Field

notebook entry 3
Feb 12

On February 6th, I conducted a focus group (a group interview) with 2 of my students from the
first semesters block period. I asked them questions about their personal backgrounds and
how they perceived supports for immigrants at the school. Both of these students came to the
United States approximately one year ago, and both students were born in Myanmar yet spent
a few years living in Malaysia before moving to the United States. While both students were
young when their families moved from Myanmar to Malaysia and therefore werent sure of all
of the details of their families moves, one student spoke about the military in Myanmar
wanting to seize their house and the other student spoke about his family being forced by the
military in Myanmar to be a worker to build an underground train. Both students spent about
four or five years in Malaysia and because they were very young while living in Myanmar, their
experiences in Malaysia were more formative than their time in Myanmar.

Through our discussion, we covered two distinct topics. The first topic we discussed was the
supports the larger school community and individual classroom environments provide supports
for immigrant students, specifically Burmese refugees in this case. I asked the students whether
they felt supported as immigrant students at my high school. Some of the main aspects of
support students spoke about were the language supports, the cultural supports, and a sense of
comfort due to the large number of Burmese students and immigrants. The students primarily
spoke about the language supports in learning English and receiving help from the bilingual
counselor who serves the Burmese/Karin students. The students spoke about receiving help
from this counselor when they first arrived at the school. The counselor showed them where
their classes would be, where the bathroom was, and other simple logistics about the school
day. One of the students was required to take the Keystone test not too long after he arrived in
the country and was given translation support in taking this test. In terms of the cultural
supports, the students spoke about the various cultural celebrations that happened at the
school such as Multicultural Day, the Chinese New Year celebration, and Burmese New Year
celebration. While these supports were certainly appreciated by the students, it also seemed
that they felt comfortable in the school due to the vast amount of immigrant and handful of
Burmese students already attending the school. One of the students said, I felt welcome in the
first few weeks. There were a lot of other students like me.

While the students spoke of many different school supports for immigrant students, the
students had limited experiences of learning about immigration in classes when I asked if
teachers specifically did activities relating to immigration. One student explained that his only
encounter of something like that outside of my class was when an ESL teacher had students
write an essay about a problem in their home country and a solution to that problem. He
explained that he didnt really enjoy this assignment because it brought up previous painful
experiences: I didnt really like it because I dont want to talk about the stuff that happened
before. You remember unnecessary things. While at first I was surprised to hear this answer, I
also understand his experience on a personal level. My parents are Cambodian refugees and
throughout my childhood, they rarely spoke of the experiences they had in Cambodia during
the Khmer Rouge because either they didnt feel it was necessary to talk about or it was too
painful to discuss. This students point about not wanting to discuss his immigration story or his
experiences in his origin country pose an interesting challenge as I move forward in my inquiry
project. While so far my inquiry topic has explored ways for students to bring their backgrounds
into classroom discussion, I also need to be cognizant of the trauma or pain students, especially
refugee students, may bring in with their previous experiences and be sensitive in those areas.

The second topic we discussed was the impact of studying African American history on
immigrant students. While asking him about his experiences in my class, this student made
profound comments about the ways learning African American history had impacted him. He
said, We learn about other histories and our histories, and we can compare. And most of
African American history is easy to understand for us because weve been through something
similarNow I know African American history. So I know what we face and I can understand a
little bit of their character. And then if they know ours, then we can understand each other. He
went to describe the discrimination he experienced as a Burmese person in Malaysia, where
Burmese people are thought of to be illegal workers and of lower status. He explained being
unnecessarily targeted and detained by the police while he was on his way to school, as well as
being attacked by a group of Malaysian teenagers on a separate occasion. The other student
then chimed in about how it was illegal for Burmese people to work in Malaysia, but that his
dad and him managed to find work for a much lower pay than Malaysians would receive. Both
students spoke about how learning African American history helped them better understand
the United States better and how they could empathize with African Americans more because
they could somewhat relate to their struggles.

Moving forward, this interview leaves me with two questions about how I should approach my
inquiry project. First, how can I encourage immigrant students to bring up their personal
backgrounds into classroom assignments while being cognizant and sensitive toward student
trauma? Second, this interview has also made me interested in the ways that immigrant
students grapple with African American history. How do immigrant students make sense of
African American history? How does learning African American history impact immigrant
students understanding of the United States?