Voters registering in a poorer, minority neighborhood in Columbus OH are a diverse lot, including some with roots in Somalia and other world diaspora spots. The first Somali man I registered wrote his birthday as Jan. 1, 1982, which at the time I just thought was a coincidence and remarked something about him being a “New Years baby” without much response.
Then I noticed the Jan. 1 birthday in several other such registrations. Well, that was weird and a little disturbing. Was the information accurate?
I finally got around to googling for any insight on this and found this result:
Jan. 1 a common birth date for many immigrants
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But it turns out there are far more people with a January 1st birthday than you might think. Sometimes even multiple members of a family may share that birthday.
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The reason for this coincidence is simple: they were refugees who fled war-torn Ethiopia, and they never had records of their birth dates, so new ones were assigned to them. Gadeise Gebywe explains.
"Back home, nobody goes to doctor when they have a baby. Most people, they [give birth] at home," she said.
Gebywe fled Ethiopia and went to Kenya, where she was interviewed to gain refugee status.
"I didn't understand how to write 'A B C.'" she said.
Gebywe was illiterate then, so her interviewer recommended that she write her birth date as 1/1. It was simple and easy to remember.
"The Jan. 1 birth date is the common birth date we assign," said Marilu Cabrera, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security.
A little heartbreaking in a way, but great that so many refugees have become citizens and joined the electorate.