Lar
My parents have been running away from war for their whole lives.
They were originally from Burma, but a civil war broke out. The Burmese military invaded, raped, and killed Karen villagers. They burned down the villages. My parents had no choice but to flee. I was born and raised in a refugee camp in Thailand. The camp was pretty big. There were 12 sections of around 200 to 300 people each. It was tough growing up in the camp. We didn't have a lot of food or resources. We lived in a bamboo hut.
We went to school, but it was expensive. The school buildings were made out of wood and bamboo. A lot of students didn't have things to write with. The teachers were not very educated, but they tried their best to educate the students. Education is very important to the Karen people. For fun, I would play with my friends. We played games with rubber bands and rocks. Sometimes we went to the forest to find vegetables and plants that we could eat.
After school, all the kids go to work to provide for the family. I had to help around the house. I took care of my little siblings and went to the river, which was two to three miles away, to get water. I was five or six years old at the time. You have to do as much as you can to help out. I gathered wood to make a fire and went to the garden to make sure everything was good. Some days, we would try to look for random jobs to put food on the table. If there was no food on the table, we would go to bed starving. If we had the money to buy food, we would have rice, salt, and oil, but people who had extra money also got vegetables or meat. My family was not fortunate enough to have enough money to enjoy meat.
Some of my favorite memories from the camp are from Christmas time. Some wealthy families in the refugee camp would let us watch TV for free. I remember watching Tom and Jerry, and I loved it. They would have some food prepared for the kids. I went house to house with my friends to watch movies and enjoy some food.
I rarely got to see my dad. I would only see him once every four to five months. He was always out in Thailand, going out into the city to find jobs. I don't know exactly what he did. My mom took care of the family and did some gardening work. Back in the camp, it was never home. We were living one river away from Burma. We were always sleeping in fear because Burmese soldiers could come any day and attack us, shoot us, and burn down our houses again. You do have a sense of home in a refugee camp because you have your family there, but you’re always living in fear and pain.
We came to the US when I was 11 years old with the help of the International Organization of Migration and the United Nations, but the process started years before. We applied to leave, and then we were chosen for an interview. The immigration office was built into the refugee camp. We went there, took pictures, and filled out documents that we needed to get here. After that, we went back and waited for our names again. There were a lot of people in the refugee camp who were trying to get out of there.
The next process is a medical check. We left the refugee camp and went to a city in Thailand. Coming from a jungle where there’s no technology, something as simple as getting into a car to go get a medical check was very cool. The process took a week or two to make sure we were healthy enough to come to the US. When my family went to get a medical check the first time, we weren't able to get to the final phase because my dad had an illness. He had to take medication and heal from it before we could go.
We waited for three or four months. Every week, a specialist came and gave my dad medication and a proper diet. For the first time, I actually got to eat meat because, in order for him to properly heal, he had to eat a healthy diet. They brought him some meat and vegetables. Of course, my parents didn't eat it themselves - they gave it to us.
After my dad was treated, we then waited for our names again. People got mad or frustrated when they had to wait so long because they didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. Two to three months passed by before our names were finally chosen. We were brought to another facility where the parents received training on how to navigate the airport and planes, what you need to have, and other important things for moving. The kids watched movies and had fun while our parents did the training.
I remember the first time we went to Bangkok, a big city in Thailand, and how it was all very cool. I was very energized and happy to see all these cool buildings. In that city, seeing an airplane flying for the first time blew my mind. I was very excited about getting on a plane, while my mom was scared to death because she had heard stories that some people didn't make it to the US because the plane didn't make it. They were just stories, rumors, but she believed them. My mom had cousins who were already in Minnesota, so we told the people that that is where we want to go. We flew right into the Twin Cities.
I knew zero English when I moved here. I started learning in fifth grade when I first came here. From fifth grade through tenth grade in high school, I was in an English as a Second Language (ESL) program. It was tough. The ESL program is like a competition. Students there are trying to make it out. There is also a stigma behind it. All students who are in the ESL classes are looked at as dumb and not smart by other students. ESL students don't get to be with their regular peers, they have their own special classes, and some don't dress as well as the normal kids, so they are looked down upon.
When I was in school, the adults in our Karen community would always force us to speak English. They regard English very highly, so coming here, they expect you to speak English and be smart, and they start comparing you to your peers. You can't learn English when you've only been here for a month or a year. If you were not good at it, they talked down to you, and they made it explicitly clear that they were doing so. Growing up, I was always forced to speak with my siblings in English. In the beginning, it was very awkward to go from Karen to English. It almost feels like you're showing off.
