Kathleen at work (Photo by Claire Sykes)
December 9, 2009
By Claire Sykes
Millions of immigrants and refugees from all over the world cross our borders, fleeing poverty and violence, persecution and war. They come to the United States hoping to live a better life.
Kathleen Holloway meets hundreds of them every year in her job at Portland Community College (PCC). As Volunteer Literacy Tutoring Program Coordinator (since 1999), she matches students of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), ABE (Adult Basic Education) and GED (General Education Development) with volunteer tutors.
I’m one of those tutors, running a weekly ESOL conversation group for people from Tibet, Vietnam, China and Peru. While they learn this language I live and love, I think about where Lobsang came from, what Lu or Joseph went through to get here, the families and friends Chun, Tong and Gigi left behind, and the challenges Gilmer and other immigrants and refugees face in living day-to-day in a foreign country, struggling with words and ways originally not their own.
Me with some of my students (Photo by Kathleen Holloway)
Late last summer Kathleen and I sat in her beautiful backyard garden at the South Tabor home she shares with her husband and 11-year-old son. There’s a quietness about her, at the same time this intensity—her voice gentle yet charged, eyes soft yet animated. While she talks, she often presses her palms together, fingers steepled at her chin as if in deep thought, or gassho. That day, Kathleen spoke about her own experiences with immigrants and refugees and what they’ve taught her.
Kathleen not in her garden, but Amsterdam (Photo by Will Goldstein)
Claire Sykes: What do you care most about the work that you do with immigrants and refugees?
Kathleen Holloway: I love that my job lets me help people learn skills that are essential for their well-being in this country. Learning English opens up opportunities for them here. It’s very satisfying to be able to help people, and also, I get to engage with people from all over the world. Cultural diversity is something I’m endlessly fascinated by.
CS: How so?
KH: One’s cultural orientation is like the water that a fish swims in or the air we breathe. Our culture colors all of our perceptions, to the point where we hardly notice them. About 70-80 percent of one’s own culture is perceived unconsciously. But a person who comes here from a different cultural background sees life very differently than those of us who were born here in the midst of mainstream culture. It’s very interesting to learn about those different perspectives. And through these other points of reference, you can learn about your own cultural orientation. Because until you interact with people from other cultures, or travel to other cultures, which takes you further in your interactions with people there, you can’t be as aware of your own culture. I’m fascinated by that. It’s been a core interest of mine for much of my life.
CS: I know that you’ve traveled a lot in the world, since childhood.
KH: Yes, I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to live in other countries. My parents, especially my father, were very adventurous. When I was a child, he was in the Air Force stationed in France, so we lived there. During a sabbatical leave, he took the family to Athens, Greece, where we lived for two years while I was in high school. As I was growing up, we traveled a lot—in Spain, Germany, France, England, Greece, Egypt, Ethiopia and Iran.
On my own, I lived in West Berlin for three years at the height of the Cold War, in 1977-80. Six years later, I was in El Salvador, with a women’s group connected with a Catholic church in Seattle. We lived for ten days in a camp for internally displaced refugees, mostly simple farmers from the countryside. We were there in the thick of the civil war. We could see the planes dropping bombs in the distance and feel the thud of them hitting the ground.
Then in 1992, I spent eight months working with Guatemalan refugees in the Southern Mexican state of Chiapas. I worked in a team with a refugee grassroots women’s organization out in the camps doing trainings on human rights and women’s rights, domestic violence, alcoholism and women’s health issues. And we helped the women sort out whether they’d return to Guatemala or not, given the dangers they had fled.
CS: Every year, thousands of people around the world escape war, violence and poverty for refuge in the United States. How does our country perceive them?
KH: In the U.S., not everyone who has had to flee their country is given official refugee status. This is because the U.S. supports their governments with billions of dollars in military aid. To accept them as refugees would mean we’d have to condemn their governments for what caused them to flee, as well as carry the responsibility and expense of resettling them here in the U.S. However, the U.S. does recognize some refugees, keeping in line with U.S. foreign policy. And in these cases, the U.S. Office of Resettlement works with the UNHCR [Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] to receive and help resettle refugees from refugee camps in other countries.
CS: What are some of the challenges immigrants and refugees face here?
KH: They may’ve had a difficult time getting here, for one. And if they left their countries because their lives were in danger, they may’ve lost family and friends to war and civil unrest.
But the degree of trauma they’ve faced in their countries and the amount of support they have here determine how difficult or easy their adjustment will be. If they have family here to receive them when they arrive and there’s a well-established ethnic community that’s ready to catch them, it’s extremely helpful.
Usually, when they arrive, they experience culture shock, first at a superficial level—how the houses and city look and people dress. Then at deeper levels. The interpersonal dynamics in their families can be very challenging, because of the different values and beliefs in American culture, how children here are raised and how men and women relate. Many immigrants’ and refugees’ challenges have to do with the roles of women in the U.S., which can be quite different from where they come from. And they’re often shocked by how old people are treated here, because in their countries they’re taken in by the extended family.
All of this is complicated by economic challenges, because immigrants and refugees are often poor, with only low-paying jobs. Then, they have to find a place to live, buy groceries, get health care, find a job, find schools for their kids—all the things we who are already here do that we don’t even think about. The biggest stressors are finding work and having enough income for their families. The potential really is for their children and future generations. They are the ones who will have more opportunities in education, career and standard of living.
CS: On top of this they don’t know English.
KH: They know they need to learn the language, so they make time for it, even though they’re really tired maybe. Then that fatigue, and stress and anxiety from all the challenges interfere with the learning process. So maybe they have trouble concentrating in class, and they’re not able to retain what they learn. Some refugees have PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder], which can affect memory, too.
CS: What’s going on for someone as they learn a new language?
KH: Well, some people have more aptitude for language-learning than others. Usually, the more formal education they already have, they can transfer those skills to learning English—things like study skills, the ability to use a dictionary, knowledge of grammar, analytical skills, knowing how they learn best—so they can take full advantage in the classroom. But for a lot of immigrants and refugees, they’re learning reading and writing for the first time as adults, in a new language, English. Also, in many cultures, it’s not the norm for adults to go to school, so it can take someone a while to adjust as a student.
CS: There’s so much that many natives to the U.S. take for granted.
KH: Yes. But it’s a misperception to assume that everyone wants to come here because of this wonderful way of life we have. If conditions in their countries were better, most adult immigrants and refugees wouldn’t hesitate to return to their cultures, their communities, their families and friends, and what they grew up with. In fact, they would’ve never left.
© 2009 Claire Sykes. All rights reserved.
