Last year, students and staff got together and created a bunch of designs that described them as individuals. The designs were then taken by a local artist who transcribed them onto cement slabs and created a pretty sweet-looking bench. It looks like a bunt cake, if you can imagine that. Tonight, our evening begins with the dedication of this bench. The principal speaks, as does the artist. The speeches are translated and relayed orally to the audience in Hmong, Karen, and Spanish. A qeej (a Hmong instrument pronounced, for our purposes, "khling") is played by a 4th grader. I am only vaguely aware of the ceremony though. I can just barely hear it from my post; outside the kitchen's back door, in the teacher's parking lot.
You see, my job tonight is to grill 500 hotdogs.
When I say "my job," what I actually mean is "Cade's job." I had enlisted Cade to assist me even though I had witnessed his skill as a griller only twice before, and one time may or may not have involved some veeaary rare steaks. Despite this previous setback, I knew Cade would do his best because he is always up for a challenge. At least I assumed he would be... I may have stressed the quality of the event over the quantity of hotdogs.
By 3:30, I'm breaking apart frozen hotdogs by smashing them on the ground and against the brick wall. Don't worry! They are still enclosed in their plastic casings, which are still enclosed inside their cardboard box. Very sanitary.
By 3:45, Cade has successfully grilled the first batch.
By 4:00, Cade is a pro - he constantly turns dogs, constantly smiles. He has mastered flipping six at a time, and now works on turning seven.
A little before 5, the people start coming. There are so many families with so many kids. I yell a greeting at the few students I know as they pass through the parking lot with their families.
At 5:15, I go dumpster diving because the principal needs proof that the hotdogs are beef and not pork, for the religious concerns of several families. Everyone is talking, everyone is eating.
By 6:00, I have conquered my dismantling clumps of frozen hotdogs technique. Cade could now cook a hotdog blindfolded if he wanted to. We try a bite of the Tofu Burgers cooked in case there were any vegetarians in the room. (There was one. And Tofu Burgers aren't bad, as long as they're smothered in ketchup.)
As Cade says goodbye and heads back to his homework, I immediately find myself pulled aside by a parent; Jesus. I had helped him fill out his daughter's immunization records just the week before, and he introduces me to his wife as "the lady who speaks Spanish so well." His wife shakes my hand and thanks me for being so kind. They comment on how lucky they are to have come early. We are almost out of hotdogs.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Bus 118
Kindergarten Bus 118 is the loudest and the proudest. "ONE-EIGH-TEEN! ONE-EIGH-TEEN!" we shout as we cruise past all the other, inferior kindergarteners who are laughing and giggling in their lines. We pay them no mind. We take our duty, to make it to Bus 118, very seriously.
Stories:
If Silver Lee doesn't hold the record for Most Time-Outs Awarded to a Kindergartener in the First Three Months of School, he is sure in the running. I, however, forget this every time he asks if he can hold my hand while we walk to "da buhs, go home to mah mom."
Javier greets me daily; "Sabes que hice hoy?" And because no, I never know what he did today, he immediately opens his backpack and pulls out whatever new creation of glue, construction paper and/or crayons he has constructed.
My group of Latino students is more excited than usual. When I ask why, they exclaim, "Es Peter! Él habla Español!"
"Is this true, Peter?" I ask. "Do you really speak Spanish?"
He grins so that all of his teeth show: "HOLA."
"Hola, como estás?" I ask.
Peter grins so that all of his teeth show: "HOLA."
"Ve????!!!!" the others exclaim to me, "Peter habla Español!!!"
I grin so that all of my teeth show, too.
One day as we wait in line Javier asks me, "Tienes una mamá?" Why yes, I answer, I have a mom. "Dónde está?" She's working, I tell him. "En dónde trabaja?" She works in a different city, I say. "Oh... entonces ella está muy lejos," Javier laments. Yes, I agree, she is pretty far away. Then Javier comments that her being far away must make me very sad and little does Javier know that on this particular day, it does. Damn it, Javier! I think to myself. You're so intuitive, so understanding, so... "Sabes que hice hoy?" ...yes. So that.
All Silver Lee wants is go home to mom on da buhs so we godda find da buhs is buhs one one eight go home to mom at home wit him on da buhs godda find da buhs...
Peter no longer responds to his name. I may call him "Ninja" or, if we are in a more formal situation, "Ninja Peter," but never just "Peter."
"Can I tell you something?" "Te puedo decir algo?" This is Rosalita's catch phrase. Every day she sits in her bus line, chattering away at me. Her voice is so high and soft that I can't really hear anything, what with all the commotion going on around us. I just nod and say, "oh really?" "Así?" Today, Rosalita gets fed up. From the corner of my eye I see a pink blur jump up and announce in its teeny tiny voice, "You're not listening to me!" "No me escuchas!" Her face is grumpy and her arms are crossed. I tell her I'm sorry and she lets me stew, tapping her white shoe on the linoleum. I know I am finally forgiven when I hear, "Le puedo decir algo?"
Silver Lee had a bad week this week. By the end of each day he'd had it, and so had his teacher. On Monday, the counselor was called in to assist. She and Silver Lee took a walk around the school, passing by my desk. We chatted awhile. Silver Lee recognized the number "18" on my calendar as part of his "buhs numbuh." After returning Silver Lee to the classroom, the counselor comes and finds me. "Are you busy?" she asks. No I'm not, I decide, because Silver Lee has requested my presence in his classroom. We color a picture of Thailand.
On Tuesday, we glue different foods into their different categories.
On Wednesday, we sit on the floor and sing a special ABC song.
On Thursday, I walk Silver Lee to his classroom and sit at his table for only a few minutes. "I need to help another student," I say. "Do you think that would be okay?" Silver Lee nods his head up and down. "Bye!" he says with a wave.
By Friday, Silver Lee and the counselor don't need to take a walk. I know I shouldn't be sad, but I am. ...right up until the back of my legs are attacked in the hallway by a tiny, but strong, hug.