Now, all of my siblings speak English. Their English is probably way better than mine. You can still hear my accent, but my little siblings who came here at a younger age barely have an accent. Since we’ve been here for 11 years, I now speak Karen with my siblings, especially the very small ones. I try my best to speak to them in Karen because I don't want them to lose their culture and language. It's hard when you're going to school and speaking English all the time.
My parents still don't speak English. They might understand a little bit, but I'm the interpreter of the family. When it comes to applying for government services and citizenship or being in a hospital or school environment, they go through me. If I'm not available, we have interpreters in the city. It's hard, though. My parents were offered some classes to study English. The thing is, though, that when we came to the US, we had zero dollars in our pocket. We started out with nothing, and my parents really needed to work. They were in hustle mode, and my dad had to work multiple jobs.
My mom always said that if she had come here when she was younger, she would have gone through schooling to get her doctorate, but because of the situation we're in, they know that the opportunity is not there for them anymore.
Coming to the US, there were a lot of culture shocks. The first thing would be just how the food, the diet, is different over here. It took us some time to get adjusted to that, especially at school. If we found a way to a grocery store where we lived in St. Paul, there were a lot of Asian foods, but the school serves very American food. It took me a while to get adjusted to that.
Secondly, American culture is very individualistic. Back in the camp, all the houses were lined up and everyone knew each other. After school, if you don't have work to help out your family, all the kids would play together right in front of the school. When we came to the US, everyone just stayed in their own home, and I didn't see many kids going out and playing with each other. That was surprising to me.
I also remember seeing one of my classmates asking another student for part of their snack, and the student only gave them one piece of it. As a person who came from a very collectivist community, that surprised me. Even in the refugee camp, we share with each other as much as we can. Even if we had only a little food, we shared it with each other. Seeing the way people interact with one another was very different.
The challenges you face in the refugee camp are very different from the challenges here, but they're all challenges. Coming here, you are facing culture shock, learning a new language, and having to provide for the family. When we first moved here and none of us knew English, it was hard for my family to navigate the community and find the right resources for us.
For a long time, I didn't feel like I belonged here. At one point, I wanted to go back to the refugee camp because I didn't make a lot of friends in school. Kids bullied me because of the way I dressed and spoke. It was really tough, but now it has gotten better. Going to college was never even a dream of mine because I didn't think I could make it here, but now I'm starting my senior year.
I came to Concordia College with a scholarship called the Act Six Scholarship, which focuses on leadership. Getting the scholarship is very tough. In the first phase, you write an essay and do an interview. In the second phase, you interact with other students who also applied for the scholarship. In the third phase, you come to Concordia and do activities and interviews. The year that I applied, they picked 10 scholars out of about 300. We spent the summer before our freshman year learning about leadership, how to make a difference, and how to take action in our school and community. I built close relationships with the other Act Six scholars, and I am able to share my experience with them.
There is a huge Karen population in the St. Paul area. Now that there are a lot of Karen people in the area, and we also have a younger generation stepping up and going to school, we have started the Karen Organization of Minnesota. It is there to help our people as best they can. Lately, they've been doing a lot of fundraising to send money back to Burma. The war in Burma is not ending. Our people are still running because the Burmese soldiers come and burn down villages and people are being killed again. They have been displaced, and they don't have any resources.
For the longest time, I didn't want to keep my culture. I really wanted to fit in. In my community, many people look up to white people and think they're the best. At the end of the day, those are the people that rescued them from the refugee camp. At this age, I've realized that I want to keep and celebrate my culture. I’ve started talking about it more. I really value my culture and my language, and I want to keep it in my life and the life of my future children.
After five years in the US and working out many of the challenges, it feels like home here. My sister is coming to Concordia this fall. She is going to study nursing, and she is already accepted into the program.
I would never wish to go back to the camp to live. I feel bad for all kids who are growing up in the refugee camp right now. They're experiencing a lot of trauma, and they've seen a lot of things that shouldn't be seen. I do appreciate the experience, though, because it made me a stronger person. A lot of my POC [people of color] friends are struggling through college because Concordia is a predominantly white institution, but that's where my strength and experience kick in.
Every negative thing that I face doesn’t really faze me anymore because I have faced much tougher stuff. I'm going through challenges, too, but at least I have a roof over my head. I'm going to school and it's being paid for, and now I am living the dream of everyone in the refugee camp. I appreciate the experience, but I don't want to live there again.
I do wish to go back someday to visit. I and a couple of Karen scholars want to go back and provide resources to the camp, whether that's starting a hospital or school. I just want to go back and help those people out. My main goal is to educate Karen people about mental health.
