The Middle of Everywhere (22 page)

Mrs. Kaye greeted me warmly, and as the students filtered in, we chatted about the ELL program and about the students I would soon meet. She spoke about how scary it was to walk into this giant building with no English. Many of the kids arrived jet-lagged and in severe culture shock. For the first few weeks everyone had a "deer in the headlights" look. New students could hardly comprehend what was happening to them. They drifted through the day, trying to stay out of trouble.

Mrs. Kaye was an excellent teacher, gentle and low-key. I sat in on her cultural orientation class for most of a year. I'll report on just four classes: day 1, which was my introduction and orientation to the class; day 26, which was a discussion of family differences across cultures; day 75, which was a class for young women on health; and day 170, a day in which students discussed identity poems.

CLASS ROSTER:

Day 1—September 9, 1999

Mrs. Kaye introduced me and asked the students to tell me about themselves. In halting English, and with both laughter and embarrassment, the students responded to her request. The Vietnamese kids went first. A young-looking guy dressed in slacks and a dress shirt introduced himself as Liem. He had a reserved manner and kept his eyes on his papers or the teacher. When a flashier Vietnamese boy nearby made a joke, Liem ignored it.

Liem sat next to Patti, who was dressed in leather slacks, a shiny top, and high-heeled sandals. She was femininity personified, delicate and shy. Patti looked like a pampered princess, but she was a steel magnolia. She worked an eight-hour shift after school to help support her family. She was a good daughter, but on the edge of trouble at school. Because she was so pretty, the gang boys were all after her. Lately she had been flirting back.

Khoi introduced himself in a flamboyant way, standing and bowing as if he were before a crowd of thousands. He was good-looking and cocky, with dyed red hair and dragon tattoos all over his arms. He wore a silk shirt and baggy pants that almost slipped off his bony hips. He carried a CD player and CDs of Jay-Z, OutKast, and Snoop Dogg.

I'd met Khoi's parents the first day of school. His father had been forced as a POW to clear land mines from the fields and he'd seen several of his friends blown up at this job. In Vietnam the family had been so poor that, as Khoi's mother put it, "cockroaches couldn't survive in our kitchen." As a boy, Khoi had prayed that his father wouldn't be beaten and that his mother would not cry from hunger.

Whatever trouble Khoi was in wasn't because of family dysfunction. His was a loyal family, well connected to their community, but the parents didn't have control of Khoi. His father worked two factory jobs to support his big family. He hadn't been able to learn to drive or speak English. Khoi was the oldest son of an oldest son and the family had pinned their hopes on him. He was smart but had twice been suspended from school. He'd been arrested for petty theft and he sometimes came to school stoned on pot. Clearly, he was in a gang. Still, Mrs. Kaye felt he was a good kid. However, his virtues wouldn't be of much use if he ended up in our state penitentiary.

Cahn, the alpha male of the class, wore baggy pants, a shiny jacket, gold chains, and three gold watches. However, his flashy clothes couldn't mask his basic homeliness. He had huge ears and an uncorrected cleft palate. During class he challenged Mrs. Kaye constantly, but he backed down when she dealt with him respectfully and firmly.

Cahn's father had shoulder and back injuries from being a beast of burden in a POW camp after the war. His father was a broken man, whipped first by the communists, then by a country he couldn't master. He stayed home and drank beer aH day. As Cahn developed problems and rebelled, his father had tried to control him with threats and beatings. For the last year Cahn and his father hadn't spoken to each other.

At school the Vietnamese homeboys sat together, speaking Vietnamese and laughing at whatever happened in class. Cahn and Khoi sparred, poked, hooted, and generally created quite a ruckus.

Next to Cahn sat Alberto, a quiet kid who seemed ill at ease in school. Alberto looked down and said softly, "I am from Mexico. This is my second year in America."

Zlatko was an Ichabod Crane look-alike with a confident manner. He was a Russian Baptist from Siberia whose English was already very good. His family had moved here because they were persecuted for being Christians. In Russia they'd lived in a condemned building. The brick stove was falling apart and they fastened it together with wire. They had no running water and only an outhouse. He laughed sadly. "At that time, except for the Mafia, no one in Russia ever had hot water."

