In late 2006, British photojournalist James Robert Fuller met Ta Ju, a Karen villager living in a refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border who was just about to embark on the first step of his family's resettlement to the United States.
Far from elated at the prospect, Ta Ju was in tears. He had just said goodbye to a close friend who decided against applying for resettlement. Then 46, Ta Ju had lived in Tham Hin camp since its formation in 1997 and it had become his home _ along with the friends he had made, two of his children and his grandson were born there. He had built a small but sturdy bamboo house for his family of eight on the grounds of the camp.
His 16-year-old son, Sher Nay Too, eventually convinced his father that leaving Tham Hin gave them the opportunity to achieve "something" beyond the limbo of the camp, Fuller says. "I don't think Sher Nay Too had any great expectations, but he had a clear understanding of what they could expect at the camp, which was more of the same, more of nothing."
Fuller and a writer, both on assignment from a magazine, joined Ta Ju, his wife She She, 44, and their family to record their trip from Tham Hin in Ratchaburi province to Suvarnabhumi airport.
For Fuller, the magazine assignment was complete once the family departed for their new home in Buffalo, New York. But after meeting Ta Ju and learning more about his family, he did not want to end it there.
"I was curious about the home that this family would make or that it would find," Fuller said.
He was a regular visitor to the US and had coincidentally made plans to visit friends in New York state in a few months' time. Ta Ju agreed when Fuller asked if it would be OK for him to check in on him then.
Starting with an initial trip in February, 2007, Fuller would continue to visit Ta Ju and his family roughly every 15 months until March of last year. The schedule allowed him to capture the family during each season and also lent a framework to the project - after five years the family would be able to apply for citizenship. "They'd be ostensibly American," Fuller says. (Only one family member, the husband of Ta Ju's daughter, Sher Paw, successfully attained citizenship).
The story of Ta Ju and his family members unfolds over the course of dozens of photos taken by Fuller that chart their journey from their final days at the refugee camp to their current life as a poor family struggling in tough economic times in the US and all that encompasses. Fuller recently won the FCCT/OnAsia Photo Contest in the migration category with a selection of 12 photos from his "From Burma to Buffalo" project which are currently on display at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand.
The exhibit is timely, coming as it does shortly after the devastating fire that ravaged Ban Mae Surin refugee camp in Mae Hong Son, killing 37 Karen refugees, as well as government overtures over the past couple of years suggesting that border camps would be closed.
Fuller took on the initiative himself and paid for it out of his own pocket, a necessity, he says, as most grants would only cover projects of a maximum 12 months in length, not enough time for the story he wanted to tell.
"You can't really show much transition in 12 months. You can show something going to s**t pretty easy _ that can be done in a couple of months. But you can't really show something changing or getting better, or moving laterally."
Part of what drew Fuller to this family was the diversity in the ages and life experiences of its members.
Ta Ju's children Sha Ehpaw and her brother Sho Guai, five and eight respectively at the time of the family's resettlement, were born in Tham Hin. Ta Ju's daughter Sher Paw, then 19, had a son in the camp, but was born in their Karen village as was her brother Sher Nay Too, 16 at the time, and their other male sibling Sher Naklay, 13.
"[Sher Paw] could remember what it was like to be in her home village in Karen state and she remembers carrying her younger brother [Sher Naklay] as they walked and ran through the jungle to get to Thailand."
Sher Paw's youngest siblings _ Elizabeth, born shortly after her parents arrival in the US in 2007 and twins Mark and Matthew born the following year _ would have childhoods worlds apart from the one she had known.
"If I followed one person, it would have been a simple narrative, but it wouldn't have said nearly as much because it would have just had that single perspective," he said. "They still have that cohesion as a family and yet there's a huge disparity in their personal experiences."
The Karen family was hit with new experiences from the moment they boarded the bus at Than Hin.