Stories:
If Silver Lee doesn't hold the record for Most Time-Outs Awarded to a Kindergartener in the First Three Months of School, he is sure in the running. I, however, forget this every time he asks if he can hold my hand while we walk to "da buhs, go home to mah mom."
Javier greets me daily; "Sabes que hice hoy?" And because no, I never know what he did today, he immediately opens his backpack and pulls out whatever new creation of glue, construction paper and/or crayons he has constructed.
My group of Latino students is more excited than usual. When I ask why, they exclaim, "Es Peter! Él habla Español!"
"Is this true, Peter?" I ask. "Do you really speak Spanish?"
He grins so that all of his teeth show: "HOLA."
"Hola, como estás?" I ask.
Peter grins so that all of his teeth show: "HOLA."
"Ve????!!!!" the others exclaim to me, "Peter habla Español!!!"
I grin so that all of my teeth show, too.
One day as we wait in line Javier asks me, "Tienes una mamá?" Why yes, I answer, I have a mom. "Dónde está?" She's working, I tell him. "En dónde trabaja?" She works in a different city, I say. "Oh... entonces ella está muy lejos," Javier laments. Yes, I agree, she is pretty far away. Then Javier comments that her being far away must make me very sad and little does Javier know that on this particular day, it does. Damn it, Javier! I think to myself. You're so intuitive, so understanding, so... "Sabes que hice hoy?" ...yes. So that.
All Silver Lee wants is go home to mom on da buhs so we godda find da buhs is buhs one one eight go home to mom at home wit him on da buhs godda find da buhs...
Peter no longer responds to his name. I may call him "Ninja" or, if we are in a more formal situation, "Ninja Peter," but never just "Peter."
"Can I tell you something?" "Te puedo decir algo?" This is Rosalita's catch phrase. Every day she sits in her bus line, chattering away at me. Her voice is so high and soft that I can't really hear anything, what with all the commotion going on around us. I just nod and say, "oh really?" "Así?" Today, Rosalita gets fed up. From the corner of my eye I see a pink blur jump up and announce in its teeny tiny voice, "You're not listening to me!" "No me escuchas!" Her face is grumpy and her arms are crossed. I tell her I'm sorry and she lets me stew, tapping her white shoe on the linoleum. I know I am finally forgiven when I hear, "Le puedo decir algo?"
Silver Lee had a bad week this week. By the end of each day he'd had it, and so had his teacher. On Monday, the counselor was called in to assist. She and Silver Lee took a walk around the school, passing by my desk. We chatted awhile. Silver Lee recognized the number "18" on my calendar as part of his "buhs numbuh." After returning Silver Lee to the classroom, the counselor comes and finds me. "Are you busy?" she asks. No I'm not, I decide, because Silver Lee has requested my presence in his classroom. We color a picture of Thailand.
On Tuesday, we glue different foods into their different categories.
On Wednesday, we sit on the floor and sing a special ABC song.
On Thursday, I walk Silver Lee to his classroom and sit at his table for only a few minutes. "I need to help another student," I say. "Do you think that would be okay?" Silver Lee nods his head up and down. "Bye!" he says with a wave.
By Friday, Silver Lee and the counselor don't need to take a walk. I know I shouldn't be sad, but I am. ...right up until the back of my legs are attacked in the hallway by a tiny, but strong, hug.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
"Guns and Cigarettes" by Atmosphere
A meeting I had on Tuesday left me feeling helpless and frustrated. I think it left everyone in the meeting feeling helpless and frustrated.
The meeting wasn't supposed to be about how teachers feel about curriculum and testing requirements, but that ended up being the main topic of conversation. Teachers feel like they can't teach. They feel like their hands are tied and they feel like their principal's hands are tied and she feels like her District's hands are tied and the District actually does have its hands tied and is getting really tired of walking around, unbalanced and angry at a state government who is just doing what is mandated by a national government.
Presidential Election 2012 approaches. When Americans debate, education should be a topic that's bigger than Jesus and bigger than wrestling, bigger than the Beatles and bigger than breast implants, bigger than guns and bigger than cigarettes.
It should be a topic that's bigger. But it's not.
The meeting wasn't supposed to be about how teachers feel about curriculum and testing requirements, but that ended up being the main topic of conversation. Teachers feel like they can't teach. They feel like their hands are tied and they feel like their principal's hands are tied and she feels like her District's hands are tied and the District actually does have its hands tied and is getting really tired of walking around, unbalanced and angry at a state government who is just doing what is mandated by a national government.
Presidential Election 2012 approaches. When Americans debate, education should be a topic that's bigger than Jesus and bigger than wrestling, bigger than the Beatles and bigger than breast implants, bigger than guns and bigger than cigarettes.
It should be a topic that's bigger. But it's not.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
(The Defeat of) Jesse James Days
The 7th of September, 1876 was a bright and sunny day. Actually, not one person talks about the weather in all the accounts I have read regarding this subject (read: the only account), but the sun was shining when I was in Northfield watching its Townspeople defeat Jesse James, so...
It was around 2 o'clock. The Townspeople of Northfield, Minnesota were gently perusing the downtown area. Hazel and George, pictured below, had just lunched at the local cafe and were on their way to the grocer's to pick up some lemons, sugar, and Oreos. Lemons and sugar to make homemade lemonade, and Oreos for a new recipe Hazel had been hankering to try.
No one was particularly alarmed when three men wearing khaki trench coats entered the vicinity...
...especially not Nick Gustafson, a Swedish immigrant:
Suddenly, it was made known to all that a robbery was taking place at the bank! Well, that's what Jesse James and his posse would have liked to hear. Instead, they probably heard something more like this: "Hey! Someone is trying to hold up the bank but Joseph Lee Heywood is refusing to open the safe!" The Townspeople of Northfield (read: Townsmen) immediately went to exercise their right to the Second Ammendment and save their bank! Unfortunately, James had brought the whole gang and soon the shooting began.
Hazel and George run for their lives:
Nick, only understanding Swedish, doesn't make it off the street in time:
The Townspeople ended up chasing the scoundrels out of town! They won! Hooray!
The photo below is proof that Hazel and George did, in fact, make it to the grocer's (read: Econo Foods). I don't actually know if they made lemonade or bought Oreos.
