A Bengali Refugee Makes a New Home at Detroit’s Best Chocolate Company - Eater Detroit

It’s 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon at Bon Bon Bon, an acclaimed chocolate shop in Hamtramck. Among bright pink walls and metal tables, Adwity Borna pours honey into a small coffee filter and places it carefully on a scale in preparation for mixing the filling for high tea bons, rectangular chocolate shells filled with Earl Grey tea-flavored filling.

Borna, who wears glasses and a loose braid tucked under a pink beanie, transfers the mixture into a bowl and starts to pour in the other measured ingredients: Earl Grey tea, dark-chocolate ganache, hemp seed nougatine, smoked sugar, and cornflower petals. Once finished, she delicately pipes the mixture into glossy dark-chocolate shells, ready to be individually packaged and sold to customers nationwide. It’s a delicate process even for an experienced chocolatier, and one that requires steady hands, attention to detail, and instinct. That’s why it’s all the more impressive that Borna didn’t know anything about chocolate a few years ago.

As production manager for the chocolate company, Borna (who also goes by her last name at the shop) oversees the process from start to finish. She’s fast, too, making up to 319 chocolate shells an hour by pouring liquid chocolate into polycarbonate molds. However, just a few years ago Borna had never worked in a kitchen (or with chocolate), much less managed a major food-production process. She says that much of the equipment, including the chocolate machine, called “Savy” (short for the brand Savy-Goiseau), was a mystery to her when she started.

Today, Bon Bon Bon founder Alexandra Clark considers Borna an expert in her craft, particularly when it comes to tempering. A notoriously difficult skill to master, tempering requires intuition as much as knowledge to ensure that the chocolate achieves a glossy finish. “Borna’s attention to detail and ability to deal with complex issues and solve problems with creative, accurate solutions has been invaluable to Bon Bon Bon,” says Bon Bon Bon’s founder, Alexandra Clark. “It inspires the same quality in others, and it means that we can always depend on her, even when she is up against a big challenge.”

Since coming to work at Bon Bon Bon in November 2016, Borna has become a vital part of the fabric there. Yet her place within the community is fragile. Originally from Bangladesh, Borna is in the process of seeking religious asylum in the U.S., while at the same time trying to provide stability in a new country for herself and her teenage daughter, Nee.

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Borna was born in Gopalganj, Bangladesh, a district in the capital, Dhaka, along the east bank of the Madhumati River, in central Bangladesh. The youngest of six siblings, she lived in several districts when she was a child before settling in Jessore district, in the southwestern region of Bangladesh, bordering India. When she was a child, Borna’s parents worked in various capacities for the Salvation Army, as teachers, translators, caseworkers, and recruiting sergeants (a military-style ranking system used by the church).

Growing up as part of a minority Christian family in a majority Muslim country was difficult. Despite legal protections for people of different faiths, Christians and other religious minorities in the region face threats of violence in the Muslim-majority country. “Back in Bangladesh, I never felt safe,” Borna says. When she was 11, she recalls walking home with her sister from school and being followed by strange men. The incident prevented her and her sister from attending school for a while. Just before her 17th birthday, her father died under mysterious circumstances and she was again threatened by strange men, who threw rocks at the family’s home and threatened to kidnap the children. Her mother eventually moved the family to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, out of concern for her children's’ safety.

Borna is a production manager at Bon Bon Bon.

Borna married in Dhaka and had three children — 17-year-old daughter Nee and sons Samuel Nirjhir, 21, and Paul Nishorgo D’costa, 19 — with her ex-husband. Living in Bangladesh, she worked as a librarian at Bacha English Medium School in Dhaka, as a stage performer, and as a vocal artist at IJB Media Trust. Borna was also a freelance vocal artist at the radio station Bangladesh Betar and Christian Discipleship Center, where she also wrote scripts. During her time working with a radio program through the Prime Evangelical Church Trust, Borna says she faced backlash and harassment for her religious views.

In 2014, Bangladesh held national elections that were marked by reports of violence and intimidation against minority groups. Tensions continued after the elections, according to the independent watchdog organization Freedom House. “It’s really sad,” Borna says. “I don’t want to see my country like this. When you know your religion, you should respect other religions too.”

In September 2015, at age 42, Borna made the difficult decision to take her youngest child, Nee, and relocate to Michigan, applying for asylum due to religious persecution. Leaving behind her sons was extremely hard. “My kids were close to me,” she says. “People used to say I look incomplete without my kids.” Borna says that moving to the United States gave her a sense of security. “When I got to the U.S., I was able to experience safety and peace, which made me decide to try and stay here. I knew in the U.S. I could trust the system and expect to be taken care of,” she says.

