The Middle of Everywhere (20 page)

May 23, 2000

My last day I walked past the sycamore, with its crown of new green leaves, and entered the school. I brought all the students pencils as good-bye gifts. As I passed them out, I said, "If you see me on the street, come over and give me a hug." Even Trinh smiled.

The class had prepared me cards. Ly's was ornate with heartfelt statements of feeling: "You help us. We love you." Khoa's card said, "Marry me." Mai gave me a card covered with flowers that said, "I hope you will come back next year." I asked if she would see Amy over the summer. Mai nodded happily and I thought how much difference a college student had made in the life of this child.

Khoa was still a troublemaker. Trinh wore the same clothes, but with Deena's help she had crawled a little ways out of her shell. Fatima's English was much better and she had learned to read. Deena was more confident now. Helping her own family and Trinh had given her courage and maturity. Still, I worried about all the school Deena missed while she translated for her family. I remembered a line I'd read: "No one gets ahead in America without leaving people behind." Deena wasn't leaving anyone behind, even fish and rats.

Today Ly again said to me, "You are so beautiful." I believe that she really thought this. There had been some kind of deep, almost mystical, connection between us, as if we recognized each other's souls.

Grace announced three more days of school. She showed the kids the peonies she had picked and taught them to spell
peony.
Ly said they looked like lotuses. Yes, I thought, Ly is the lotus of the class, the truly strong and resilient one.

The kids looked nervous and uncertain about the long summer ahead. Some would move. Many would spend the summer in cheap day-care programs or at home alone, latchkey kids with few of the advantages of middle-class kids. No tennis camps or family vacations for them. A few, like Ignazio, might get to visit relatives in their home countries. A few would go to the community action program's day camp. As Grace read a story about summer, I realized how important school was to these kids. It's where they play, see their friends and teachers, get food and clothes.

Grace explained about sunburns, suntan lotion, and Lyme disease. Then she told the kids about city soccer, baseball leagues, and swimming lessons. She warned them to be careful around water. Grace suggested swimming lessons and the summer reading program at the library.

Then Grace handed out a word puzzler based on summer words. Abdul asked for my help and I sat down beside him. He told me he had helped paint some of the pipes in the basement of the school. As we worked together, I remembered our first meeting, how he had turned away from me so that he wouldn't have to work with me.

Khoa drew a picture of surfers and bragged that he had surfed in Vietnam. Abdul worried that somebody in the class might drown in the summer. Grace changed the subject and told them she would bring some seashells to school tomorrow. Abdul whispered to himself, "I'll take them from her. I'll steal those seashells."

I realized he was trying to tell me he was upset I was leaving. I hugged him and said, "Don't worry. I will see you again, Abdul."

Grace handed out papers with seashells on them. The kids were to count and color them and sort them by kind. Most of the kids liked sorting and classifying. We graphed the seashells. I helped Pavel, who had some trouble getting organized. I told him I hoped he could go fishing this summer.

Deena carefully put a sticker tattoo of an American flag on my arm. She used her own spit to wet it and pressed it warmly against my skin. When Fatima whined, "Why can't you come tomorrow?" I regretfully announced my last day.

Grace picked up on the anxiety and sadness and suggested singing some songs. We started with, "On the first day of summer my true love gave to me a robin in a maple tree," and sang on through two ducks, three bees a buzzing, four watermelons and more. I watched each face as Grace led them in song. Most of the feces were so open and sincere that it broke my heart.

Deena belted out the words. Trinh was quiet, but she smiled at me twice. She seemed less wooden today, more comfortable with herself and with the other kids. Mai was better, too. She no longer scratched herself, and she talked more positively about her stepmother and baby brother. She was reaching out for love, and her family and Amy were reaching back. Khoa was still mouthy and unkempt, but he had learned English. Since he started in the behavior-disordered class, he was less impulsive and more subdued. Eventually Khoa would fit into the school system better, but I'd miss the Curious George of our group.

