This is the transcript for Ree Ree Wei’s interview with PPS students. You can find the Story Map PPS students made depicting Ree Ree’s story here.
Thu, Apr 11, 2024 6:44PM • 37:14
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
refugee camp, school, refugee, people, work, community, guilford, family, experience, living, food, guilford college, fled, english, access, email, parents, remember, thailand, chapel hill
03:49 Officially start
Okay, I think it’s on for you now. Okay. All righty. Here. Okay. How do you pronounce her name? Yeah, so my birth name is Hsar Ree Ree.
04:04
Yeah, Hsar Ree Ree. Hsar means star and Ree I still don’t know what it emeans. But together. There’s a meaning but I don’t know what it means. And immigration spells it H S A R?
04:30
Yeah.
04:54
Yeah, so that’s how you say my name but yeah, I just go by Ree Ree. Okay.
05:02
Um, so if possible, could you share your first picture?
05:10
Yeah. So this is a picture of my family, my siblings and my niece and nephew, my parents and my grandma. Oh, wow.
05:23
Yeah. So, is that? Um, could you tell us some more about your family? So when we came to the US. We were pretty little. It was just my parents. So that’s my dad. And this is my mom. And then it was just us six children.
05:45
Actually five children. She was born here in the United States. Mm hmm. And I was eight, eight and a half years old. So yeah.
06:01
So and then, if I was eight, she must be 10. And so she’s 12 years old.
06:08
So the oldest any of us was the oldest of our siblings was 12 or 13. And the youngest was him. And I think he was
06:21
was probably three or four years or 2003. He was about three ish years old, two and a half or three years old.
06:30
Yeah. So that’s the oldest and we thought he was the youngest. But um, and then she was born she came to the US.. And this is all of us wearing our cultural clothes, the longy outfit
06:44
our traditional clothes. And then all of us went to school, we graduated high school. So that’s why our family and I went off to college. I did a four year, she got her associate degree. And she’s in school right now. I don’t know what she’s doing. She’s in the medical field. I don’t know what level she’s in.
07:07
And all of us graduated high school except her.
07:12
Um, and these are my sister’s children, the two oldest, so that’s paw paw and Lele. And those are their children. What a nice family. Yeah. Yeah. So my grandma, she actually she didn’t come with us to she didn’t come to the US under an immigration status, like refugee status.
She actually we petitioned for her to come on a visa. So to get her out, because she was not considered a refugee. She was like, stateless, or she doesn’t have her refugee status when she lived in the refugee camp.
07:52
So we were able to work through to get her a passport from Burma. And someone was able to help that with us. And then she was living in Thailand before we even came to the United States. Yeah, then we petitioned for her. So she was she’s here on a visa.
08:12
And what was that experience like coming to the US
08:18
being eight and a half years old with four other siblings and your parents? Yeah.
08:26
I’m glad at the same time, my siblings, we were all close in age. So we were like friends among each other.
08:39
Um, so it was definitely new and unfamiliar. And it comes with a lot of challenges, but also a lot of like resilience among my parents and my siblings and us. So even though we didn’t have we couldn’t, it was hard to make friends when we were in school. Our siblings were our friends. And we’d do things together and play together. So that I was glad there was many of us to have that.
09:06
Yeah, we had to learn everything from scratch, from learning how to eat new food and learning how to navigate the system here from having access to transportation or not
actually not having access to terms of transportation, but knowing that like either our cars and buses that you can ride and utilize those
09:30
access to more food just like however, there are these access, there are these resources but it is not easy to access them.
09:40
Yeah, so there are resources but and what I meant by resources is like there are buses and cars there are restaurants and stores and food to get food and they’re like places to go buy clothes. So here there are those things but it’s not easy to afford them to have them
10:00
10:01
That was like our experience. And actually, our experience when we arrived, we were actually in F
10:15
And we didn’t quite really enjoy our experience.
10:22
Yeah, it wasn’t like a really good experience for our family and for us to thrive.
10:31
There we were in we attended a segregated school. So we were, we were in the, in the underserved community where we were living.
10:43
And my dad wasn’t able to work well, like didn’t get to have a good job to be able to afford
10:52
anything that we need. So the church that sponsor us really helped us support us with our rent and our utilities, because he was working minimum wage at Chick fil A, all those six months.
11:06
And I wanted to ask, so do you feel like being in a segregated school impacted you in a certain way like before, like pursuing higher education?
11:18
Being in that school, though, the school was not great. Like, however, what was great about my experience was I was exposed to other racial groups. My school was predominantly Black and Latino. And when I was there, I made really good friends with Black and Latino friends, I had friends and I was culturally shocked when I also had my cousin’s they came, and they were in the white part of the town. And they went to an all-white school where they had access to tablets, and computers and things and I didn’t.
12:01
I couldn’t even bring home back textbooks. And with that, I was living there. I actually, like
12:13
I didn’t quite understand racial dynamic until I got older, and the issues. So for such a young age, being able to be like, Oh, this is my school and like, Okay, I go to school with black kids, I go to school with Latino kids like that in some way. I was like, Oh, this is normal. Until I moved to Chapel Hill, it was all white students, majority white students, there are other racial groups too. So
12:41
I will say, in terms of like my feelings towards folks of color, I was glad I was able to be exposed to that early on.