I do know, however, that my friend Elly and I at least got the Oreos (regular and peanut-butter filled, Double Stuf... was that seriously even a question??) to test a SUPER AWESOME MEGA-COOKIE RECIPE: Oreo Filled Chocolate Chip Cookes!
In case you are blind, they were DELICIOUS cookies.
Elly is a VISTA. So is our friend Soraya, with whom we consumed the above cookies. I enjoy their company immensely because not only are they quality human beings, we also have a common understanding of the experiences we, as VISTAs, go through.
Stories:
Elly works for a school district that constantly destroys any attempt to offer assistance to students living in poverty. Most of these students come from immigrant families. The school board refuses to sign off on any and all programs Elly (could be) a part of because they believe it would be unfair to the "other" kids. (Read: the rich kids). The kicker is, Elly's programs would be available for EVERYONE. The richer kids just probably wouldn't need to take advantage of the extra help. Frustrating? Very. For someone who cares about Education as much as Elly does, I don't know how she keeps from pulling out her hair. Every day.
Soraya spent an afternoon painting with children at a fundraiser. One little girl immediately assumed Soraya spoke Spanish, but not necessarily in a positive way. Her reasoning? "Your skin is brown, so you speak Spanish." Soraya explained that there are all types of skin colors and even more shades of brown, something she found to be a delicate topic. She found out five minutes later that it really wasn't that big of a deal: "Can I hold your hand?" Color = forgotten.
Soraya works with people who speak Spanish, but she interacts with people who just speak English as well. One day, a woman looked over the bulletin board in Soraya's office while she waited for something. The woman came across a document written entirely in Spanish. In an extremely abrasive tone, she asked Soraya, "Why does it have to be all in Spanish?" Soraya explained that it wasn't something this particular woman needed to know about. "But I should be able to know what it says!" the woman argued. It was information about the Mexican Consulate. For Mexican Immigrants. The woman was American. Welcome to the typical American Immigrant's world, Soraya wanted to tell her, but she didn't. She's really nice.
Good food, great conversation, even better people. And when did trench coats fade from khaki to black? Not that I'm complaining. I mean, Neo would definitely not have looked like "The One" if he had been wearing a khaki trench coat. I'm just asking.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
"So Thao," I say as I sit down to eat my lunch, "I'm at the part where she quotes a story written by one of Lia's sisters for an English class or something, and it's very horrific, talking about gun shots, and how they had to hide in the woods so they wouldn't be caught and killed, how she saw her sister die on her family's escape from Laos to Thailand, and the teacher's written response is something like, 'You lead such an exciting life! Please remember to match your verbs with your subjects.' I mean, what?! That's crazy. Who says that??"
During my re-telling of a section from The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, Thao, my Hmong coworker/supervisor/mother-figure has come to sit next to me. She nods her head knowingly as I speak. "I can't believe people don't know about this," I tell her. "About the war. About their participation. About the Hmong in general!"
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman may be the best book I have ever read. And I have read a lot of books. During my 7th grade school year alone I read over 130 books. I'm pretty sure I was given an award for being my middle school's Biggest Nerd. Unfortunately for my brain (and perhaps more fortunate for my social life), I don't read as much anymore. I say it's because I don't have the time, yet I also think it's because things like Facebook and Netflix have made me impatient and unable to focus as well as I used to. But that's a topic for a different blog.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down was well worth my time, my patience, my focus. The book surrounds the life (and soul) of Lia Lee, a little Hmong girl who suffers from an epilepsy condition of epic proportions. (The Hmong word for epilepsy literally translates to "the spirit catches you and you fall down." Her family has come to the United States from Laos because they had no place better to go, not because they were searching for a "better life" like so many immigrants from other countries. Lia's condition is treated with modern medicine as well as Hmong medicine, but the lack of cultural brokers and mutual understanding eventually kill her.
Or do they? By age seven, Lia is what Americans call "a vegetable," what Americans consider "brain dead." After her last seizure, "the big one," her American doctors give her two days to live. Yet through the love of her family, through Hmong medicine, through God-knows-what-else, Lia Lee lives. As of an interview with author Anne Fadiman in February 2010, she is still alive... 27 years old (28 now), being carried around on her mother's back, her skin pink and her hair glossy. She is a picture of health. And that's the thing; to my culture, she is a picture. Without brain waves, she can never again leave her 2D world. But to her family's culture, she is her soul and her soul is lost and as long as her soul is still floating around somewhere, she should be, too.
Most Americans would be appalled not only by Lia Lee's condition, but by her family's decision to keep her in this condition as well. "Put her out of her misery!" is the phrase that first came to my mind. But to the Hmong, to lose life, or the act of being alive, is not the worst that can happen to a person. The worst that can happen is soul loss. Lia's soul had been lost, alright. Her missing soul was the reason for her seizures and is the reason for her "vegetative state." Although Lia has no mental activity, her living, breathing state will allow her soul to find her again one day. To the Hmong, this possibility is the most important.
To Western medicine and American doctors, this possibility does not exist. Anne Fadiman's research and understanding of both sides of the story, the Hmong and the American, does not give any answers to Lia's situation. She just asks more questions: Did the American doctors do everything they could? What if the Lee family had been able to communicate with the doctors? What if they had given Lia the proper dosages of medicine? Should the doctors have sent a nurse to their home instead?
Despite all the questions and despite the gray area between cultures and ethics and boundaries and beliefs, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down leaves me confident of two facts: There Is Always More To Learn and It's Okay If I Don't Know Everything About Another Culture (As Long As I Take The Time To Try And Understand It). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is both story and fact. It is part history book and part medical dictionary. It is a cultural Bible.
The following are excerpts from Fadiman's book.
A conversation between Sukey Waller, a psychologist at Merced Community Outreach Services who was highly regarded in local Hmong circles, and Bill Selvidge, former chief resident of the hospital were Lia was treated:
"You have to act on behalf of the most vulnerable person in the situation," said Bill, "and that's the child. The child's welfare is more important than the parents' beliefs. You have to do what's best for the child, even if the parents oppose it, because if the child dies, she won't get the chance to decide twenty years down the road if she wants to accept her parents' beliefs or if she wants to reject them. She's going to be dead."
