Seemingly secure under rolling mountains in southern Burma is a small village called Pah Pu. Many of the Karen people who live here depend on the rice they grow in the hills surrounding their homes for their livelihood. Sa’s family, like most other families in the village, always felt secure because of the money they made from the rice they harvested year after year in the mountains. Sa lived in Pah Pu for the first sixty-six years of her life, and every year, she helped first her parents, then her husband and finally her children reproduce rice to sell and to eat.

But the hills surrounding Pah Pu offered much more than just the security of livelihood. They became a safe haven from the military junta whom often raided Pah Pu and surrounding villages as a part of the Burmese government’s four cuts policy:  an attempt to cut off food, funds, information and recruits from minority insurgents in tribes such as the Karen. The four cuts policy was first implemented in the late 1960s, but has carried over through decades of fighting.

Sa, who now lives with her daughter, Daw, and two grandsons in north Austin, described fleeing to the safety of the mountains as a regular occurrence for her and her family. In fact, she chuckled lightly when I asked how many times she was forced to find refuge away from her home in Pah Pu as if such a question wasn’t even worth asking. “Many times,” was her only response.

Whenever soldiers would attack Pah Pu, Sa, Daw and the rest of their family would take only a small amount of food with them into the hills. They were forced to camp in the cold with little resources and few chances to cook in fear that any fire would alert their enemies of their whereabouts. The harsh weather and conditions made both Sa and Daw’s husbands sick, and with few treatment options in Pah Pu, both eventually died from their illnesses.

Over the years the four cuts continued to weaken the security and safety of the hills around Pah Pu, and the family’s short trips into the mountains became increasingly dangerous. Sa, her eight children and grandchildren decided to permanently say goodbye to their home and embarked on a three-day journey through the mountains without food in order to reach real safety in Thailand.

“We were so scared,” said Sa. “We walked fast through the mountains.”

The family made it to Thailand and began a new life there. Many of Sa’s children found part-time jobs or began farming rice again, and continued to raise their families.

When Daw decided a move to the United States would provide her sons better education opportunities than those in Thailand, Sa made the difficult decision to leave the rest of her children and 21 other grandchildren to join her youngest daughter.

Sa and Daw still miss the rest of their family, but they both believe they made the right decision to move to Austin almost a year ago.

“We can’t go back, but only miss Burma,” said Sa.

One might expect the drastic changes in culture and lifestyle for 84 year-old Sa and even for Daw would cause some sort of identity crisis, but neither mother nor daughter seem to have waivered from their Karen traditions. Their shared passion for weaving is a direct representation of the people and homeland they were forced to leave behind first in Burma and then in Thailand. A stenciled picture of the first Karen National Union president, Saw Ba U Gyi, hangs in their apartment living room as a proud statement of the family’s continued allegiance to the Karen people.

Not only is their heritage still intact, but Sa and Daw continue to remember the effects of failed security they once felt so harshly on those frequent mountain visits. Even here in America, they’ve made it their goal to keep as many people from sharing this experience as possible. Their apartment is constantly filled to the brim with friends-some who need a place to live until they find a place of their own and others who just enjoy the company of a sassy Karen grandmother and her quiet, yet ever-loyal daughter.

Both smile when I mention the large number of visitors to their home.

“We really like to have people to watch over,” said Sa.

The security and safety of their original home may have long since disappeared, but it has been replaced by the safety Sa and Daw experience in the opportunities and possibilities of a freely secured future for themselves, their family and their friends here in Austin.