The Middle of Everywhere (13 page)

One aspect of being a cultural broker is being an introducer. Cultural brokers can attend every first meeting between a refugee and a caseworker, doctor, banker, or employer. Just being present as a supportive friend helps these first meetings, often filled with anxiety on all sides, go more smoothly. If a local person accompanies newcomers to their first Jazz in June, contra dance, or GED session, the newcomers may later return alone. Without a guide, certain things never seem to happen on their own.

Having a cultural broker can make a tremendous difference in how successfully a new family adapts to America. People come here traumatized, and the trauma doesn't end with arrival. Without guidance and support, it's difficult to survive.

Every newcomer needs someone who knows how to get things done locally. Communities are nuanced cultures, and the nuances are precisely what newcomers need help with. Songwriter Greg Brown might have been speaking of cultural brokers when he wrote, "Your hometown is where you know what the deal is. You may not like it, but you understand it." (See appendix 2 for ideas on how to help.)

Housing

Because of their poverty, refugees often move into our slums, what Eleanor Roosevelt defined as "inhabited, uninhabitable habitations." Slums are filled with desperate people looking for their first chance or settling for their last resort. Refugees move into neighborhoods with meth labs, crack houses, sex offenders, and gangs. Some landlords take advantage of newcomers and overcharge. A woman from Nigeria lived in a small, dark basement with poor ventilation, for which she paid more rent than would be charged for a reasonable student apartment. Some landlords will not rent to people they regard as "foreigners." I once called a landlady about housing for a refugee family. I made the mistake of telling her that they were from Macedonia. Over and over, she demanded, "Are they clean?" She wouldn't tell me what the rent was. Rather she said, "Have them come by and we'll talk about it. It's negotiable."

I have visited refugees in places where it wasn't safe to stand on the porch because the roof was falling down; in places with snakes, roaches, and rats; and in places that were hot in summer and freezing cold in winter. I've been angered at greedy, indifferent landlords. However, I've also met good landlords, eager to welcome newcomers and conscientious about charging reasonable rents and keeping things fixed up.

Many refugees live in extended families or have many children. They want to rent a unit for as many as fifteen people. Lincoln has few three-bedroom apartments, let alone six-bedroom apartments. Often the family needs a place to live before the adults have any savings. Deposits necessary for rentals are difficult to acquire. Finally, even if a place can be found and money garnered, the rents are just too high for a family living on minimum-wage salaries while sending money home to relatives.

A cultural broker can help a family locate a safe neighborhood near their ethnic group. Cultural brokers can help determine what is a reasonable rent. They may need to read the lease and cosign, or write a check for the damage deposit. Later they can mediate between the newcomers and their landlord and show newcomers how to take care of their places. This can include everything from lending them tools for fix-up jobs to explaining American cleaning products.

Orientation, Transportation, and Driving

An American city is a complicated place with stores, houses, schools, places of worship, different kinds of thoroughfares, government and business offices, hospitals, emergency services, transportation systems, public and private property, parks, and recreational facilities. And yet, almost from the first, people must get around. They need doctors, schools, and groceries.

Most American cities are designed in ways that make a car necessary. Soon, most newcomers want a car. Buying a vehicle involves evaluating, comparing, and then selecting a car. Many times the purchaser must secure a loan, demonstrate a credit rating, be employed, and have references. Then, he must buy insurance, which is not even a concept in many parts of the world.

Driving is a complex skill, requiring the ability to read maps and street signs, as well as an understanding of vehicles, laws, and traffic. Newcomers must pass a written driver's test and drive with a state employee. Many refugees are very anxious about being alone with a large American wearing a uniform. For many Middle Eastern women, this is the first time they have ever been alone with a man not in their family. After obtaining a driver's license, there is the risk of accidents, speeding tickets, and injuries, all of which can ruin the life of a refugee.

In fender benders, refugees are often at a disadvantage. They don't know the laws or the language and they panic around police. Consequently, newcomers often are unfairly ticketed. I have known refugees to be ticketed when they were rear-ended or even when they were hit while sitting in a parked vehicle.

Certain car dealers have taken to defrauding refugees. They buy an old clunker, clean it up, pour oil treatment in its engine, and sell it for far more than it is worth. A few weeks later, the newcomer, who has spent his life savings on the vehicle, discovers the car needs a new engine or transmission.

Ideally, locals help newcomers shop for cars. They ask questions of the dealers in English, test-drive the vehicles, check on warranties, and get second opinions. Local people know who are the honest car dealers. Furthermore, dealers are more accountable when someone is involved who knows how to call the Better Business Bureau and write letters to the editor.

Cultural brokers can also help with maps and orientation to the city, with all the legal procedures involved in licensing and registering cars, and, if necessary, with paying traffic tickets, which are frightening and confusing to refugees.

Work

Refugees have always done the work that other Americans didn't want to do. But there is a big difference between the work environments of the past and the present. In the past, immigrants and refugees could slowly work their way up the ladder to better jobs. They might be on the killing floor of the packing plant. But their sons would be shop stewards and their grandsons union organizers.

Portes and Rumbaut document this new situation. Whereas job distribution used to look like a triangle, it now looks like an hourglass. There are many jobs at the top and at the bottom, but the jobs in the middle are gone. These intermediary jobs are now handled by computers or other machines. There is no job ladder to climb. Refugees must somehow leap from the bottom half of the hourglass to the top. It's a giant leap, even for the second and third generation. Many don't make it and end up permanendy locked in the underclass.

Refugees are much more vulnerable and controllable than other workers. Hence, they work in the places where their ears hurt from constant noise or where they get headaches or throw up because of noxious materials used in production. They work in factories that have poor ventilation and no windows, and that insist upon split shifts and forced overtime. Even though these conditions are unhealthy and unsafe, there is little anyone can do to protect workers. By now OSHA exists only theoretically. It's Virtually impossible to obtain a workplace inspection for any reason.

