What is the most closest relationship that you have with a refugee?

I've tutored half a dozen Karen students for a few years, and I know them all well, but the student I've come to know best is April Moo, she is going to transfer to SDSU from City College this fall, I've known her for five years, and my wife and I went to Thailand with her in December of 2014 to visit the refugee camp where she was born and grew up in for 15 years. The trip there was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, being in the camp with her and watching her conduct a two-day workshop for students living in the camp. It was amazing.

What was the workshop that she conducted?

The workshop was intended to kind of inspire the high school students in the camp to keep up with their education, not to drop out, even though their future in the camp is limited. It was also to inspire them to teach them about her experience coming to America and what her life has been here, what her life has been like here and what she's been able to accomplish, so it was both educational, they learned a lot about life in America, I remember they were fascinated because she had some American money with her and they were fascinated to look at her, and to look at her passport, they had never seen an American passport before, but it's also really inspirational to see what a young person, she's 24, for me that's pretty young, can accomplish in their short lives.

And talking about the refugee immigrants you have worked with so far, how have they felt, at the very beginning they came in here, and the later years, how has the experience, did they talk about with you that?

Yeah, one thing I've learned is how different experience is for children, for young adults compared to their parents, or the elders. For the parents and elders coming here is really difficult, because as you get older, it's harder to learn a new language, it's harder to adjust to a new culture. The younger the refugees, immigrants are, the easier it is to adapt to a new culture, learning new languages, which makes for a different kind of generation gap between the young people and the old people. I've seen many times in their family how maybe a seven year old or eight year old is trying to explain mail that the parents were sent by a US government agency because they could read the English, and the parents who get the mail have no idea what it's about. So it's a very different kind of circumstance from traditional American families that I know well.

Would you describe them as they are trying to be more educated than their parents, and trying to take ownership of the household?

Again, what I've learned that it's the parents, or elders, if there's no parents in the family, who've decided to make a sacrifice to leave a refugee camp in Thailand or in Africa or elsewhere, and bring their children to this country for a better life for them. The parents realizing they're not going to get the education because they can't get into the educational system, they may go to some adult classes but their lives are going to still be kind of stuck, they come here and sacrifice for their children so their children can go to school in this country. They are going to have the better future, and as a result, take care of their parents, instead of the other way around.

And talking about the second language learner students who you work with, how hard they find it to graduate on time?

Yeah, English, I've always known as a difficult language, but I've come to appreciate just how difficult language it is to learn. Crawford has had special newcomer classes for English language learners, they're eliminating those right now, there's a lot of political change going on, I know better the situation at City College, where English language learners have to take a couple extra years of ESLL classes that don't count towards graduation, don't count towards transferring, so their years at City College, they could be there four, five years instead of just the two, three we think of for American students. So it's a much more, slower step by step process. But they stick with it, they persevere, knowing it's going to take a long time. And I think they do that part because they know the sacrifices their parents or elders made to bring them here.