They were originally from Burma, but a civil war broke out. The Burmese military invaded, raped, and killed Karen villagers. They burned down the villages. My parents had no choice but to flee. I was born and raised in a refugee camp in Thailand. The camp was pretty big. There were 12 sections of around 200 to 300 people each. It was tough growing up in the camp. We didn't have a lot of food or resources. We lived in a bamboo hut.
We went to school, but it was expensive. The school buildings were made out of wood and bamboo. A lot of students didn't have things to write with. The teachers were not very educated, but they tried their best to educate the students. Education is very important to the Karen people. For fun, I would play with my friends. We played games with rubber bands and rocks. Sometimes we went to the forest to find vegetables and plants that we could eat.
After school, all the kids go to work to provide for the family. I had to help around the house. I took care of my little siblings and went to the river, which was two to three miles away, to get water. I was five or six years old at the time. You have to do as much as you can to help out. I gathered wood to make a fire and went to the garden to make sure everything was good. Some days, we would try to look for random jobs to put food on the table. If there was no food on the table, we would go to bed starving. If we had the money to buy food, we would have rice, salt, and oil, but people who had extra money also got vegetables or meat. My family was not fortunate enough to have enough money to enjoy meat.
Some of my favorite memories from the camp are from Christmas time. Some wealthy families in the refugee camp would let us watch TV for free. I remember watching Tom and Jerry, and I loved it. They would have some food prepared for the kids. I went house to house with my friends to watch movies and enjoy some food.
I rarely got to see my dad. I would only see him once every four to five months. He was always out in Thailand, going out into the city to find jobs. I don't know exactly what he did. My mom took care of the family and did some gardening work. Back in the camp, it was never home. We were living one river away from Burma. We were always sleeping in fear because Burmese soldiers could come any day and attack us, shoot us, and burn down our houses again. You do have a sense of home in a refugee camp because you have your family there, but you’re always living in fear and pain.
We came to the US when I was 11 years old with the help of the International Organization of Migration and the United Nations, but the process started years before. We applied to leave, and then we were chosen for an interview. The immigration office was built into the refugee camp. We went there, took pictures, and filled out documents that we needed to get here. After that, we went back and waited for our names again. There were a lot of people in the refugee camp who were trying to get out of there.
The next process is a medical check. We left the refugee camp and went to a city in Thailand. Coming from a jungle where there’s no technology, something as simple as getting into a car to go get a medical check was very cool. The process took a week or two to make sure we were healthy enough to come to the US. When my family went to get a medical check the first time, we weren't able to get to the final phase because my dad had an illness. He had to take medication and heal from it before we could go.
We waited for three or four months. Every week, a specialist came and gave my dad medication and a proper diet. For the first time, I actually got to eat meat because, in order for him to properly heal, he had to eat a healthy diet. They brought him some meat and vegetables. Of course, my parents didn't eat it themselves - they gave it to us.
After my dad was treated, we then waited for our names again. People got mad or frustrated when they had to wait so long because they didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. Two to three months passed by before our names were finally chosen. We were brought to another facility where the parents received training on how to navigate the airport and planes, what you need to have, and other important things for moving. The kids watched movies and had fun while our parents did the training.
I remember the first time we went to Bangkok, a big city in Thailand, and how it was all very cool. I was very energized and happy to see all these cool buildings. In that city, seeing an airplane flying for the first time blew my mind. I was very excited about getting on a plane, while my mom was scared to death because she had heard stories that some people didn't make it to the US because the plane didn't make it. They were just stories, rumors, but she believed them. My mom had cousins who were already in Minnesota, so we told the people that that is where we want to go. We flew right into the Twin Cities.
I knew zero English when I moved here. I started learning in fifth grade when I first came here. From fifth grade through tenth grade in high school, I was in an English as a Second Language (ESL) program. It was tough. The ESL program is like a competition. Students there are trying to make it out. There is also a stigma behind it. All students who are in the ESL classes are looked at as dumb and not smart by other students. ESL students don't get to be with their regular peers, they have their own special classes, and some don't dress as well as the normal kids, so they are looked down upon.
When I was in school, the adults in our Karen community would always force us to speak English. They regard English very highly, so coming here, they expect you to speak English and be smart, and they start comparing you to your peers. You can't learn English when you've only been here for a month or a year. If you were not good at it, they talked down to you, and they made it explicitly clear that they were doing so. Growing up, I was always forced to speak with my siblings in English. In the beginning, it was very awkward to go from Karen to English. It almost feels like you're showing off.
