What does it cost a family to arrive, and what does it take to stay and give back?
There are stories that stop you mid-sentence, stories where you realize you have been holding your breath without knowing it. Mamta Bajgain’s story is one of those. She was born in a refugee camp in Nepal and arrived in Cincinnati at age nine, placed in a quiet neighborhood in Colerain Township.
This episode of Roots, Routes and Voices That Shape America sits at the heart of what immigration stories America gets wrong most often, the idea that arrival is the ending. For Mamta, and for so many Bhutanese Nepali refugee Cincinnati families, arrival was just the beginning of a much longer, much harder, and ultimately much more extraordinary chapter.
Mamta Bajgain is a Program Coordinator with the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation, leading outreach specifically within Bhutanese Nepali communities across Ohio. She chairs the Cincinnati Nepali Language and Arts Center, sits on the board of the Asian Community Alliance, and was named a 2025 Ellis Island Honors Society Beacon Award honoree.
Key Takeaways
- Mamta was born in a refugee camp in Nepal after her Bhutanese Nepali family was displaced from Bhutan, and she resettled in Cincinnati at age nine.
- Through her school years she hid her refugee story out of shame, until a college event featuring an author’s book about refugee students helped her see her own journey as a source of strength rather than something to conceal.
- After noticing rising suicide rates among older men in the Bhutanese Nepali community, Mamta built listening sessions that brought community members together to name the problem directly.
- She helped grow the Cincinnati Nepali Language and Arts Center into a wraparound support hub that now assists families with green card applications, citizenship paperwork, and public benefits navigation.
- Hamilton County proclaimed a Mamta Bajgain Day in recognition of her sustained community leadership.
- Mamta said, “I was born in a refugee camp. I was a refugee, but that does not define me. I am so much more than that.”
- Mamta said, “We come from a lot of hardships. We come from nothing. But that doesn’t define us. We’re here to work hard and give back in the best way we can.”
Timestamps
0:00 Introduction and welcome from Clara and Bryan
3:51 Born in a refugee camp in Nepal
13:53 The history of Bhutanese Nepali displacement
17:28 Learning the family would resettle
20:05 Arriving in Cincinnati and the quiet of Colerain Township
22:04 The corn dog mix up on the first day of school
26:13 The book event that gave her permission to claim her story as strength
33:15 Noticing rising suicide rates among older Bhutanese Nepali men
40:10 Building listening sessions and asking the uncomfortable questions
46:37 Growing the Cincinnati Nepali Language and Arts Center
59:12 What she wants young people to understand about mental health
1:07:06 What Cincinnati should know about the cost of arriving and the work of staying
Connect with Mamta Bajgain
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mamta-bajgain