When his family came to America, they had many misconceptions. Zlatko laughed, explaining, "We thought money grew on trees here. We thought all American women would be beautiful. When we got to Lincoln we were shocked to see Lincoln looked like Siberia. The trees were bare of dollar bills, it was freezing, and not all the girls were pretty."

Anton interjected, "The girls in this class are all pretty."

"Of course," Zlatko responded gallantly. "I was referring to girls who do not go to this school."

Zlatko stayed in good touch with Russians. After school, as he cleaned a bank, he listened to CDs from Russia. He e-mailed his Russian friends, many of whom were in the army. He said they hated it. They had no money and the army shaved their heads. Older soldiers beat them. He said, "I am happy to be in America, far from the clutches of the Russian military."

Zlatko hoped his family could someday buy a home. He had great optimism about our country. He thought American police and government officials were honest and that there was less alcoholism and fighting in America.

Next Velida introduced herself. She said, "I am from the Ukraine. I live here with my parents, cousins, aunt, and uncle." She said her family was happy to be in Nebraska. They had a little house with a garden. Her parents had jobs. She said cheerfully, "How surprising are God's pathways. He blessed me with his wonderful blessings."

She had bandages all over her head from a recent surgery for a brain tumor. Now she was taking chemotherapy. The doctors were hopeful. Velida refused to be defined by her illness or her past trauma.

Although Velida had seen her home burned and her family scattered across the globe, her belief in God kept her positive. Velida called her mother "mamochka" and spoke glowingly of her family. She said, "We have many of life's problems yet we love each other and are blessed."

During the year I knew her, Velida missed school often, but the only time I saw her unhappy was when she had talked on the phone to her family in the Ukraine. She told me, "They were crying. They were so hungry they were going into the fields and eating grass." She paused, then repeated in disbelief, "My relatives were eating grass."

Mrs. Kaye whispered to me, "Thanks to globalization we can now talk on cell phones to people who are starving to death."

I could tell Velida was much loved by Mrs. Kaye and the other students, Even Cahn and Khoi listened respectfully when she spoke. She was tenderhearted, the kind of person who would cry at the death of a cricket. It was simple really: she loved people and they loved her back.

Tharaya, Velida's closest friend, seemed very unlike her. While Velida was a plain country girl, Tharaya was a true beauty, with strawberry-blond hair, porcelain skin, and stylish American outfits. But as Velida put it, "We are friends of the spirit." Tharaya said of their relationship, "When we met, sparkles of friendship flew between us."

Tharaya is the name of the brightest star in the Pleiades and means "she who illuminates the world." This was the perfect name for this idealistic young woman. What Tharaya and Velida had in common was core gentleness. Tharaya worked at Old Country Buffet and was horrified by all the food people threw away. She had lobbied her boss to save leftover food for the city mission, and she formed a club to help hungry people in Lincoin. From their own hard experiences, Tharaya and Velida had learned the importance of kindness. I never saw either one of them treat another person badly. They were even kind to Anton when he was frenetic and difficult.

Next to Tharaya sat Faisal, a handsome Kurdish kid who wore his hair in a spiky Statue of Liberty style. Faisal's grades weren't good, but he was a survivor. He had street smarts—what I've heard called Mafia smarts. Once Mrs. Kaye told me, "Kurdish boys can get rowdy, but they have experienced everything." She said, "If I were stranded on an island or lost in a desert, I would want a Kurdish boy to help me survive." Faisal struck me as fitting those remarks perfectly. He was a terrible reader, but he knew what was happening in the halls of school.

Faisal was born in Iraq. Before the Gulf War, his father had grown cotton, rice, and grapes. After the war, his family hid in the mountains where they witnessed many deaths. They lived in a tent and almost froze. In 1991 the Americans brought food and allowed the Kurds to go home. Eventually, Faisal's family flew to Guam and later to Nebraska. Faisal's father was disabled by the war. His mother now worked as a cook's helper for the university's food service.