"Well," said Sukey tartly, "that's the job you have taken on in your profession."
"I'd feel the same way if I weren't a doctor," said Bill. "I would feel I am my brother's keeper."
"That's tyranny," said Sukey. "What if you have a family who rejects surgery because they believe an illness has a spiritual cause? What if they see a definite possibility of eternal damnation for their child if she dies from the surgery? Next to that, death might not seem so important. Which is more important, the life or the soul?"
"I make no apology," said Bill. "The life comes first."
"The soul," said Sukey.
I once asked Jonas Vangay to summarize the effects of the war on the Hmong. ..."with the U.S. war, it was ninety percent [involvement]. You couldn't stay in your village. You moved around and around and around. Four years later, when I went to Vientiane [capital of Laos], what struck me is that you cannot see a lot of Hmong with their black clothing anymore. All are wearing khaki and green soldier clothing. And where we had lived, before the war it was all covered with forests. After the bombardments... il n'y a plus de forets, il n'y a en a plus, il n'y a en a plus, il n'y a rien du tout." Jonas tended to lapse into French - his fourth language, after Hmong, Lao, and Thai - when he could not adequately express his emotions in English, his fifth language. ("There are no more forests, there are no more, there are no more, there is nothing at all").
Dwight Conquergood, the enthusiastic ethnographer from the International Rescue Committee quoted throughout the book, loved the Hmong. He spent time living with the Hmong inside their refugee camps in Thailand, as opposed to his fellow Westerners, who refused to even consider the idea because to them the Hmong were filthy and stupid:
Conquergood believed that this focus on "dirtiness" and "difficulty" was actually "an expression of Western expatriates' uneasiness when confronted with Difference, the Other. A Western aid official's encounter with the Hmong is a confrontation with radial difference - in cosmology, worldview, ethos, texture of life. ...Unfortunately, as [the French critic] Tzvetan Todorov reminds us, 'The first, spontaneous reaction with regard to the stranger is to imagine him as inferior, since he is different from us.'"
After risking their lives to rescue downed American pilots, seeing their villages flattened by incidental American bombs, and being forced to flee their country because they had supported the "American War," the Hmong expected a hero's welcome here. According to many of them, the first betrayal came when the American airlifts rescued only the officers from Long Tieng, leaving nearly everyone else behind. The second betrayal came in the Thai camps, when the Hmong who wanted to come to the United States were not all automatically admitted. The third betrayal came when they arrived here and found they were ineligible for veterans' benefits. The fourth betrayal came when Americans condemned them for what the Hmong call "eating welfare." The fifth betrayal came when the Americans announced that the welfare would stop.
Foua Yang, Lia's mother, talks about when her family (the Lees) first came to the United States:
Our relatives told us about electricity and said the children shouldn't touch those plugs in the wall because they could get hurt. They told us that the refrigerator is a cold box where you put meat. They showed us how to open the TV so we could see it. We had never seen a toilet before and we thought maybe the water in it was to drink or cook with. Then our relatives told us what it was, but we didn't know whether we should sit or whether we should stand on it. Our relatives took us to the store but we didn't know that the cans and packages had food in them. We could tell what the meat was, but the chickens and cows and pigs were all cut up in little pieces and had plastic on them. Our relatives told us the stove is for cooking the food, but I was afraid to use it because it might explode. Our relatives said in America the food you don't eat you just throw away. In Laos we always fed it to the animals and it was strange to waste it like that. In this country there were a lot of strange things and even now I don't know a lot of things and my children have to help me, and it still seems like a strange country.
Thao is enjoying my new-found interest in the Hmong people and culture. She is normally a bubbly person, but when we discuss the book I can tell she is truly excited. Every day she asks me, what new thing have I learned? What am I reading in the book?
"Now she's talking about the end of the Vietnam War, and how the U.S. just royally botched the evacuation of the Hmong... the planes come to take the Hmong away, one after another, until their General, General... Pa Vang? What is his name?"
"Good, good!" says Thao. "But this is your test, you are the one reading the book... what is his name?"
"It's General Pa Vang? Pang Va?" Thao starts laughing.
"You're mixing it up!" she says with a grin. "Switch the V and the P. General Vang Pao."
"This is the General who died this past spring?"
"Yes. He is very famous." I am a ashamed I haven't heard more about him.
"General Vang Pao." I continue. "Anyway, these planes come until he gets on one of them and says goodbye to everyone... they don't realize that no more planes are coming, Over 10,000 people sit in this field and wait for the American planes to come and take them away, but they don't, and soon this cry, this giant wail, rises up from the field. But not for long, because the Hmong know they have to get out of there. So more than 10,000 people hoof-it to Thailand. That had to be quiet a journey. Scary."
"It is so good, you are learning!" Thao exclaims with glee.
And then she looks at me and says, "Yes. I was in the field. I was the one who they left behind. They left us all behind."
During my re-telling of a section from The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, Thao, my Hmong coworker/supervisor/mother-figure has come to sit next to me. She nods her head knowingly as I speak. "I can't believe people don't know about this," I tell her. "About the war. About their participation. About the Hmong in general!"
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman may be the best book I have ever read. And I have read a lot of books. During my 7th grade school year alone I read over 130 books. I'm pretty sure I was given an award for being my middle school's Biggest Nerd. Unfortunately for my brain (and perhaps more fortunate for my social life), I don't read as much anymore. I say it's because I don't have the time, yet I also think it's because things like Facebook and Netflix have made me impatient and unable to focus as well as I used to. But that's a topic for a different blog.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down was well worth my time, my patience, my focus. The book surrounds the life (and soul) of Lia Lee, a little Hmong girl who suffers from an epilepsy condition of epic proportions. (The Hmong word for epilepsy literally translates to "the spirit catches you and you fall down." Her family has come to the United States from Laos because they had no place better to go, not because they were searching for a "better life" like so many immigrants from other countries. Lia's condition is treated with modern medicine as well as Hmong medicine, but the lack of cultural brokers and mutual understanding eventually kill her.