Many Nebraska refugees work in meatpacking plants. People fall down on the bloody floors. Knives slip while slicing meat. Carcasses hit workers when they are not watching. Many of these plants were built for brawny Swedes and Germans, and most of the workers now are smaller people, Mexican, Laotian, and Vietnamese, who are the wrong size for the equipment. Lack of orientation, long hours, language problems, and pressure to work fester increase the danger:

Rules at many of these plants are draconian—no breaks, no talking to others, and no calling in sick. Most do not complain for fear of losing their jobs and/or their work permits. Some workers get sick from dehydration because they don't have time to drink water or because they are afraid to drink for fear they might need to use a bathroom. Injury rates in our packing plants are as high as 50 percent. Some places have an injury rate of 80 percent for workers the first year on the job.

Educated newcomers suffer the most from their drop in status. A Romanian pediatrician works stuffing envelopes. A director of a hospital from Hungary drives a taxicab. A Nuba woman who was a great leader of her people in the Sudan now sorts mail. A judge from Haiti works as a janitor. Lawyers become doormen; teachers assemble computer boards or sell fast food. A distinguished writer fries doughnuts for a fast-food chain. He can speak no English and is treated in a demeaning way by some staff and customers.

Many people come from places where one person could work outside the home and support the family. In America, all the adults must work just to pay the rent and buy groceries. Women from traditional cultures hate to leave their children and move into the labor market, and when they must do this, they feel impoverished indeed.

But status issues are complex. Without money, people have limited control of their lives. And while money doesn't buy happiness, neither does poverty. As a Latino man told me, "Nobody listens to a poor man." Work outside the home is not just the source of income; it is the source of dignity. Without dignity, people are powerless.

Still, in the rather dismal scene, there are points of light. A local man serves as a cultural broker by running an employment service that connects refugees with jobs. His staff speaks many languages and they know the bus routes and who works where. Dave tells companies, "I can get you workers, but I expect them to be treated well and given benefits and good wages."

Dave acts as an intermediary for people who cannot do interviews and who don't have cars or money for required work uniforms. He knows which factories use up their workers and which offer good benefits, including dental care and education. He encourages workers to speak English whenever they can and to not just talk to people from their homeland. He tells workers, "Ask questions; ask your supervisor if you're doing a good job. Ask if there is more you can do."

Dave told me of one woman from the Ukraine who called him up after she got a job and said, "Tell my boss he pays me too much. My English not so good. I don't deserve seven dollars an hour."

Thanks to people like Dave, we have a kinder, gender employment scene than we would otherwise. He's a big-hearted guy who is on a mission to find work for desperate people. He has a sense for what refugees have been through and are going through but he also understands the very practical needs of employers. When my refugee friends are in trouble with work they call and ask, "Will you talk to Dave?"

Health Care

In our country health care is wonderful for the people who have access to our modern medical system. However, access is difficult for people without cars, money, or English. Services are available only during hours when refugees must be in factories. Doctors often schedule appointments two or three weeks away, even for very sick people. Furthermore, while refugees are urged to show up on time, the doctors may keep them waiting.

Although there are some praiseworthy exceptions, many of the doctors who will take Medicaid are overworked and schedule short appointments. Many newcomers feel rushed and, especially if a translator is involved, there isn't time to handle things. They feel rebuffed by a doctor who doesn't take the time to visit.

Many refugees must have their children interpret for them. It's convenient to use kids as translators but not generally a good idea. Kids often don't know the words for medical terms, and having them translate upends the family hierarchy by putting them in a position of power and responsibility.

Gender issues complicate the situation. Many women come from cultures where only their husbands will ever see or touch their bodies. Many will not go to a male doctor and our city doesn't have enough female physicians to meet their needs.

The book
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
by Anne Fadiman tells of the great cultural misunderstandings that occurred between a Hmong family and American doctors. For example, each believed that the other ate human flesh. When the Hmong asked for the placenta, which they bury as a "soul jacket" under their hearths, the American health professionals thought this was so the Hmong could eat it. The Hmong, who knew that doctors cut open their people during surgery, thought that the doctors removed internal organs and ate them.

Serious mistakes happen when people are not bicultural. Vietnamese parents who have used coining, which is rubbing their children with hot coins to draw out fevers, have been
arrested for child abuse. In many traditional cultures, there is the belief that to predict something is to wish it. To say "You will die if you do not get treatment for cancer" is tantamount to wishing for that.

Of course, our medical practitioners predict and diagnose all the time. A man from Iran wanted to sue his doctor because the man had told his mother she had cancer and would hot live much longer. He said, "In Iran we would never handle it that way. The doctor would merely tell family members to be very good to their mother. He would say that she was fine, just be good to her."

Because of language differences and cultural misunderstandings, some diseases are missed or misdiagnosed. A Croatian child who had significant learning disorders wasn't identified because his language skills were not good. All his teachers just thought he was quiet. A Caribbean woman was diagnosed as psychotic because she spoke with her dead husband at night. However, in Caribbean culture people believe in ghosts, and many non-psychotic people converse with them.

Women who have been raped are often ashamed to speak of it. In some parts of the world, if a woman has been raped, she and the rapist will both be executed. Even in less-punitive cultures, women who have been raped are regarded as unmarriageable. So rape is kept secret, which means such women who have been raped don't receive physical or psychological care.

Many new arrivals come from places with unhealthy diets, bad water, and no preventative health care. After years of neglect, their teeth are often in terrible shape. Refugees may have chronic health conditions. They also may have been bombed, tortured, or hint while escaping. Many have untreated injuries from work or prison. Women often have gynecological problems caused by female genital mutilation.