She sits across from me, pencil in one hand, iPhone in the other. Hope is in the air, and Google Translate tells me she\u2019s nervous but happy to be here. I offer a prayer of thanks to the amazing Google Translate, which converts her native Spanish into my native English.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We sit at my kitchen table and get to know one another. I, the tutor, of a certain age. She, a 20-something student eager to learn. The English Language lingers between us, like a prize she might walk away with after the lesson.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think about this. The monumental task of learning an entire new language. It seems so elusive, so intricate, yet so essential. And here she is, learning from a complete stranger. I don\u2019t know a stitch of Spanish, and I can\u2019t help but wonder how long it would take me to learn an entire new language. At my age? Probably a lifetime. Teresa, she\u2019s only 23, so time is on her side. But, not really. In today\u2019s climate, who knows what could happen? There are hundreds of thousands just like her across the country. But once we adopt the mindset \u2018you\u2019ve seen one immigrant, you\u2019ve seen them all,\u2019 that\u2019s when real trouble starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teresa isn\u2019t every other immigrant; she\u2019s unique and special, just like every other person on this planet. We seem to forget that we humans are similar creatures despite our cultural differences. When it comes down to it, we\u2019re all chasing the same thing. It\u2019s summed up in what most Americans take for granted. The Declaration of Independence says it best with its line about the pursuit of happiness. That\u2019s it, in a nutshell. And while in this pursuit, we also seek safety, shelter, food, relationships, health, and, if we\u2019re lucky, purpose. It\u2019s all of these things together that make up happiness, and explain why its pursuit defines every human lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s been 6 months since that first day tutoring Teresa. Since that time, I\u2019ve come to know, respect, and care about her. After all, my own children are close to her same age, and I see a little of them when she giggles about mispronouncing a word. One day, in broken English, Teresa tells me she wants more from life than to be a housecleaner. She wants to contribute and work at a job she enjoys. She wants to be a licensed Cosmetologist. She wants to become a US citizen, an American. She wants green eyes. I tell her Van Morrison says she\u2019s my Brown Eyed Girl. I play her the song, and I see smile lines crinkle around eyes she wishes were a different color. We sing together\u2014laughing, skipping, and jumping. I can see she\u2019s happy. I can tell she\u2019s dreaming.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, the question becomes, will I help her pursue her dream? She has two choices, and neither is desirable. Stay in a country where she is illegal and unwanted, but still has opportunity. Or, go back home, where there isn\u2019t much to go home to. Which would you pick if put in the same circumstance? Both offer promise, both carry consequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t sign up for the unsolvable problem, this heartbreak. But here I am, a volunteer tutor, with my immigrant student. Whose name isn\u2019t really Teresa, she recently confides, along with some other details. But, no matter that, because she\u2019s learning. I\u2019m learning too. It\u2019s the most beautiful thing when two people trust each other enough to be vulnerable, share their truth, and know they are safe doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I certainly don\u2019t have anything close to all the answers to her questions. Especially the important ones about paths to citizenship, and safe refuge. So we research this together and I try my best give her the facts, the truth. And I continue to teach the English language. A language that, to her and to others like her, is more than letters and words. It embodies hope, a promising future, and perhaps the very thing worth pursuing while we can\u2014happiness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She sits across from me, pencil in one hand, iPhone in the other. Hope is in the air, and Google Translate tells me she\u2019s nervous but happy to be here. I offer a prayer of thanks to the amazing Google Translate, which converts her native Spanish into my native English.\u00a0 We sit at my kitchen … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3004"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3025,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004\/revisions\/3025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}