Or do they? By age seven, Lia is what Americans call "a vegetable," what Americans consider "brain dead." After her last seizure, "the big one," her American doctors give her two days to live. Yet through the love of her family, through Hmong medicine, through God-knows-what-else, Lia Lee lives. As of an interview with author Anne Fadiman in February 2010, she is still alive... 27 years old (28 now), being carried around on her mother's back, her skin pink and her hair glossy. She is a picture of health. And that's the thing; to my culture, she is a picture. Without brain waves, she can never again leave her 2D world. But to her family's culture, she is her soul and her soul is lost and as long as her soul is still floating around somewhere, she should be, too.
Most Americans would be appalled not only by Lia Lee's condition, but by her family's decision to keep her in this condition as well. "Put her out of her misery!" is the phrase that first came to my mind. But to the Hmong, to lose life, or the act of being alive, is not the worst that can happen to a person. The worst that can happen is soul loss. Lia's soul had been lost, alright. Her missing soul was the reason for her seizures and is the reason for her "vegetative state." Although Lia has no mental activity, her living, breathing state will allow her soul to find her again one day. To the Hmong, this possibility is the most important.
To Western medicine and American doctors, this possibility does not exist. Anne Fadiman's research and understanding of both sides of the story, the Hmong and the American, does not give any answers to Lia's situation. She just asks more questions: Did the American doctors do everything they could? What if the Lee family had been able to communicate with the doctors? What if they had given Lia the proper dosages of medicine? Should the doctors have sent a nurse to their home instead?
Despite all the questions and despite the gray area between cultures and ethics and boundaries and beliefs, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down leaves me confident of two facts: There Is Always More To Learn and It's Okay If I Don't Know Everything About Another Culture (As Long As I Take The Time To Try And Understand It). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is both story and fact. It is part history book and part medical dictionary. It is a cultural Bible.
The following are excerpts from Fadiman's book.
A conversation between Sukey Waller, a psychologist at Merced Community Outreach Services who was highly regarded in local Hmong circles, and Bill Selvidge, former chief resident of the hospital were Lia was treated:
"You have to act on behalf of the most vulnerable person in the situation," said Bill, "and that's the child. The child's welfare is more important than the parents' beliefs. You have to do what's best for the child, even if the parents oppose it, because if the child dies, she won't get the chance to decide twenty years down the road if she wants to accept her parents' beliefs or if she wants to reject them. She's going to be dead."
"Well," said Sukey tartly, "that's the job you have taken on in your profession."
"I'd feel the same way if I weren't a doctor," said Bill. "I would feel I am my brother's keeper."
"That's tyranny," said Sukey. "What if you have a family who rejects surgery because they believe an illness has a spiritual cause? What if they see a definite possibility of eternal damnation for their child if she dies from the surgery? Next to that, death might not seem so important. Which is more important, the life or the soul?"
"I make no apology," said Bill. "The life comes first."
"The soul," said Sukey.
I once asked Jonas Vangay to summarize the effects of the war on the Hmong. ..."with the U.S. war, it was ninety percent [involvement]. You couldn't stay in your village. You moved around and around and around. Four years later, when I went to Vientiane [capital of Laos], what struck me is that you cannot see a lot of Hmong with their black clothing anymore. All are wearing khaki and green soldier clothing. And where we had lived, before the war it was all covered with forests. After the bombardments... il n'y a plus de forets, il n'y a en a plus, il n'y a en a plus, il n'y a rien du tout." Jonas tended to lapse into French - his fourth language, after Hmong, Lao, and Thai - when he could not adequately express his emotions in English, his fifth language. ("There are no more forests, there are no more, there are no more, there is nothing at all").
Dwight Conquergood, the enthusiastic ethnographer from the International Rescue Committee quoted throughout the book, loved the Hmong. He spent time living with the Hmong inside their refugee camps in Thailand, as opposed to his fellow Westerners, who refused to even consider the idea because to them the Hmong were filthy and stupid:
Conquergood believed that this focus on "dirtiness" and "difficulty" was actually "an expression of Western expatriates' uneasiness when confronted with Difference, the Other. A Western aid official's encounter with the Hmong is a confrontation with radial difference - in cosmology, worldview, ethos, texture of life. ...Unfortunately, as [the French critic] Tzvetan Todorov reminds us, 'The first, spontaneous reaction with regard to the stranger is to imagine him as inferior, since he is different from us.'"
After risking their lives to rescue downed American pilots, seeing their villages flattened by incidental American bombs, and being forced to flee their country because they had supported the "American War," the Hmong expected a hero's welcome here. According to many of them, the first betrayal came when the American airlifts rescued only the officers from Long Tieng, leaving nearly everyone else behind. The second betrayal came in the Thai camps, when the Hmong who wanted to come to the United States were not all automatically admitted. The third betrayal came when they arrived here and found they were ineligible for veterans' benefits. The fourth betrayal came when Americans condemned them for what the Hmong call "eating welfare." The fifth betrayal came when the Americans announced that the welfare would stop.
Foua Yang, Lia's mother, talks about when her family (the Lees) first came to the United States:
Our relatives told us about electricity and said the children shouldn't touch those plugs in the wall because they could get hurt. They told us that the refrigerator is a cold box where you put meat. They showed us how to open the TV so we could see it. We had never seen a toilet before and we thought maybe the water in it was to drink or cook with. Then our relatives told us what it was, but we didn't know whether we should sit or whether we should stand on it. Our relatives took us to the store but we didn't know that the cans and packages had food in them. We could tell what the meat was, but the chickens and cows and pigs were all cut up in little pieces and had plastic on them. Our relatives told us the stove is for cooking the food, but I was afraid to use it because it might explode. Our relatives said in America the food you don't eat you just throw away. In Laos we always fed it to the animals and it was strange to waste it like that. In this country there were a lot of strange things and even now I don't know a lot of things and my children have to help me, and it still seems like a strange country.