Now, all of my siblings speak English. Their English is probably way better than mine. You can still hear my accent, but my little siblings who came here at a younger age barely have an accent. Since we’ve been here for 11 years, I now speak Karen with my siblings, especially the very small ones. I try my best to speak to them in Karen because I don't want them to lose their culture and language. It's hard when you're going to school and speaking English all the time.
My parents still don't speak English. They might understand a little bit, but I'm the interpreter of the family. When it comes to applying for government services and citizenship or being in a hospital or school environment, they go through me. If I'm not available, we have interpreters in the city. It's hard, though. My parents were offered some classes to study English. The thing is, though, that when we came to the US, we had zero dollars in our pocket. We started out with nothing, and my parents really needed to work. They were in hustle mode, and my dad had to work multiple jobs.
My mom always said that if she had come here when she was younger, she would have gone through schooling to get her doctorate, but because of the situation we're in, they know that the opportunity is not there for them anymore.
Coming to the US, there were a lot of culture shocks. The first thing would be just how the food, the diet, is different over here. It took us some time to get adjusted to that, especially at school. If we found a way to a grocery store where we lived in St. Paul, there were a lot of Asian foods, but the school serves very American food. It took me a while to get adjusted to that.
Secondly, American culture is very individualistic. Back in the camp, all the houses were lined up and everyone knew each other. After school, if you don't have work to help out your family, all the kids would play together right in front of the school. When we came to the US, everyone just stayed in their own home, and I didn't see many kids going out and playing with each other. That was surprising to me.
I also remember seeing one of my classmates asking another student for part of their snack, and the student only gave them one piece of it. As a person who came from a very collectivist community, that surprised me. Even in the refugee camp, we share with each other as much as we can. Even if we had only a little food, we shared it with each other. Seeing the way people interact with one another was very different.
The challenges you face in the refugee camp are very different from the challenges here, but they're all challenges. Coming here, you are facing culture shock, learning a new language, and having to provide for the family. When we first moved here and none of us knew English, it was hard for my family to navigate the community and find the right resources for us.
For a long time, I didn't feel like I belonged here. At one point, I wanted to go back to the refugee camp because I didn't make a lot of friends in school. Kids bullied me because of the way I dressed and spoke. It was really tough, but now it has gotten better. Going to college was never even a dream of mine because I didn't think I could make it here, but now I'm starting my senior year.
I came to Concordia College with a scholarship called the Act Six Scholarship, which focuses on leadership. Getting the scholarship is very tough. In the first phase, you write an essay and do an interview. In the second phase, you interact with other students who also applied for the scholarship. In the third phase, you come to Concordia and do activities and interviews. The year that I applied, they picked 10 scholars out of about 300. We spent the summer before our freshman year learning about leadership, how to make a difference, and how to take action in our school and community. I built close relationships with the other Act Six scholars, and I am able to share my experience with them.
There is a huge Karen population in the St. Paul area. Now that there are a lot of Karen people in the area, and we also have a younger generation stepping up and going to school, we have started the Karen Organization of Minnesota. It is there to help our people as best they can. Lately, they've been doing a lot of fundraising to send money back to Burma. The war in Burma is not ending. Our people are still running because the Burmese soldiers come and burn down villages and people are being killed again. They have been displaced, and they don't have any resources.
For the longest time, I didn't want to keep my culture. I really wanted to fit in. In my community, many people look up to white people and think they're the best. At the end of the day, those are the people that rescued them from the refugee camp. At this age, I've realized that I want to keep and celebrate my culture. I’ve started talking about it more. I really value my culture and my language, and I want to keep it in my life and the life of my future children.
After five years in the US and working out many of the challenges, it feels like home here. My sister is coming to Concordia this fall. She is going to study nursing, and she is already accepted into the program.
I would never wish to go back to the camp to live. I feel bad for all kids who are growing up in the refugee camp right now. They're experiencing a lot of trauma, and they've seen a lot of things that shouldn't be seen. I do appreciate the experience, though, because it made me a stronger person. A lot of my POC [people of color] friends are struggling through college because Concordia is a predominantly white institution, but that's where my strength and experience kick in.
Every negative thing that I face doesn’t really faze me anymore because I have faced much tougher stuff. I'm going through challenges, too, but at least I have a roof over my head. I'm going to school and it's being paid for, and now I am living the dream of everyone in the refugee camp. I appreciate the experience, but I don't want to live there again.
I do wish to go back someday to visit. I and a couple of Karen scholars want to go back and provide resources to the camp, whether that's starting a hospital or school. I just want to go back and help those people out. My main goal is to educate Karen people about mental health.