I feel like this past year has been a struggle. It's been hard to know what to write. And this not knowing what to say has kept me silent. Now, I'd like to try writing about what I'm seeing and thinking about. I'd like to end this silence.
This week I started something new and scary and wonderful: My Ideal Job.
I'm teaching English twice a week at an organization called ACCESS: American Chinese Christian Educational and Social Services, located in Chinatown. I teach two nights a week at a storefront on the bottom floor of a subsidized housing high rise that is 95% Chinese immigrants.
New and Scary: I am, in one evening, thrown into this new culture and it feels like landing in London all over again. Chinese culture is nothing like the South Asian culture I was in! My first observations: They are quiet students, respectful, and their faces do not tell me if they understand what I am saying--at all! Also, they are sweet, kind, and ready to laugh and enjoy each other and me. These are signs of good things to come.
Anna, the program director, says: "These students will like you: you're American. They don't have a lot of interaction with Americans." This is familiar ground. I felt my American-ness as a bonus in London ESL classes. But that was in England. This is Boston. It's sad that these bright and kind individuals feel isolated in their communities. These are our new Americans. We are a country of immigrants, and have we completely forgotten that? Why is it so easy to ignore the newcomber and label them "outsider?"
Wonderful: ACCESS wants to reach this immigrant population, and share the gospel holistically in Chinatown. Also, ACCESS is mainly funded and run by immigrants and children of immigrants. Praise God for this local leadership and my chance to support them--and learn SO much about teaching and culture in the process. But man-- if this is my 'second time around' being thrown into the cultural deep end: it does not feel easier! It just feels MORE.