The hotel where they would spend the night before leaving for the US was full of surprises, from the phone system to doors that locked behind them (which often resulted in frequent requests to the front desk for assistance). Just the size of the place was novel _ at more than two storeys it was the largest concrete building they had ever been in.
The rush of the unfamiliar would continue over the coming weeks _ the shock of a Buffalo winter was not far off _ but Fuller saw more in this family's journey than a fish out of water tale.
"I was aware as I was doing this story that, OK, it's a very real experience in the first few days and first weeks for refugees who are moving from somewhere very rural to somewhere very urban," he said. "But I thought that only portraying them like that ... diminished them as people because it's just so easy to show them in those terms and I didn't think it was a fair representation of them.
"That's what this project is about, that ultimately they do understand their environment and they find their place in it."
DISCOURAGING WORDS, OFTEN HEARD
Finding their place in their new home did not come without hardship. Upon arrival in Buffalo, Ta Ju and his family were placed in an apartment that constituted the main floor of a house in a low-income area. (The choice, as Fuller points out, was practical _ the funds supporting them ran out after six months, after which they were on their own to pay rent). The same agency that housed them also helped Ta Ju find employment and sign up for food stamps and healthcare services. What would be the basics to locals there were totally alien to them.
"We become used to the procedures, and how to approach a problem," Fuller said, a mindset the Karen did not have.
Shortly after arriving in the US, She She gave birth to a daughter, who the family named Elizabeth as she was their first American-born child. The family didn't know where the hospital was nor did they have a car to get there if they did, so the baby was delivered at home by firemen responding to an emergency services call from the building's owners.
Because the child was not born in a hospital they faced a major bureaucratic hassle in attaining a birth certificate.
The agency assigned to help them was slow in doing so and as a consequence three months passed before Ta Ju and She She could access social services for newborns, such as free milk formula. As a result the couple had to dig into the meagre allowance they were given to cover other basics to pay for the milk.
While their parents tried to navigate their way through bureaucracy and getting around in their new environment, the children faced their own challenges. Their schools were in poor neighbourhoods and rough to begin with, but as the new kids from a culture few knew little about, the Karen became the subject of taunts and bullying.
Fuller says that Sher Nay Too, the main advocate for resettlement initially, may have suffered the worst out of the siblings after the move.
''He arrived at a time in his late adolescence when it was really conspicuous that he had difficulty with the language,'' he said. ''I think the move was hardest on him because he was on the cusp of being a young man.''
He was 16, an age when high school disputes in impoverished urban areas in the US can and often do turn violent. Sher Nay Too befriended other Karen boys who he knew from the refugee camp at the school and they became a target for other groups also formed along ethnic lines.
''He was the one who was met more than the others with the challenge of 'Who are you newcomers in our school?,''' Fuller says.
The intimidation stopped when the other groups realised that the Karen were not out to challenge anyone. Still, Sher Nay Too struggled to get a high school diploma and later had difficulty finding work.
''I think the move for him came at a time when it was about as challenging as it could be,'' Fuller says.
When he was about 20, Sher Nay Too got a tattoo that reads ''KAREN'' in large bold lettering and runs from elbow to wrist. ''Some people probably think that's his girlfriend's name,'' Fuller says. ''I've had quite a few other people say to me, 'Why do they call us Chinese? We're not Chinese, we're Karen.' Given that they've had to leave their homeland to be refugees and to resettle on another continent altogether because of their identity it's a real blow to them that they get called Chinese.''
On his last visit, Fuller says Sher Nay Too had mellowed, he'd found work with his father at a greenhouse and seemed to have overcome his earlier problems fitting in and had matured. He points to a photo of Sher Nay Too cutting his younger brother's hair. ''He's caring for somebody and that to me shows a lot about his maturity. There's a lot of affection there and I think that's evident in the comfort that the younger brother has [in the photo].''
