Every time I said Myanmar, no one knew what it was: interviewing refugee youth from Burma

• In Event: Social exclusion, inclusion and justice: Policies, practices and interventions in South Asia

Proposal

Major Research Question
How do young people living in Indiana who are refugees from Southeast Asia make sense of their identities, including ethnicity, religion, and gender?

Related Questions
How does living in the United States impact youths’ ethnic identities?
How does living in the United States impact youths’ religious identity?
How does living in the United States impact youths’ views on gender?

Methodology
Jeong-Hee Kim, author of Understanding narrative inquiry : the crafting and analysis of stories as research, notes that not everything can be proven empirically, objectively, or in a value-neutral manner. In this way, positivism does not allow for the full human experience, but narrative does. Narrative inquiry is a useful methodology for studying the experiences of refugee youth because people are accustomed to thinking in terms of stories: “The narrative of any life is part of an interlocking set of narratives Because we understand our own lives in terms of the narratives that we live out and share, narrative is appropriate for understanding the actions of others” (Kim, 2016, p. 9). Given that one goal of this research study is to create educational materials that can be used in secondary humanities classrooms, narrative inquiry is a particularly useful methodology to employ.

Furthermore, refugee narratives embody the components of culturally responsive pedagogy. Refugee narratives are an academically useful and emotionally powerful tool for humanities classrooms. Thinking about the three components of CRP, in regard to academic success, refugee narratives provide texts educators can use to teach academic standards in English and Social Studies courses. For cultural competence, refugee narratives act as a mirror for students who have been forced to flee their homes, and, for students who are not refugees themselves, they act as a window into the complex lived experiences of their classmates and neighbors. Thinking about critical consciousness, refugee narratives humanize ever-present political issues regarding immigration that are at the forefront of local, national and international conversations and give young people an opportunity to think about concepts such as push and pull factors and the role of the United States in global issues like forced migration.

Preliminary Results
Every participant expressed frustration about the limited knowledge about the current state of affairs, namely, the civil war in Myanmar, the history of Burma and Southeast Asia, and awareness of Burma’s minority ethnic groups among the general U.S. population. The title of this study, “Every time I said Myanmar, no one knew what it was: interviewing refugee youth from Burma, demonstrates this. Exasperation with explaining the intricacies of ethnicity led one participant to tell people that she is ethnically Burmese when she is actually Karen. More than one participant noted that the civil war in Myanmar is a decades-long conflict, so it is surprising to them that Americans do not know more about it. Additionally, participants implore United States schools to teach about Southeast Asia’s histories, cultures, and political structures as part of the explicit curriculum because multiple participants feel that Southeast Asia is hidden from curricula in the United States in favor of lessons about Asia that focus solely on East Asian countries and cultures.

When speaking about their ethnic communities, ontologies related to ethnicity and gender emerged, as two female participants criticized their male peers’ assimilation in the United States: “One of the problems the [Karen] community gets into is wanting to be something that they’re not: talking a certain way, dressing a certain way, acting a certain way. Wearing golden chains and trying to be a race you’re not is just so weird and [shows] a lot of ignorance. It’s assimilation in a bad way. Especially guys.” Another participant said the criticized her male peers’ use of the n-word. Related to assimilation, athletic participation was mentioned as a way assimilation happens. Female participants viewed their male peers as successfully assimilating into American cultures through sports due to their presence and prominence on certain athletic teams. Conversely, a male participant spoke about more than one incident of xenophobia and anti-Asian bias while playing soccer. It appears that presence alone in athletics does not lead to social acceptance; moreover, the prominence of refugee youth on sports teams appears to make them vulnerable to harassment.

Two participants spoke about a contrast between the expansive amount of personal freedom they had while living in Burma and the more limited amount of personal freedom they experience living in the United States, with one participant connecting a lack of personal freedom in the United States directly to schooling: “I feel like we don't have enough freedom [in American schools]...In Burma, I never knew what time it was, but we had more time.” It is useful for those in education to take stock of these critiques of schooling. Acknowledging that the way schools function in the United States is stress-inducing and potentially harmful to students’ mental health is one step toward changing those structures.

One point of disagreement among the participants is the use of corporal punishment. Two participants spoke in favor of the practice when speaking about how it is used in Burmese schools, with one stating “teachers should start hitting the kids! No, really. I am serious…Some people need to see their consequences physically.” and another saying “ I didn’t have a problem with that type of discipline if I’m being honest. It worked. If they hit you, then you need to be hit.” A third participant, when speaking about Sunday School classes in the United States, criticized the use of corporal punishment: “The Sunday School teacher was literally beating on a kid. I’m like, “That’s not normal. You don’t have to do that.” The disagreements appear to stem from some participants focusing on practical implications (effective ways to end misbehaviors) while other participants focus on lasting mental or emotional impacts on children.

Author

• Michael Bienz, Indiana University Bloomington