I wanted to believe that all was not lost with Abdul, that given enough time and love, someone could connect with him and he could be a mainstream student and a healthy person. Mr. Trvdy and I had made some progress. Maybe together, next year, we could love him into relationships with us and with other Americans.

Ly had blossomed. She had a big smile and her hand was always up with answers. She was wise, loving, and confident—a Willa Cather heroine. It speaks well for our species that we can produce a Ly now and then.

Walat had come to us strong and he was leaving strong. I had great respect for his inner strength. He also had an intact family and parents who were rapidly becoming bicultural. Pavel was struggling with his academics, but he was happy socially. His parents were loving but not particularly sensible. I wished they had a good cultural broker.

Deena was that strange mix of strong and vulnerable that kids sometimes are. She had healed herself by healing others. Ignazio was no mental giant, but his English was improving. If only his parents could be home evenings.

To say good-bye, Mai gave me a shy wave. Ignazio handed me a root-beer lollipop. Abdul didn't hug me, but he stood almost on top of me. I hugged him and said, "I will miss you, Abdul."

Fatima said, "I will miss you, Miss Mary."

Mai said, "You promised to come back."

Deena's tattoo stayed on my arm all day. It was hard to scrub off in the bath. Even the next day I could see its shadow on my skin. Whenever I looked at it, my heart ached.

"
My parents have two rules for me: No trouble and all A's.
"

Liem's dad had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam. During the day he'd been given Sisyphean labors; he was forced to build houses, then forced to tear them down. He'd performed both jobs diligently or he would have been killed. At night he slept in a small cage like an animal.

Liem was born about a year after his father was released from the camp. Although the family lived in a village of fishermen, they couldn't afford to eat the fish his father caught, and Liem often went to bed hungry. His parents had to borrow money to send him to school, and the teachers were harsh.

In 1992 the family came to America. On the plane, the family didn't eat; they had never seen Western food and didn't know how to use the utensils the airline provided. They were frightened of the airport's elevator; they didn't know how to work the controls and felt as if they were locked in a moving box. In Lincoln they were met by Liem's uncle, who had a one-bedroom apartment for his family of six. The first few months fifteen people lived in that apartment.

Eventually Liem's dad found a job as a janitor and his mom was hired at an electronics plant. His dad learned a little English, but his mother gave up and Liem spoke only Vietnamese with his parents. The family rented their own small house in "Little Vietnam" and joined the Buddhist temple. Liem said, "My parents have two rules for me: No trouble and all As."

The third day in Nebraska, Liem walked to middle school. It was a sleety day and he had no jacket, but mostly he trembled from fear. He spoke no English and worried the American kids would make fun of him and beat him up, both of which they did. He knew that his parents had sacrificed everything so that he could be educated and he was determined to be an A student.

He met other Vietnamese students and kind teachers. Soon he was playing soccer and making good grades. Any word he didn't know he wrote down and looked up in the dictionary. He memorized these word lists conscientiously.

After school he helped with chores, studied, and cared for his younger siblings. In the summer he hoed beans and detassled corn. He'd been invited into a gang but he declined. He was friendly with Vietnamese gang kids, but not too friendly.

Liem was an expert at cultural switching. He said, "I'm an American teenager at school, but at home I am Vietnamese." He was horrified by how American kids talked about their parents. He would never drink, smoke, or disobey his family, and he wouldn't date until after college.

One day when it was very cold, Liem had walked to Holmes Park and snapped a picture of the frozen lake. He'd sent this picture to Vietnam where it had utterly confused his relatives. They couldn't figure out the milky hard water with people skating on it.

Liem had gone back to visit his grandmother for a month. He'd fished, played soccer, and savored his grandmother's cooking. He sighed as he talked about that time. He was grateful for Nebraska's economic rewards and educational system, but he missed the communal life of Vietnam.