Faisal was a big flirt. He liked both Tharaya and Patti and he competed with Anton for their attention. But he was barely polite to me, a middle-aged woman. He simply told me his name and that he was from Baghdad, here because of the Gulf War.

Beside him, Anton was young and brash. He seemed frenetic and haunted, someone in fresh pain. Anton had a punk haircut, nice clothes, and good English, and he should have been more popular than he was. The other kids called him crazy, or loco, and shied away from him. Some days he laughed, talked loudly, and hugged every girl he could. Other days he withdrew and was irritable with everyone.

He'd seen too many things for a boy his age. He knew both too much and too little about the world. His mother could not control him and he stayed out late with his friends, drove the car without a license, and took his mother's rent money for pizza and video games.

Anton, more than any other boy, challenged the Vietnamese gang boys. He was in some sort of weird contest with them to be the most manly. Once Alberto whispered to him, "Are you crazy man, those guys will kill you if you don't chill out." But Anton seemed incapable of controlling his impulses, or of acting on the basis of reason.

Anton didn't want to be seen as a refugee. He wanted out of ELL and he wanted some American friends. He desperately wanted to be seen as normal and as masculine. But his very desperation belied how abnormal and vulnerable he felt.

The last two students in the class were Middle Eastern girls. Nadia was small with long dark hair and tiny hands that moved in graceful, birdlike ways. She was fifteen and spoke four languages—Arabic, Kurdish, English, and Hindi. Nadia said, "I am here because of the Gulf War. I have said too many good-byes. Sadness has built a nest in my heart."

Her father had been a doctor at a hospital in Iraq. Like Faisal's family, her family was evacuated to Guam, then sent to Nebraska. The first year, her father did factory work, but now he worked in a hospital emergency room. His coworkers said he was a better doctor than many American doctors.

Nadia wanted to be a doctor. She told me that her father didn't let her talk to boys and would choose her an Iraqi husband when the time came. She lived to please him and after she'd failed a geometry test, she sobbed. She said, "I was crying for my father."

Beside her sat Homera, almost completely covered with a veil and long black gown. Homera had a round face and dark heavy eyebrows. She barely whispered her name and kept her eyes down as she spoke. She was eighteen and she had come to this country three weeks ago for an arranged marriage to a man she'd never met. Her husband brought her to school every day and picked her up when it was over. She seemed overwhelmed by America, the loss of her family, and the marriage.

With introductions complete, Mrs. Kaye showed the class the day's newspaper and made points from front-page stories. One story was about a drunken driver who killed a teen. She said, "Promise me you will never drink and drive." Anton asked if the drunk driver would be executed. Mrs. Kaye said, "No, but he may go to jail." Velida said, "I will pray for her family."

Mrs. Kaye read the students a story about consumer fraud. She told the students never to sign anything without discussing it with a trusted American friend. She said some students had accidentally bought things they couldn't afford. One student from Bosnia, in Nebraska for only two weeks, signed an agreement to buy a swimming pool. Another student was arrested after he signed papers confessing to crimes he didn't commit. A Vietnamese student ended up in drug treatment because he filled out an evaluation form incorrectly. He'd checked yes to everything to be agreeable.

She warned students to walk away from trouble at the school. She said, "If someone gives you a hard time, talk it over with a teacher. Don't get in fights or you will be in trouble, too."

Faisal said, "I saw a guy in a T-shirt that said, 'Iraq sucks.'"

Mrs. Kaye asked, "What did you do?"

Faisal answered, "I asked him, Hey man, why do you think my country sucks?" He made a gesture like a boxer with his gloves on. Everyone laughed.

Khoi said, "Yeah, Faisal is Bruce Lee. A mean mother."

Mrs. Kaye said, "Khoi, watch your language please."

Anton said, "Faisal thinks he is a tough guy. He thinks he is Ahhnold." Everyone laughed at Anton's imitation of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Mrs. Kaye said, "Let's laugh with Faisal not at him."

The bell rang. Everyone bolted but Homera. She asked Mrs. Kaye if she could change classes and have only women teachers.

Mrs. Kaye said, "In America, men and women work together; you must get used to it. We don't have classes just for girls."