Thao is enjoying my new-found interest in the Hmong people and culture. She is normally a bubbly person, but when we discuss the book I can tell she is truly excited. Every day she asks me, what new thing have I learned? What am I reading in the book?
"Now she's talking about the end of the Vietnam War, and how the U.S. just royally botched the evacuation of the Hmong... the planes come to take the Hmong away, one after another, until their General, General... Pa Vang? What is his name?"
"Good, good!" says Thao. "But this is your test, you are the one reading the book... what is his name?"
"It's General Pa Vang? Pang Va?" Thao starts laughing.
"You're mixing it up!" she says with a grin. "Switch the V and the P. General Vang Pao."
"This is the General who died this past spring?"
"Yes. He is very famous." I am a ashamed I haven't heard more about him.
"General Vang Pao." I continue. "Anyway, these planes come until he gets on one of them and says goodbye to everyone... they don't realize that no more planes are coming, Over 10,000 people sit in this field and wait for the American planes to come and take them away, but they don't, and soon this cry, this giant wail, rises up from the field. But not for long, because the Hmong know they have to get out of there. So more than 10,000 people hoof-it to Thailand. That had to be quiet a journey. Scary."
"It is so good, you are learning!" Thao exclaims with glee.
And then she looks at me and says, "Yes. I was in the field. I was the one who they left behind. They left us all behind."
Thursday, September 15, 2011
One Account of What It's like to Apply for Food Stamps
The Ramsey County Government Center provides services to most, if not all, of the kids at the school where I work. It provides to the homeless and the homemore. It provides to the single mom and the happy family and the neighborhood grandparents. And me.
There are two Ramsey County Government Center locations. Of course I park at the wrong one first. Eight quarters and a nice conversation with a custodian later, I am on my way to spending eight more quarters. I figure, however, that what I will eventually receive in food stamps should outweigh whatever I put in my parking meter. Eventually.
The entrance to the Ramsey County Government Center West is scattered with smokers and pregnant women. This can be read as both "people who smoke and women who are pregnant" and "pregnant women smoking."
The room where I fill out my application isn't as crowded as I thought it would be. Crowded with people, that is; the number of government service applications multiplied by all the different languages they're in has to be somewhere between 15 and 25. It's overwhelming. I don't know where to begin. I think I might leave. As I'm deciding whether to bail or not, a woman behind me believes me to be waiting in line and soon I am.
The social worker is going to think I'm so stupid for not only failing to fill out a single application, but for not even being able to find it as well. When I ask him about food stamps, my stupidity doesn't show in his face. Actually, you can't even find the food stamps application out among the others; you need to get it directly from a social worker. Sweet. Not stupid.
A nine-page novella is placed in my hands. "Every page?" I ask.
"If you don't have kids, you don't have to fill out pages three, four and five."
So only six pages to fill out!
They take me a half hour:
I don't know how much I pay for utilities yet, I just moved here! Should I put down my race? Whether or not I have any savings? If they're marked as "optional" questions, why do they exist on this application at all? Will the answers count for anything? Will they count for me? Or against me.
The last two questions plague me throughout this process because
I have a college degree
I'm listening to an iPod that I own
My shoes look new (but they aren't)
I showered today
I'm wearing nice jewelry.
These are all things I notice the people around me don't (or more than likely don't) have. Even though I didn't purchase any of the tangible objects, I feel like I shouldn't deserve to receive food stamps. Later, when I tell this to my case worker, he laughs and says, "Well, aren't food stamps going to make your life easier for awhile?" When I answer yes because I'm living on a government stipend that is determined by the cost of living in my impoverished neighborhood and it sucks, he smiles at me and says, "Well, we all need a little help sometimes. That's the point."
Now I have filled out my application. I get back to wait in the same line. The social worker looks at my application, then returns it to me along with some more papers and a smile. I go wait in another line, where I put my name and application on a waiting list, and then I sit and wait.
When my name is called, the social worker asks me a few personal questions. She gives me a manila envelope filled with information. She sends me to the station in the corner, where I stand in line in order to get my EBT card all set up.
Oh, didn't you know that food stamps don't come in stamp-form anymore? I had only learned this a few weeks prior at my Pre-Service Orientation before becoming an Americorps VISTA.
Instead of physical stamps, a person receives what appears to be a credit card. You sign your name in pen on the back and have a pin number. Whenever you swipe the card, you type in your pin number and it shows you your remaining balance. Slick.
Then, with my card and manila envelope in hand, I put my name on the interview list. Anyone who applies for anything has to meet (or do a phone interview) with a case worker.
I sit and wait again.
I have been following the actions of a dad with three rambunctious little girls. They monopolized the chairs under the windowsill, and have now taken over the windowsill itself.
They yell a lot. Dad has so far tried snacks, pleading and games on his cell phone in order to quell their screaming. It isn't even that they girls are fighting. They're just really loud at playing.
Because it's a Friday afternoon, I assume dad has no work. His smile is happy for his daughters, but his eyes and shoulders are sad. They match the rest of the crew in this joint.
No one notices the hollering little girls, yet everyone notices them.
A woman arrives, and it seems as though I am the only person who doesn't recognize her. She mentions several times that she is homeless. It's almost as if she wears her current state of living proudly on her sleeve. Her friends surround her, and the latest gossip is passed around the circle. Gut-busting laughs and knee-slapping stories are shared.
I feel out of place more-so now than before. In a place as stressful, awkward and humiliating as this, I find myself wanting to be a part of this group. To have friends here isn't a number on your Facebook page. It's survival.
All of this people watching makes the time go faster. So fast that I start getting nervous about my parking meter. My car has already been towed once this summer and I don't like asking my dad for money. Just as I've decided to run outside and down the block to re-plug my meter, a kid about my age comes and sits near me. He's pissed:
"The cop was writing me a ticket right as I walked up to him! He didn't even look at me when I told him I had my quarters."
Expletive.
The popular woman who everyone knows tells him the social worker called his name while he was outside. Now he'll have to put his name on the list again.
Expletive!!!!
