
{"id":6418,"date":"2009-07-09T10:23:30","date_gmt":"2009-07-09T18:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=6418"},"modified":"2009-07-09T10:23:30","modified_gmt":"2009-07-09T18:23:30","slug":"karen-language-has-found-new-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/07\/09\/karen-language-has-found-new-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen language has found new home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Beth Mechum<\/strong><em><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Speaking the Karen language is often prohibited in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and in the refugee camps in Thailand where many native Karen speakers are forced to live. But the language now has found a home in Carrboro.<\/p>\n<p>Karen and Burmese immigrants have been steadily moving to Carrboro (with the biggest growth coming in the last five years) to avoid being persecuted because of their status as ethnic minorities in their homeland.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nCarrboro is a place where while they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re free to speak their native tongue, almost no one can speak it back.<\/p>\n<p>That is, until recently. In an effort to help break down this language barrier, the Chapel Hill Institute for Cultural and Language Education (CHICLE) decided to offer a short introductory course in the Sgaw strain of the Karen language.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We got asked because there is a Karen community here and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a language that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never taught,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d CHICLE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s program director Miriam Palacio says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153With all the people calling, there was an obvious interest, and there is even a waiting list.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Palacio said CHICLE chose to keep this first class small because the instructor was a first-time and languages are learned better in small groups.<\/p>\n<p>The first round of classes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d four meetings of an hour and a half each \u00e2\u20ac\u201d ended last week and there are already talks of adding more classes with higher levels.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Student becomes teacher<\/strong><br \/>\nChristine Wai and her family arrived in the area nine years ago from a Thai refugee camp and knew no English. Flicka Bateman, a neighbor, knew no Karen (pronounced kah-RIN), but the two have formed a lasting bond.<\/p>\n<p>Through the years, Bateman, principal of the Hospital School at UNC Hospitals and a former member of the Chapel Hill Town Council, tutored Christine and her siblings and has been helping other Karen immigrants do everything from filling out job applications and applying for food stamps and has acted as a liaison to the greater Carrboro community.<\/p>\n<p>Bateman helped a Karen man who got in a misunderstanding at a local grocery store and another who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realize he had to have a fishing permit to fish at Jordan Lake.<\/p>\n<p>Bateman emphasizes that rules are hard to follow when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible to read signs.<\/p>\n<p>Wai now works in a research lab at the UNC School of Medicine. Bateman suggested her as a possible teacher candidate for the Karen language class. And while Wai has no formal teaching training and has tutored only in math and science, she said she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t turn this opportunity down.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s different from tutoring because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my major, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fun with the Karen language, because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m teaching them and also helping my people at the same time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wai says.<\/p>\n<p>Bateman says that in the beginning, she had to rely on translators and a little imagination to communicate.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You learn to be creative in terms of gestures and charades,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Having now taken the first round of classes, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s says she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still nowhere near an expert, none of her classmates are, and those gestures will continue to come in handy. But now, she says, she can talk to Karen speakers on a more personal level.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A lot of the words are so hard to pronounce,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wai says, acknowledging that only small steps can be taken in the allotted time. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But they are trying really hard, and if I see them trying hard, it just makes me happy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Culture infusion<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Karen language certainly is not an easy one to learn. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tonal, and even many of its native speakers can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually read it.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to find a Karen dictionary, much less workbooks, but Wai worked with what she had.<\/p>\n<p>Classmates use each other for practice, and class organizer Andrea Heckert said learning words by playing a variation of Bingo has students excited.<\/p>\n<p>The class is about as introductory as it can get, with a primary focus on greetings, how to refer to people and some basic numbers, because those are the things most needed in general conversation, in the health field and by churches that sponsor Karen people.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about more than the language.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The curriculum is about the cultural, political and social realities of the Karen refugee community here, as much at is about learning greetings as cultural competency,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Heckert says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about relating to another culture that is so very different.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Heckert says all class members have a real commitment to learning at least a little of the language. These aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t people who decide to take Karen on a whim, she says, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that kind of language.<\/p>\n<p>Peter and Sarah Durham have encountered a lot of Karen people in their work as Jehovah Witnesses and wanted to know more about the immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s out of respect of human dignity to speak to someone in their own language, and it reaches the heart,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Peter says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good to know the basics, and I think learning the culture is huge.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Durham said he and his wife have appreciated little bits of simple but important knowledge they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gained from the culture parts of the class. He says he now knows that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s respectful to sit down and take off your shoes when entering a Karen household, you should never walk in front of an older member of the community without bowing your head in respect and that touching someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head is disrespectful.<\/p>\n<p>Durham says the small amount of Karen he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s learned has already made a difference.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have used the greetings. Before I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to say \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnice to meet you,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 or even ask about another member of the family, and that has gone a long way to just the appreciation on their faces,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Durham views the class as an open forum where everyone feels comfortable to ask questions, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of feel both Wai and Heckert wanted.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the good thing about the area of Carrboro, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very accepting area,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Durham says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Carrboro hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forced the Karen community to conform and forget their culture. And since their culture is essentially being attacked and destroyed, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important that there is a place for it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Beth Mechum Staff Writer Speaking the Karen language is often prohibited in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and in the refugee camps in Thailand where many native Karen speakers are forced to live. But the language now has found a home in Carrboro. Karen and Burmese immigrants have been steadily moving to Carrboro (with the biggest&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6419,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6418\/revisions\/6419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}