Category Archives: Tutoring Burmese Karen Families in 2015

Being a Friend–as well as a tutor–to refugee youth

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Julia and I had been working together for a few weeks and yet, as sweet and polite as she and her family always were to me, I could not help but feel like the meetings were obligatory for her and not much more than homework help. After all that she has been through in her life as a refugee, I wanted our Wednesday nights to be an opportunity for me to make things easier for her in the US and I wanted to be her friend. In this attempt, I regularly offered an open invitation for Julia to come visit me at school when leaving, yet never received much response from her other than a shy ‘ok, maybe.’ So when, a couple weeks later, she asked me what I was doing the following Friday, I was really excited and hopeful she was becoming more comfortable with me. Having her meet me posed a few difficulties, since she does not have a cell phone or know her way around campus, but we ended up finding each other eventually. We walked around campus and talked about what her school is like, as well as daily life. I did not realize until near the end of our visit that she was wearing (on one of the coldest days yet) only a t-­‐shirt and a thin sweatshirt. I made sure we spent the rest of the time inside after she would not accept borrowing one of my coats. This was really interesting to me because, as compared to how I was raised to always politely speak up when I was uncomfortable (“squeaky wheel gets the grease,” my mom would tell me), Julia was being polite in her own way by dealing with the cold silently. I made a mental note then to, in the future, subtly make sure that she is comfortable without making her feel as if she is being rude. This visit brought us closer in multiple ways that I would later notice in our meetings. First, I think it really helped for her to come and see where I am living (a tiny dorm) so the relationship feels more equal than me just always coming into her space. It also allowed me to understand Julia and her culture better, allowing me to adjust how I tutor. I always make sure that she understands the material we are covering and is not just saying so out of politeness. Serena S.

Burmese Karen Parents Struggle to Learn English

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Throughout this lab, I have worked with Dahtoo’s family members as a tutor. At first, I didn’t think this was going to be interesting, my plan was to finish my tutoring hours to fulfill the lab requirements. However, over my experiences with this family I have realized a lot of things that have not ever crossed my mind. Firstly, the concept of assertion; Dahtou and her family have brought their own culture from home and are constantly asserting it into American culture. It goes from native decorations, to native foods, to how they dress and are very hospitable when receiving guests. I realized that the notion of respect is very important in their culture; they always showed most respect but are also teaching their kids to do the same.      The elders always asked the children to behave, give them orders like go to another room, do homework or go to bed; the kids never complain but acted accordingly.

The children are much more educated than the parents because they go to school in the United States but the parents have never received an educational degree.  In fact, the children were very helpful in terms of translating some words to their parents or helping them understand a word or even an expression. This suggests dissonant acculturation because the children and parents acculturated at different rates. This  is very common for immigrants because the parents speak their native language and barely any English. However, a lot of credit goes to the parents for putting their kids into schools to learn English so they can maybe have a better life and be successful.

Even though the parents had a low English level, they showed interest in learning and were willing to do anything to improve: repeating one word ten times was not a problem for them, as long as they were learning something.

Working with this family was such a memorable experience for me, it went beyond tutoring, by making me learn more about their lives and their personalities as well as how they reflect their culture and assert it into the American one.  Kanzy E.