This bigger reaction to missing his name being called makes me decide to just risk a ticket. If they call my name, I don't want to give up my spot. It's almost two o'clock and although I have been here for just three hours, I might as well exaggerate and say it's been 16.
When Darryl finally calls my name, the first question he asks is if I drove here. I say yes, and he asks me about my meter status. Soon we are on the stairs and out the back door, where I put five more quarters towards the city of St. Paul's Retirement Fund. No ticket! I love Darryl.
The interview certainly doesn't last for five quarters, but it's better to be safe than have a $42 ticket on my windshield. Darryl asks me about my job and my income, my living situation and how much I pay for rent. By the end of the interview, Darryl has me feeling very reassured: all I need to do is mail him a copy of my lease and a letter from my employer stating where I work and how much I make.
Then it's over. As I leave the Ramsey County Government Center, I see more and more people who have started this same process. What services will they (or won't they) receive? Will they get $80 a month in food stamps like me? Or will their kids just have to get daily nutrition from the free breakfast offered at school?
No one makes eye contact with me as I leave the building.
I wonder if that's because they know that I know that once my service as a VISTA is over, the chances of me ever needing to return to that building are slim to none.
I wonder if this whole experience would have been the same if those chances had been different.
There are two Ramsey County Government Center locations. Of course I park at the wrong one first. Eight quarters and a nice conversation with a custodian later, I am on my way to spending eight more quarters. I figure, however, that what I will eventually receive in food stamps should outweigh whatever I put in my parking meter. Eventually.
The entrance to the Ramsey County Government Center West is scattered with smokers and pregnant women. This can be read as both "people who smoke and women who are pregnant" and "pregnant women smoking."
The room where I fill out my application isn't as crowded as I thought it would be. Crowded with people, that is; the number of government service applications multiplied by all the different languages they're in has to be somewhere between 15 and 25. It's overwhelming. I don't know where to begin. I think I might leave. As I'm deciding whether to bail or not, a woman behind me believes me to be waiting in line and soon I am.
The social worker is going to think I'm so stupid for not only failing to fill out a single application, but for not even being able to find it as well. When I ask him about food stamps, my stupidity doesn't show in his face. Actually, you can't even find the food stamps application out among the others; you need to get it directly from a social worker. Sweet. Not stupid.
A nine-page novella is placed in my hands. "Every page?" I ask.
"If you don't have kids, you don't have to fill out pages three, four and five."
So only six pages to fill out!
They take me a half hour:
I don't know how much I pay for utilities yet, I just moved here! Should I put down my race? Whether or not I have any savings? If they're marked as "optional" questions, why do they exist on this application at all? Will the answers count for anything? Will they count for me? Or against me.
The last two questions plague me throughout this process because
I have a college degree
I'm listening to an iPod that I own
My shoes look new (but they aren't)
I showered today
I'm wearing nice jewelry.
These are all things I notice the people around me don't (or more than likely don't) have. Even though I didn't purchase any of the tangible objects, I feel like I shouldn't deserve to receive food stamps. Later, when I tell this to my case worker, he laughs and says, "Well, aren't food stamps going to make your life easier for awhile?" When I answer yes because I'm living on a government stipend that is determined by the cost of living in my impoverished neighborhood and it sucks, he smiles at me and says, "Well, we all need a little help sometimes. That's the point."
Now I have filled out my application. I get back to wait in the same line. The social worker looks at my application, then returns it to me along with some more papers and a smile. I go wait in another line, where I put my name and application on a waiting list, and then I sit and wait.
When my name is called, the social worker asks me a few personal questions. She gives me a manila envelope filled with information. She sends me to the station in the corner, where I stand in line in order to get my EBT card all set up.
Oh, didn't you know that food stamps don't come in stamp-form anymore? I had only learned this a few weeks prior at my Pre-Service Orientation before becoming an Americorps VISTA.
Instead of physical stamps, a person receives what appears to be a credit card. You sign your name in pen on the back and have a pin number. Whenever you swipe the card, you type in your pin number and it shows you your remaining balance. Slick.
Then, with my card and manila envelope in hand, I put my name on the interview list. Anyone who applies for anything has to meet (or do a phone interview) with a case worker.
I sit and wait again.
I have been following the actions of a dad with three rambunctious little girls. They monopolized the chairs under the windowsill, and have now taken over the windowsill itself.
They yell a lot. Dad has so far tried snacks, pleading and games on his cell phone in order to quell their screaming. It isn't even that they girls are fighting. They're just really loud at playing.
Because it's a Friday afternoon, I assume dad has no work. His smile is happy for his daughters, but his eyes and shoulders are sad. They match the rest of the crew in this joint.
No one notices the hollering little girls, yet everyone notices them.
A woman arrives, and it seems as though I am the only person who doesn't recognize her. She mentions several times that she is homeless. It's almost as if she wears her current state of living proudly on her sleeve. Her friends surround her, and the latest gossip is passed around the circle. Gut-busting laughs and knee-slapping stories are shared.
I feel out of place more-so now than before. In a place as stressful, awkward and humiliating as this, I find myself wanting to be a part of this group. To have friends here isn't a number on your Facebook page. It's survival.
All of this people watching makes the time go faster. So fast that I start getting nervous about my parking meter. My car has already been towed once this summer and I don't like asking my dad for money. Just as I've decided to run outside and down the block to re-plug my meter, a kid about my age comes and sits near me. He's pissed:
"The cop was writing me a ticket right as I walked up to him! He didn't even look at me when I told him I had my quarters."
Expletive.
The popular woman who everyone knows tells him the social worker called his name while he was outside. Now he'll have to put his name on the list again.
Expletive!!!!
This bigger reaction to missing his name being called makes me decide to just risk a ticket. If they call my name, I don't want to give up my spot. It's almost two o'clock and although I have been here for just three hours, I might as well exaggerate and say it's been 16.
When Darryl finally calls my name, the first question he asks is if I drove here. I say yes, and he asks me about my meter status. Soon we are on the stairs and out the back door, where I put five more quarters towards the city of St. Paul's Retirement Fund. No ticket! I love Darryl.
