Three young girls are dressed in their finest holiday chubas, traditional Tibetan dresses, for the upcoming Losar new years celebrations in Dharamsala, India. Since 1959 thousands of Tibetans have now raised their families in the exiled Tibetan community of Dharamsala, home to the Dalai Lama. As the older refugee generation passes on, the next find themselves hoping for the freedom of a land they have never seen. Meanwhile, Tibetan refugees strive to assimilate into the modern twenty-first...
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Three young girls are dressed in their finest holiday chubas, traditional Tibetan dresses, for the upcoming Losar new years celebrations in Dharamsala, India. Since 1959 thousands of Tibetans have now raised their families in the exiled Tibetan community of Dharamsala, home to the Dalai Lama. As the older refugee generation passes on, the next find themselves hoping for the freedom of a land they have never seen. Meanwhile, Tibetan refugees strive to assimilate into the modern twenty-first century while maintaining their Tibetan identity. While some Tibetans have opted to become citizens of another society, most continue to live in limbo as guests of other nations. The question lingers, how does a culture survive without a country?
“Our aim is to educate our children as best we can to integrate with the rest of the modern world as well as maintain their traditional background,” says Tsering Dhondup of the S.O.S Children’s school. “We feel it’s important to raise them in a Tibetan environment and for them to grow up with a sense of identity in relation to their own culture.”
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