Liem wanted a college degree, a high-paying job, and a quiet life helping his parents. He was worried about his ACT scores and his essay writing. His only goal was to be a good son. He had many of the attributes of resilience and a strong family and community. Even with their limited English and scant understanding of American culture, his parents were managing to keep him on a good course and away from gangs. Because he was bright, studious, and young when he came here, Liem was likely to make it into college. But it would take every calorie of energy he and his family had to make this happen.

"
I saw my father and grandfather shot in our living room.
"

Anton was a tall and well-dressed Bosnian boy with big brown eyes. Superficially, he had good social skills, but underneath he was immature. He had had no childhood. He'd had too many dislocations and witnessed too many murders. He was constantly in over his head.

I saw Anton for an evaluation. The referral said Anton was struggling with grades. That was a kind way to put it; I saw no evidence he was actually struggling. His teachers were worried about suicide or that he might provoke the gang kids into hurting him. Anton had no common sense and a kind of manic energy that constantly had him in trouble.

He had a terrible history, a fractured family, and little contact with the Bosnian community. His mother couldn't get along with anyone, even her own people. Neither Anton nor his mother had many attributes of resilience. Indeed, he had no ways to calm himself down.

Anton was born in a small town one hundred miles from Tuzla. He was fifteen now, seven when the war began in 1992. Of his life before the war, he said, "It was a good life, an ordinary life. I played soccer, watched television, and screwed around with my friends."

At first Anton was reluctant to talk about the war, but when he started he couldn't stop. He said, "I saw my father and grandfather shot in our living room."

Then the soldiers set fire to their home. He, his grandmother, and his mother ran for their lives. While on the run, Anton witnessed bombings and rapes. He saw corpses in the streets and he heard the screaming of injured people. Eventually the three made it to Germany. Even there, life was traumatic. In his neighborhood, the police often came around to warn them to stay inside, that thugs were beating up refugees. In some cities, refugees were killed by skinheads. They were in Germany three years, then, as Anton put it, "The Germans kicked out the Bosnians."

He and his mother decided to come to America, but his grandmother returned to Bosnia. She didn't think she could learn a new language. Anton said, "She wishes she were here with us. Life is very hard for her."

Anton smiled when he recalled that, in a stroke of luck, he and his mother accidentally had been assigned first-class seats on the flight from Munich to Chicago. In Nebraska they rented a small apartment. He said, "I like it small. I don't want us to be in different rooms all the time." His mother worked at a noodle factory and studied English at night. She and Anton kept to themselves.

Anton said, "We don't trust anybody." I asked him about his grades and he said, "It is hard to learn everything at once."

I gently asked Anton how he slept. He said, "I dream of my father and grandfather's death. I try to save them, but I can't." We talked about what calmed him. He said American movies made him feel better. He had bought a video of
The Mask
and he watched it over and over. He also liked
Halloween, Scream,
and
I Know What You Did. Last Summer.
He said, "It feels good to see someone else in trouble."

He had many complaints. He felt the ELL kids gave him a rough time and the American kids ignored him. He said, "I believe I am an American, but the American kids do not." He loved soccer, but had to work after school and couldn't play. He didn't like the Bosnian kids in Lincoln. His only praise was for his teachers—"They do everything they can for us"—and for his mother: "She won't let me eat American food. She cooks me good Bosnian food."

He didn't like how Americans waste food. He said, "Whenever I see someone throw away food, I wish I could give it to my grandmother."

I asked Anton how he would feel about seeing a therapist. At first he shouted, "No way," but by the end of our talk, he was willing to give it a try. Later, with the help of a translator, I gently broached the subject of therapy with his mother. She was so upset she threatened to pull Anton from school.

After all his loss and trauma, she couldn't bear to see him reinjured by what she feared was treatment for crazy people. These last few years she had fought to keep him alive and she wasn't going to let down her guard. Maybe after what had happened, she couldn't.

To Anton's mother, love meant protecting him from the outside world. She had lost her husband and father, her work, and her language, and she wasn't going to lose Anton. She had lost everything but the power to say no to an American who wanted to help.