The interview certainly doesn't last for five quarters, but it's better to be safe than have a $42 ticket on my windshield. Darryl asks me about my job and my income, my living situation and how much I pay for rent. By the end of the interview, Darryl has me feeling very reassured: all I need to do is mail him a copy of my lease and a letter from my employer stating where I work and how much I make.
Then it's over. As I leave the Ramsey County Government Center, I see more and more people who have started this same process. What services will they (or won't they) receive? Will they get $80 a month in food stamps like me? Or will their kids just have to get daily nutrition from the free breakfast offered at school?
No one makes eye contact with me as I leave the building.
I wonder if that's because they know that I know that once my service as a VISTA is over, the chances of me ever needing to return to that building are slim to none.
I wonder if this whole experience would have been the same if those chances had been different.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Day One.
Several Scenarios of What It's Like to be a Brand New First Grader:
On the sidewalk outside the school, you walk exactly four steps behind mom. No matter how many times she turns around in impatience, your sluggish light-up Spiderman sneakers refuse to match her pace.
You stand and stand, lost, as the nice lady holds out her hand to you with unprecedented continuity.
"Come on," she says. "It's okay. I'll walk you to your room."
Walk me? you think. What am I, a dog?
She shakes her hand at you. She is smiling. Her hand rests on empty air in front of your face.
C'mon lady, you sigh. Just keep moving! Can't you tell I don't want to hold your hand?
You go outside for recess and you see your old friends from kindergarten. You see your new friends in first grade. They're all the same; they're all friends; on the playground, no one is sad.
You cry at the round table in the office filled with boys and girls and people and teachers and four different languages and the noise of one printer and two copy machines and eighteen thousand screaming rings of the telephone. Your language is a fifth different language. The interpreters are busy elsewhere. You don't know what's happening.
When they give you Cinnamon Toast Crunch to make you happy, you eat it.
You cry your tears and you eat your Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Stories:
Rosalita wears a jean skirt with a blouse featuring little pink flowers on the front. Her tights are almost as white as her brand new, church-worthy, first-day-of-kindergarten shoes. Except it's not the first day of kindergarten; it's just the open house. Her mother sighs:
"Pero pues, los quería poner así que, qué hago?" But she wanted to wear them anyway. What can you do?
As Rosalita, her mother and I walk down the hall to the front doors, Rosalita's mouse-like voice tells me all about her new shoes, over and over again. Never mind the fact she just spent the last half hour standing in front of my desk briefing future kindergarten classmate, José Carlos, on the color, make and level of comfort on a scale from 1 to 10. (Although José Carlos didn't get a word in, he did manage to stare.)
Rosalita's mother gives me a look that says, "Listen, I'd give you some earplugs, but I'm wearing the only ones I got."
Rosalita pauses for breath as she takes her mother's hand, and mom grins. So do I.
Luís doesn't know if he is supposed to ride the bus to his grandma's, or walk home to his mom's. The bus supervisors are frustrated. They turf him to me, and we go see Nef so that Nef can call Luís' mom.
On our jaunt to see Nef, Luís mutters unsoundly Spanish words under his breath.
After all has been figured out, Luís heads towards the bus. Nef yells after him, "Corrale!" but Luís doesn't hear.
"What did he say?" he asks me.
I yell: Run, dude! "Corrale, wey!"
His eyes open and shut, then open and widen.
"...did you understand what I was saying then, back there?"
I wink. Luís abruptly turns and hightails it to his bus.
Am I on to you, Luís. Boy, am I on to you.
On the sidewalk outside the school, you walk exactly four steps behind mom. No matter how many times she turns around in impatience, your sluggish light-up Spiderman sneakers refuse to match her pace.
You stand and stand, lost, as the nice lady holds out her hand to you with unprecedented continuity.
"Come on," she says. "It's okay. I'll walk you to your room."
Walk me? you think. What am I, a dog?
She shakes her hand at you. She is smiling. Her hand rests on empty air in front of your face.
C'mon lady, you sigh. Just keep moving! Can't you tell I don't want to hold your hand?
You go outside for recess and you see your old friends from kindergarten. You see your new friends in first grade. They're all the same; they're all friends; on the playground, no one is sad.
You cry at the round table in the office filled with boys and girls and people and teachers and four different languages and the noise of one printer and two copy machines and eighteen thousand screaming rings of the telephone. Your language is a fifth different language. The interpreters are busy elsewhere. You don't know what's happening.
When they give you Cinnamon Toast Crunch to make you happy, you eat it.
You cry your tears and you eat your Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Stories:
Rosalita wears a jean skirt with a blouse featuring little pink flowers on the front. Her tights are almost as white as her brand new, church-worthy, first-day-of-kindergarten shoes. Except it's not the first day of kindergarten; it's just the open house. Her mother sighs:
"Pero pues, los quería poner así que, qué hago?" But she wanted to wear them anyway. What can you do?
As Rosalita, her mother and I walk down the hall to the front doors, Rosalita's mouse-like voice tells me all about her new shoes, over and over again. Never mind the fact she just spent the last half hour standing in front of my desk briefing future kindergarten classmate, José Carlos, on the color, make and level of comfort on a scale from 1 to 10. (Although José Carlos didn't get a word in, he did manage to stare.)
Rosalita's mother gives me a look that says, "Listen, I'd give you some earplugs, but I'm wearing the only ones I got."
Rosalita pauses for breath as she takes her mother's hand, and mom grins. So do I.
Luís doesn't know if he is supposed to ride the bus to his grandma's, or walk home to his mom's. The bus supervisors are frustrated. They turf him to me, and we go see Nef so that Nef can call Luís' mom.
On our jaunt to see Nef, Luís mutters unsoundly Spanish words under his breath.
After all has been figured out, Luís heads towards the bus. Nef yells after him, "Corrale!" but Luís doesn't hear.
"What did he say?" he asks me.
I yell: Run, dude! "Corrale, wey!"
His eyes open and shut, then open and widen.
"...did you understand what I was saying then, back there?"
I wink. Luís abruptly turns and hightails it to his bus.
Am I on to you, Luís. Boy, am I on to you.
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