Borna briefly lived with her sister, in Three Oaks, Michigan, near Kalamazoo, before relocating to Hamtramck, where she worked as a nanny and volunteered at the International HOPE Center, a church and nonprofit organization in Hamtramck. Nee enrolled in the local high school. The pair share a home with retired reverend Sharon Buttry, a former associate director of the International Hope Center in Hamtramck.

In Hamtramck, an estimated 24.3 percent of residents are of Bengali decent, according to Dylan Siwicki of the PIAST Institute, which tracks census data for the community. Although Borna is Bangladeshi, adjusting to her new life wasn’t easy. Borna didn’t share a common dialect or culture with others living in the city, who are mostly from Sylhet, in eastern Bangladesh. Borna, who grew up near Dhaka, speaks Shadhu-bhasha, a formal dialect of Bangla used in schools and widely understood in Bangladesh. “I felt really alone by myself,” she says. “There are so many Bengali people here. Some are accepting and others are not.”

Adwity Borna was first introduced to Bon Bon Bon’s chocolates in 2016 by her roommate, reverend Sharon Buttry.

In 2016, Borna got her first taste of Bon Bon Bon’s confections. She recalls Buttry bringing some home for her birthday and sharing them with her housemates. “It was delicious and absolutely handmade,” Borna says.

Buttry connected Borna with the shop and arranged an interview that November. “We always like to ask about any special talents. She mentioned she could do palm reading,” Clark says of her first meeting with Borna. “I liked that she wasn’t afraid of [saying], ‘This is who I am.’”

Borna was equally impressed by Clark and the company. “I felt like Bon Bon Bon was a very creative place and the owner was a beautiful, intelligent, young, and independent lady,” she says.

That was the beginning of Borna’s three-year journey with Bon Bon Bon, as a chocolatier and a production specialist. Borna says Alex helped her build her confidence and is an easygoing boss. “We can laugh at silly things together,” she says. “We can be professional and we can be personal.” Working at the shop also helped Borna learn the Sylheti dialect by practicing through conversations with Bon Bon Bon customers. She says she can now understand the customers who come to the store.

Clark says Borna is the first one to notice when something is wrong in their circle. She’s like everyone’s mom. She is also a big hugger. “My favorite thing that Borna does is when she says, ‘Maybe,’ and then follows it with her exact opinion and the perfect solution for something. Like, ‘Maybe we should just turn the machine off,’ or ‘Maybe we need to have more fun today.’ We basically do whatever Borna says around here — in many ways, she is the boss,” Clark says.

Clark now says she considers Borna and Nee part of her family. Over the summer, when Clark was preparing for her wedding, Borna and Nee threw her a Gaye Holud — a traditional Bengali pre-wedding party. Borna hand-painted all the decorations and took care of every detail, Clark says. Borna is shy about her painting, but says her favorite canvas is the Bangladeshi sari, ranging from five to nine yards of cloth worn in various ways by women. Clark and Borna paint chocolate shells together once a year for Rebel Nell, a local company that employs marginalized women who are trying to get back on their feet.

Borna weighs ingredients at Bon Bon Bon for chocolate confections next to company founder and mentor Alexandra Clark.

Borna wants to stay in the U.S. to build her life up again in safety. She has applied for asylum based on religious persecution and a fear for her life. “Personally, I have so many Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist friends that are so close to me,” she says. “When people are getting more fundamental, they are becoming more blind day by day. It’s really sad.”

In August 2018, Borna met with an officer in Chicago, then had a hearing with a judge in Michigan in October 2019. She has an upcoming hearing on March 9, 2020. While Borna says she has no idea what will happen, she’s optimistic due to her supportive community and legal team.

Recently, Clark began a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for Borna’s legal fees and provide financial support. While Clark believes Borna has a strong case and never asks for help, she says it’s the right thing to do, because she would do it for others. “Borna is incredible and has been creative and resourceful in her transition to life here,” she says. The campaign has raised more than $3,700 of its $10,000 goal.

Clark calls Borna a lion. “When someone as capable and determined as Borna receives support, it is an investment. She deserves the support of our community because she has been so dedicated to supporting the people around her since the day that she got here.”

Borna says she wants a better life for her kids. “I want to make sure my kids get to experience a safe and normal life full of joy. It is not easy being a mom like this,” she says, noting that both of her sons are still living in Bangladesh. “My daughter is here with me. She has a better living standard here for sure, but we’re just incomplete without my sons.”

Borna says Nee wants to become a social worker or journalist. “Having to raise her by myself is quite challenging,” she says. “It feels to have become easier over time because we are surrounded with such good people here.”

• All Bon Bon Bon Coverage [ED]
• Asylum for Borna & Nee [GoFundMe]

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