LIVING ROOM LIFE
Fuller typically spends 10-14 days during each of his visits with Ta Ju and his family. On their first visit, he joined all of them in sleeping on the floor in the living room. There were two small bedrooms but the family preferred to roll out their sleeping mats and stay in the main room, much as they would have done at the camp or in the village.
That's changed considerably over the years, as has their use of living space, developments that Fuller says are telling of how far the family has come over the years.
''The living room is a character in the project,'' Fuller says.
She She over the years would usually sleep closest to the gas heater in the living room to keep her infants warm. ''But the other members of the family would sleep in different positions elsewhere that weren't the same each night. It was like they were camping out in their living room under the blankets,'' he says.
''Over the years it changed a little so that they were a little more spread out over the apartment. These days people have taken their own space, they use the beds and they've got their own rooms.''
The family adapted to their new home in countless other ways, sometimes by necessity. For example, they didn't appreciate that the failure to close a door quickly during the winter means heat escapes and they would have to pay to reheat the apartment. ''When they started getting colossal heating bills and associated that with the fact that it was getting cold, they became a little more considerate.''
Fuller says that they are now much more comfortable in their living spaces. ''Before that they had no idea about those types of things. There was a very steep learning curve that they had to scale to live in these apartments,'' he said. ''Now, they conform to the expectations that we would have of how to live in an apartment. The living room changed into what we would expect of a living room when we walk into it.''
Some of the photos Fuller has taken over the years show the youngsters in a similar place or situation, such as waiting for the school bus. Through such photos he hoped to capture their growth and the way they respond to their new environment.
''Each time I saw them it was changing, they were doing better,'' he says. ''The girl who went over there when she was four or five years old, now she speaks English like a 'homegirl'.''
Ta Ju has found work that he enjoys at a greenhouse where other Karen are employed, while She She looks after her young children at home. In perhaps the most Americanised development for the family, she's become a fan of daytime chat shows, with Jerry Springer a particular favourite.
''It's just hilarious and mind-boggling to her what these people are like. She She is not rough but she's not shy either; when she laughs, she laughs loud. And she enjoys that show, saying, 'Look at those people!','' says Fuller. ''I guess she appreciates it for what it is. I don't know whether she thinks all of America is like this or not.''
POOR AMERICANS
Fuller points to one of his photos showing two of Ta Ju's daughters walking between houses. The ''ideal'' American home is on the right of the photo _ ''All it's missing is the white picket fence,'' Fuller says _ while the one on the left is boarded up.
''Their experience is not just the experience of refugees,'' Fuller says. ''It's important to recognise that they are learning how to be poor Americans. When they're walking in this neighborhood, that's an American reality. It's their reality. It's their American reality.''
Buffalo is one of the poorest large cities in the US and Fuller believes his images speak to all of those who have lost their houses in the downturn and are now dealing with the repercussions of that, in terms of immediate survival and what it does to their sense of identity.
''It perhaps speaks to them as well what does it mean to live somewhere? What is home?'' Fuller says.
''Whether someone is a refugee or a poor American or European or whatever, I think that what this project touches on can be understood.''
For Fuller one of the most affecting moments of the project for him came at a birthday party held last year for all of Ta Ju's children. The family is too poor to hold individual celebrations, but the all-in-one affair works for them. Despite their differences in age and how their journeys have played out for them _ fleeing villagers, camp migrants, poor Americans _ they remain close and gatherings such as this are an integral part of their lives.
''They can have all these different experiences and different senses of belonging, but as a unit they're still a family,'' Fuller says.
At the party, Ta Ju stood up to deliver a folk song in the Karen language. Joining him was a co-worker from Burundi. The two delivered the tune in unison, word for word as it would have been heard back in Ta Ju's home village.
''What was so poignant was not just that his friend cared enough to study this song and sing it with Ta Ju,'' Fuller says, ''but that clearly he and Ta Ju together have got a friendship that's so strong they would put the time in so his friend could learn the song and deliver it.''
After five years in his new home, Ta Ju had made a friend.