm’s guests. American consumers largely recognize it only after it’s been dried and packaged for tea, like these ones will be. Once they’re dehydrated, they’re destined to become Texas Roselle tea in the collective’s gift boxes. Hibiscus is one of the fruits (often mistaken for a flower) grown on the farm in Elgin — part of the Refugee Collective, a nonprofit social enterprise that employs refugees through sustainable textile manufacturing and farming.
The coring station is just one part of the collective’s 20-acre, USDA-certified-organic-farm that helps “reconnect refugees from traditional farming cultures to land in their new communities,” according to its website. There are three aspects to the collective program, including the refugee farm in Elgin, where five employees work Monday through Friday for fair wages preparing produce the organization sells to the community; a textile studio in downtown Austin that employs four refugees who produce artisan home goods, which they sell in curated gift boxes or for local retailers; and a free community farm program, which is designed to assist any refugee seeking a place they can plant and grow their own food and be part of a community. About 20 people participate in this last featured program, which gives tools, seeds, training, and 750 square feet of growing space to any refugee who is newly arrived. The farm purchases the vegetables they grow at market rates, and the farmers then distribute the food — for free — to their communities.
Nearly all of the people involved in the collective’s various programs sought asylum in the U.S. after being forced to flee their home countries due to war, persecution, or violence. The Refugee Collective supports refugee livelihoods through “culturally desired food access,” positive environmental impact through regenerative agriculture, sustainable textile manufacturing, and “individualized wraparound support for refugee team members,” according to its website.
Christina Jones, the community engagement and volunteer manager for the collective, runs tours of the land and educates the surrounding community on the organization’s work.
“If you’re a newly arrived refugee, anything that’s going to give you a sense of home is extremely important,” Jones told The Barbed Wire, as she walked past the hibiscus station and down a gravel road to the farmland. “It’s a harrowing experience to have to leave your home, so finding that small comfort, I think, is pretty important. And they’re able to come out here and then also meet other refugees, newly arrived refugees, and just be in community.”
The farm started in 2018, and the collective was founded in 2009 by two Liberian refugees, Johnson Doe and Paul Tiah, and two American women, Meg Erskine and Sarah Stranahan. The goal, from the beginning, was to build community support for refugees in Austin, which is home to 12,000 refugees, asylees, and special immigrant visa holders, according to the collective’s data. That influx fuels organizers’ efforts to build a supportive community for resettlement.
It’s not just Austin; Texas saw more newly arrived refugees than any other state over the last year, according to data from the Refugee Processing Center. More than 9,700 refugees arrived in Texas from October 2023 to September 2024.
“I have a great amount of gratitude and appreciation for our refugee team, because, first of all, they’re just fantastic people, but also they’re just working hard and doing the most and the best that they can do for their families and their communities,” Jones said.
To make operations sustainable, the farm runs a community supported agriculture program, or CSA, from the produce grown by the paid refugee team where folks in the community can sign up for weekly and bi-weekly produce pickup and delivery across Austin.
As Jones walked toward a mobile chicken coop, a loud squawk interrupted the tour.
“They’re just about done eating everything that they can possibly eat on this space and pooping, which puts a ton of nitrogen back in the soil, so as soon as they’re done, which will be soon, we’ll then completely pick everything up and put it in another plot for them to do the same thing,” Jones explained. Moving the chickens is part of the farm’s regenerative plan. “These are new ladies, and they’re laying like crazy. We have, like, 100 dozen eggs right now, so if y’all want to buy some eggs before you leave, please do!”
The farmland is owned by the Wilbarger Creek Conservation Alliance, an organization focused on preserving working farms and ranches, as well as wildlife habitat, in the Wilbarger Creek Watershed. Historically, the farm’s land was a part of the Littig Freedman Colony, which was previously owned by Jackson Morrow, the first black postmaster in Texas.
“It’s so helpful for mental health, connecting with the soil that you’re on,” Jones said, listing some of the refugees’ home countries, including Syria, Ghana, and Bhutan. “Having to leave your home country and that land, and then being able to have an investment in the dirt, literally it does something to your body and your mind. It forms these very meaningful connections.”
“In season currently are peppers. This is when we see a lot of leafy greens, like kale and chard, mustard greens,” Jones’ tour continued. Guests approached a small field of veggies, where the smell of fresh dirt and herbs filled the air. “They’re picking some tomatoes, the rest of this batch, and these are onions — green onions.”
Sui Nai, a farmer from Myanmar, had a bright smile and big energy. She was excited to see guests visiting the farm.
“I’m harvesting peppers,” Nai said in limited English. She held a large green bucket to collect the jalapeños. A white bucket hat with three sunflowers stitched on the front shielded her face from the sun, and she wore dark jeans and a red flannel over a sweatshirt for the chilly fall weather. Her cheeks perked as a smile crept up behind a black medical mask. “I love the farm!”
Sui Nai diligently looked through the jalapeño stalks, collected the dark green ones in the large buckets, and avoided the red ones. “They’re not ready,” she said of the red peppers. Her glossy black hair was tied back in a ponytail that peeked out from under her hat. Creases on her brown skin made it evident that laughter and smiles were a big part of her life, but her presence on the farm meant it was likely a hard one. Sui Nai didn’t share why she left Myanmar or how she made it to Austin, only that she had daughters with her — and Jones said the collective avoids discussing those topics to make sure folks are not retraumatized. Out of respect for that concern, The Barbed Wire did not ask further questions about her specific circumstances. Nai is one of many millions who’ve fled her home country. In August 2017, armed attacks, including large-scale violence and human rights violations, forced thousands of Rohingya — a Muslim ethnic minority group who’ve lived for centuries in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar — to flee their homes, according to the UN Refugee Agency, which notes that “many walked for days through jungles and undertook dangerous sea journeys” to escape to Bangladesh, where the world’s largest refugee camp is home to nearly one million people. The United Nations calls the Rohingya “the most persecuted minority in the world,” and tensions escalated further in both 2021 and 2023. More than 75% of the refugee population from Myanmar are women and children.
“You know, not being in your own home country, but digging in literally and figuratively to make your way here. Yeah, that takes guts,” said Jones, who has been at the farm for a little more than two years.
Working with this community hits close to home for Jones, whose mother immigrated from Argentina.
“She immigrated here when she married my dad and had a thick, thick accent, and I saw how people treated her and kind of dismissed her because they couldn’t understand her,” Jones said. “As communities, sometimes you dismiss people if they don’t look like you or talk like you, and you’re missing out on some pretty incredible folks.”
Life on the farm is slow and intentional.
It’s a place where refugees can escape their past, be present with the land and the crops. It’s a chance to be a part of the Central Texas community. They’re seen and valued, away from the looming threat of mass deportations and Texas’ ever-expanding role in anti-immigrant policies. Jones avoids those conversation topics, and frustration was visible in her furrowed eyebrows at the thought of the challenges to come — including a new presidential administration.
“It’s on the top of our heads, certainly,” Jones said. Those anxieties are just one more reason, she argued, for the larger community to support the collective’s programs. “There’s so many ways, like becoming a CSA member. It’s the end of the year, so we’re having our end of year fundraising push, and so just being a donor, buying our gift boxes, that’s a huge one.”
As the tour wrapped up and the guests prepared to return to their homes, the farm team continued picking jalapeños.
A small breeze gently swayed the stalks of leaves, and a light swooshing hum formed a calm melody over the staccato thumps of the fruits falling into the buckets. Occasional laughter and multiple languages filled the air.
It felt, at least to this visitor, like the soft tune of mother nature was embracing the refugee team, whose hands were hard at work harvesting their new lives on a little farm in Elgin.