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Turning American
Ma Htwe Hla can barely speak English, but she wants her first grandson, Sai Mee Olar, to learn English first and Burmese only if he chooses.
By Karen Lambert
Published:
Sunday, July 19, 2009 2:33 AM CDT
Learning English is also the priority for her own children, she says.
“When they leave (my home), if they’re fluent in English they don’t need to speak Burmese anymore because here (in the U.S.) people only speak English and Spanish,” she said through interpreter Hser Doh, who is also known as Chapter.
The refugees, who fled Burma for their lives and then spent eight years in a prison-like refugee camp, are in a state of transition. While there are some parts of their culture, like their Muslim faith, that Ma Htwe Hla hopes her children will retain, she also wants them to become American. She smiles as she says someday she hopes her youngest son will become a policeman and her two youngest daughters will become doctors or nurses — a wish they’ve expressed to her.
The family lived in a Muslim community in Burma, but when militants destroyed their village, they fled to a refugee camp in Thailand where their youngest son was born. Then the U.S. government offered them amnesty and a chance to build new lives.
Now Ma Htwe Hla’s husband and oldest daughter work at JBS, a meat-packing company in Hyrum, while she manages the household.
She teaches her daughters her culture, including how to sew Burmese styles. While she doesn’t dislike American clothing, the petite woman said they never fit right and she has to remake them if she wants to wear them. So, she sews all her own clothing according to the traditional patterns she knows.
One Thursday, Sha Kya Har and Swa Hay Dar Bi, both 13, watched as their mother cut out five shirts in 90 minutes, using another shirt and memory as her only patterns.
“Nobody taught me. I just watched,” said Ma Htwe Hla, in the English she’s learning through classes at the English Language Center.
She’s made sarongs, blouses with hand-sewn buttons, skirts and cotton tunics. Sometimes she decorates them with roses made of patterned fabric or a pretty collar that she quickly and beautifully creates out of a simple strip of white cloth.
Sewing is something she enjoyed with a pedal sewing machine when she lived in Burma before civil war drove her family out and in the years in the Thailand refugee camp she owned an electric machine. In the U.S., friends have helped her obtain two sewing machines, but one doesn’t work and the other needs some adjustments she says, asking if there’s a repair shop in town.
Home is where the family feels most comfortable. There is often a pot of something cooking on the stove. For a meal of curried eggplant, green beans and fish Ma Htwe Hla bought the ingredients at Lee’s Marketplace. But she often buys food at an Asian market in Salt Lake City. She makes many Burmese desserts, including one made out of coconut milk, but doesn’t know the names. She said she wants to learn American desserts too, and has experimented cooking with American chocolate.
She makes all the family’s food. That’s partly to save money and to ensure it fits in with her religion’s dietary codes. But she says she also doesn’t know how to order at a restaurant, especially with limited English.
Such discomfort is part of the reason the family didn’t go to see fireworks on the July 4 weekend. The family did walk into their backyard to look, but they couldn’t see anything. They’ve never seen fireworks before.
Friends, especially within the Burmese community, provide a sense of familiarity.
Recently, a friend from Logan drove Ma Htwe Hla to attend her nephew’s wedding in Salt Lake City. While none of her relatives live in the U.S., she said 20 to 30 of her husband’s relatives do, although none are in Cache County. While in Salt Lake City, she went to an Asian market to purchase food and to Deseret Industries, where she bought fabric.
As their mother sews, cooks or does other chores around the house, the children play.
O Ba Du La, 4, crashed a large silver car and plastic yellow motorcycle into each other while his mom worked quickly on a shirt. Then he grabbed a long scrap of black fabric and tied his ankles together. Not much later he used a piece to pull over his sister’s eyes.
Combining a traditional American pastime with an Asian twist, 16-year-old Swa Hay Dar Bi spent one of her afternoons watching the movie Madam White Snake with her younger sister,
June Mar Bi, who sat on the arm of the same chair. The movie was in Thai, a language neither speaks. But by turning on Burmese subtitles, Swa Hay Dar Bi was able to follow what was going on. Since June Mar Bi has not learned to read in Burmese, she had to rely on her sister for translation.
Ma Htwe Hla said she sees no reason why June Mar Bi should learn to read Burmese now that she lives in America. The 13-year-old is one of the two best at English, thanks to some teachers who taught her in Illinois.
The same afternoon, the children had a water balloon fight in the backyard while their mom talked to visitors inside. The older siblings enjoyed water balloons in Burma too, where they are used as part of the water festival for Burmese New Year in April.
They’re enjoying moments of summer fun. But the entire day’s not about play.
Now that school’s out, the younger children attend Arabic classes at a friend’s house most every weekday afternoon. Their mother said she wants them to be able to talk to their friends in Arabic. Muslims also traditionally learn some Arabic so they can pray.
In addition to watching Thai movies, they watch television in Arabic, often a religious channel. But, the girls also enjoy checking out more traditional American movies from the library, including some Christmas shows.
Volunteers and employees with the English Language Center, including refugee specialist Alex Mortensen, translator Chapter and Logan resident Jenny Willmore still come by once a week or so to make sure things are all right.
In the quiet moments amongst the members of the Ba Hlaing and Ma Htwe Hla family, they are building themselves their own kind of American life.
While some of the Karen refugees long to return home to Burma, Ma Htwe Hla says she never wants to go back to the place where she lived in fear of violence.
“I just want to stay here in America forever,” she said, through the translator. “I want to live in America, buy my own house and live here. It’s better than going back to Burma.”
Read the full article in the Herald Journal…