Larissa the Strong

The teacher is producing the only sounds in the room full

of fifteen students as she flips and flicks through the workbook
quickly finding the page and nudges the podium a fraction
forward making a deep squawk as wood meets floor. Mrs. George
then began going over the homework, the students reluctant to
answer any of her questions, their throats choked by the fear
and discomfort of speaking English. While scanning the room
giving reassuring smiles to some students with wary looks, my
eyes land on the glossy map on the bulletin board. A rainbow of
tabs marks different countries, and each tab has a students
name on it. Each piece of the rainbow represents the home
country of each student. As they look to me and the other
volunteer Katy for help, I try to imagine what it would feel
like to be in a foreign place where I could not communicate with
anyone. I try to imagine being silenced by strange looks and
deep-seated prejudices, because I cannot speak the official
language in a country that I fled to for safety or a better
life.
South Morrison Learning Center is tucked behind rows of
apartments off of Warwick Boulevard in a neighborhood that your
mom probably would not want you going to after dark. Katy
Mendez, my fellow student volunteer, and I figure that if we
drive together to volunteer from 6p.m. until 9p.m. our moms will
feel a little more at ease. On the outside South Morrison looks
like an abandoned school, but every Monday and Wednesday
students ranging from about age twenty-five to their late
sixties fling the school doors open and bring a new energy to
the washed out halls and dreary classrooms. These adults come to
South Morrison from about nineteen countries, and they are eager
to learn English. Some are refugees and most came to the United
States to create a better life for their families. Unlike
typical school-age children or college students, these English
Languages Learners enter into the classroom with enthusiasm to
learn. They each have different reasons for learning English.
Some still need to take the rigorous civics and English exams to
become citizens. Some want to go to school in the United States
and receive a better education than they could have back in
their home country.
I packed my suitcase, a present for my friend in America,
some money, and I came here to visit, says Larissa, a fifty-
four year old immigrant from Russia who preferred not to tell me
her last name. I was helping a frustrated Larissa with a
workbook page before she put her face in her hands lapsed into
her story.
In my country I was top educated and here, nothing, she
said exasperated, I was the boss, I had house completely paid
and fifty-one employees, and here I have nothing. Larissa looks
down at her workbook page, her plastic rim glasses rest near the
tip of her nose. She purses her lips accentuating the wrinkles
around her mouth. She is wearing white orthotic sneakers that
are more for function than fashion. Her t-shirt reads Riverside
employee accompanied by a plastic name tag that she forgot to
take off after work.
Thousands of immigrants, refugees, and asylees like the
students at South Morrison flock to the United States every
year. Many of them come here with nothing, but looking at the
U.S. Department of State website for foreign travelers even
visas for sojourners do not go below one hundred and fifty
dollars. When coming to the U.S. the best scenario for
immigrants, refugees, and asylees is to speak English, have
family here, get married to an American, or have a lot of money.
The usual case is that these people have one if any of the
options above. There is a limit to how many people we allow in
our country a year. There is also a limit on how many people can
come to the U.S. from each country. There are waiting lists to
become citizens that only create suspense for desperate people
that seek safety. The U.S. Department of the State Bureau of
Consular Affairs website lists Mexico has the highest amount of
applicants to be citizens in 2013 with 1,316,118 people,
followed by the Philippines with 462,145 people and India with
332,846 people. Larissas home country is nowhere near the top
twelve. Looking at these numbers that have only increased since
we hit the millennium, I try and fathom how big our country is
to welcome this many more people in each year.
This morning I woke up at 2:30, tomorrow work at 4 a.m.
wake up at 3:30, next day 2:30, explains Larissa as she forms
her hand in a fist and rests her head on it. In Russia they must
value eye contact, because unlike some of the other students
Larissa is not afraid to look me directly in the eye for long
periods at a time. Her piercing blue eyes continuously look into
my eyes, and I find myself feeling small under her strong gaze.
Larissa told me that she works at Riverside Hospital in
three different departments which she describes as basically
having three jobs. When I ask her why she came here when she had
everything in Moscow, she shrugs her shoulders and says, I
dont know, I really dont. What she does know is that her only
purpose in coming to the United States, originally, was to catch
up with some friend from the university she went to in Moscow.
She had been putting it off for fifteen years, and they were
pressuring her to come. She did not know that the day she
boarded the plane to come to the U.S. would be her last day in
Moscow forever.
Like Larissa, many immigrants and refugees that come here
do not go back to their homes because of political unrest,
economic issues, or the dream of becoming a U.S. citizen. Many
of them become legal permanent residents (LPRs). On the
Department of Homeland Security website LPRs, also known as
green card holders, are defined as immigrants who have been
granted lawful permanent residence in the United States but have
not yet become U.S. citizens. The DHS office of Immigrant
Statistics estimates that 13.3 million LPRs lived in the United
States on January 1, 2012, and 8.8 million of them were eligible
to naturalize. The numbers are only growing, in 2010 there were
12,650,000 LPRs, and in 2012 there were 13,300,000 LPRs. My
question in looking at all the zeros was where are they
settling? Where could we possibly have room for all these
people? The winning states for 2012 on the DHS website are
California with 3.4 million LPRs, New York with 1.7 million
LPRs, and Texas and Florida tie for third with 1.3 million LPRs
each. My home state Virginia also made the top ten states where
these immigrants come to in 2012 with 290,000 LPRs.
To throw some more numbers out there from the Department of
Homeland Security, a total of 58,179 persons were admitted to
the United States as refugees during 2012. The DHS website lists
Bhutan, Burma, and Iraq as the top contributing countries for
refugees during 2012. During 2012, 29,484 individuals were
granted asylum, a word I had never heard before I started
volunteering at South Morrison. I now know that asylees are
granted protection from our government to come here.
Coincidentally the DHS top countries contributing asylees are
China, Egypt, and Ethiopia and in the three classes at South
Morrison we have representatives of each of these countries.
Larissas story grew confusing. She declared, I wont tell
you whole story because it sad. I could hear a combination of
strength and unhappiness in her voice. From what I understood
through her fragmented English, her friends pressured her to
marry a man here so she could stay. She lives with him, but when
I checked for a wedding ring all I saw was a bare, weathered
hand.
Larissa, I dont understand, why didnt you go back like you
planned? I asked still perplexed at how a vacation turns into a
permanent stay.
She gives me another shrug accompanied with I dont know.
Larissa has made a life here, although it is not the life she
had in Russia, she says she is not going back. She told me,
Test for citizenship hard, need to study. My goal is to get
citizenship in 2014. After being here for six years she has
finally decided to take these English classes to help her pass
her citizen test to get her green card. Although you can take
the civics exam in your native tongue, Larissa feels that she
should learn English since Virginia is her home now.
I stare at Larissa in amazement and a bit of confusion. We
have been talking for almost the whole class and we never
finished the workbook page. When I tell her that her story is
quite an interesting one, she quickly shakes her head and says,
No is not story is life!