In one of my previous posts, I mentioned I wanted to process more from my first day of class in my teaching internship. This day in class made me view my time in Vienna and Vienna itself as a sort of crossroads, a high point from which to see people´s journeys in their trek across the world. That sounds horrifically philosophical, but I guess it´s how I envisioned my experience in my mind. More concretely, my experience in Vienna is colored by the immigration stories of several different people.
Every student in the classrooms where I work comes from a country other than Austria, including Afghanistan, Syria, Bosnia, Serbia, Turkey, and Croatia. The older students range in age from approximately 15-17 years old, while the students in the younger classroom range from 13-14 years old. Different religions and different family backgrounds are represented. Many of the students are refugees, who came to Austria within the past 6 months - 2 years. The younger classroom contains students who arrived in Austria less than a month ago. This creates an interesting dynamic, making it important to pay attention to Eva Maria's advice to keep the big picture in mind and not lose focus. Eva Maria sets an amazing example as she works with them, creating a loving, but firm and ordered atmosphere. The students truly and deeply respect her.
The experiences which the students have undergone truly struck me as I tried teaching English phrases to a little girl named Lydia, who arrived most recently in Austria from the Middle East. She is trying to learn German and English at the same time - a challenging task for a 13 year old! Her life circumstances plunged her into this new situation, where the entire world likely seems unfamiliar. As I sat with her, I tangibly grasped a piece of the struggles of immigration and the conflict which often causes it. Memories arise to my mind as I reflect on that moment with Lydia.
I am laying on the floor of my uncle's living room on the family farm in Canada, as we recount the stories of my great-grandfather struggling to establish himself as a farmer. He had fled with his family from Russia during the revolution to escape religious persecution. To flee the soldiers who would come and raid their homes, maybe even rape their wives and daughters. We talked about the home the family first lived in that was like a barn. Coming home one night to find the Christmas candles had burned the house down. My Opa told us he often did not receive enough food at the table to feel full. Years and years of tilling land and laboring to establish the farm. The debt paid off a few years ago.
These stories make me proud of my heritage, thankful for my Opa, his father, and their relatives who stood strong and paved the way for a better life. The German which my Mom passed on to me connects me tangibly to this heritage and brought me back here to Europe, the old country, where I can study it further. Our stories of immigration thus brought us together, as Lydia emigrated to Austria with her family and I returned to the German-speaking world to deepen my understanding of the language of my heriditary language.
As these stories of immigration leave their imprint upon me, I see that as human beings we all search for a place we can call "home." We want to belong and to understand from where we come. However, definitions of "home" and "familiar" radically differ across the world, as my students also demonstrated to me. One day, the students were given pictures of people from different nationalities which they need to color and cut out. They would choose the figure they wanted and then use English phrases to describe its nationality, personality, and life. Without a question, a couple students proudly said their figures were from Afghanistan and began to describe them. One of the students was wearing a scarf which he earlier told me came from Afghanistan. These expressions from the students reflected to me their pride in their home country, Afghanistan. In America, we don't often associate "home" with Afghanistan. We think of a dusty country. We think of war. This experience made me recall the memories of those whom I know who view currently conflict-ridden countries as home.
I walked out of class at Bethel College, talking with an international student who explained she came from Afghanistan. The words popped out without thinking, "Oh, my brother is there right now." Her response: "Really? Is there a part that he likes a lot?" I did not know how to respond...what should I say when he went there to fight a war?
Last fall, I sat in a café in Bloomington talking with a mentor of mine who lived in Syria for two years. She explained about the people they knew, the places they walked, the buildings from ancient times which they saw. "Syria was home. Now, we don't have as much contact. The places we walked...many are destroyed, torn by war."
I counseled for a high school youth camp this past winter and had an girl in my counseling group, who grew up in Yemen for several years of her life. I remember years before when her brother told me she was one of the last American teenage girls still in Yemen. At the camp, the girl described the time when she came back to America, "We had a normal life in Yemen. I loved it. It was home. When I walked off the plane in America, everything seemed strange and different."
These places are people's homes. They are the familiar of my students. They were torn away from what they knew.
These stories and my students provide a different perspective on Vienna as a high point and crossroads of people coming from different nations. Originally, I viewed this flow of people as beautiful and inspiring. The contrasts shine with beauty in the rich depth of personalities, clothing, backgrounds, and traditions coming together in one place. But the reasons these people have come to Vienna often contain much pain. War, conflict, and lack of resources likely drove many of them away from their homes. I can only imagine the fear many experienced and the destruction they saw. I remember back to my own ancestors - they came to Canada with little more than the clothes on their backs. They left behind the village, farms, and wealth they created in Russia.
Acknowledging the difficulty of the present, the question for me now becomes: what role do I, as an educator, play in the lives of these students? How can I contribute to helping students establish successful cross-cultural lives here in Vienna, in order to overcome the brokenness of the present?
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