12:53
But my experience with my two older sister experiences were not the same though. I will say that
13:01
my sister Paw Paw. People would pick on her and bully her, like the black kids would do that to her. And she would like have to like fight and defend herself. And her [other sister] she didn’t get bullied at all or anything when she was in middle school. But like her school constantly had like fights and fights and buses. So like, their experience like even us. Yeah, it was just us three in school. Actually. We were both in elementary school and she was in middle school. And all our experience is different.
Did you have to learn a new language too?
yeah, so we did have to learn. English is our second language we have to learn. And we had to start from scratch like we knew so like so so English word here and there, but we don’t know it all.
13:54
Um, so yeah, even like me being able to speak like this. I had, I was in ESL class almost every day with other Latino students and it was kinda like nice to learn English with other students.
14:07
Yeah, so I had to, like start from all over.
14:12
Yeah. And being a part of your new school, were people asking about your story or where you came from?
14:26
Um, what time period are we talking about? Um, I guess coming right when you were eight and a half, and we’re in school in the US? Yeah, definitely. When we were in South Carolina.
14:44
I personally had a good experience with my second-grade teachers and some of my friends. My sister didn’t so her story is like totally different from mine.
15:00
I didn’t quite really understand English but I realized I was like learning the English really fast. So when one time I was in gym, one of my, gym teachers spoke to me and understood completely she’s like, are you excited? Like you we’re so happy that you’re speaking English. Like you’re picking up English so well, like we heard your cousin is coming. Are you excited? I remember that conversation clearly. And, and that was just like, what, two or three months after starting school like we just arrived in the US. Um, so in some ways about the whole language piece some people didn’t kind of like question whether I knew English or they knew I didn’t understand English.
15:50
But reflecting on it now.
15:53
I didn’t feel in any way in any type of way discriminated because I didn’t speak English. Well.
16:03
Yeah. And my ESL teacher really, really like did a good job, like helping me like learn English and get me excited about just like learning. So
16:16
yeah.
16:19
And how I Learned another thing that really helped me learn English was actually through watching TV watching PBS Kids. I was watching arthur and then Caillou.
16:33
The other show was Clifford, the Big Red Dog and Thomas the Train. Those are things we didn’t have like channels or whatever, then but those were like free TVs that we would watch after we come home from school and on the weekend. And like Reading Rainbow that really helped build up my vocabulary and speaking.
16:54
Yeah.
16:55
And could you tell us some background as to why your family had to move from Burma to the US?
Okay. my families are refugees from Thailand. They’re my parents, and my two older sisters. They fled war, like civil war in their home country. Myanmar and also known as Burma.
17:29
And there’s been like constant civil war. And there are those uprising and then their home that burned into ashes, and they fled. They fled on feet and was hiding through that, like going through different jungles and ended up like, getting asylum in Thailand, and they ended up in the refugee camp. And that’s where I was born. That’s where the three of us are born. Me, him and her.
17:58
Yeah, so that’s where we were born. So really, my parents they fled
18:08
So they fled genocide and ethnic persecution because of their ethnicity being Karen – Gin yaw (K’nyaw)
18:18
Yeah.
18:20
Sums up.
18:39
Do you have any memories of being in a refugee camp? Yeah. So I do have memories of being in a refugee camp.
18:49
And I remember clearly what my house look like, but not anymore because they tear it down.
18:56
I remember what my school was like, I remember what the food that we ate. And I remember how we got access to water. So a lot of like my childhood and where things were.
19:08
I do remember them clearly. And I remember why some nights I go to bed starving, or why I was hungry. I didn’t know the why. But I remember going to bed hungry and questioning why am I hungry? Why am I wearing donated clothes.
19:25
But I do remember my life clearly and all of the troublemaking things I’ve done.
19:38
And I can send y’all pictures actually, I went back to Thailand in November, and I visited the refugee camp.
19:48
And I remember clearly what my houses were like and like we’re all things were and you can also ask
19:58
what in the world is her name? Was it
20:00
Zhihong. She and I were friends on Facebook. So like, she you could ask her Hey, can we like look through your Facebook of Ree Ree’s? Like, picture?
20:12
Are you okay with us using some of these photos if when we put it on a story map? Yeah.
20:21
Yeah. And like you guys should you can email me and ask me for pictures, okay?
20:30
Okay, it’s probably like you guys
20:37
this is a refugee camp. This is my cousin’s location where my cousin’s old home was.
20:44
This is actually where my house used to be, but not a church came in and like, tear down my house and build in there.
20:52
This is what the school is like, I remember clearly Yeah.
When you visited this place again? Did any any feelings come up? What did you feel when visiting? Yeah, a lot of feeling came up. And it’s a reminder why refugee camp shouldn’t exist, and people need to be like, relocated or have, security and safety net. Cuz all this reminded me of poverty. And it reminded me of my childhood trauma, and where my trauma comes from.
21:31
Yeah, and it reminds me that we have a lot more work to do.
21:39
Yeah, this is my first kindergarten classroom.
21:45
Yeah, so going back, it kinda like is worse than it used to be.
21:52
And refugees are like growing. Refugee numbers are just growing. And it’s crowded it’s dirtier and less.
22:04
Like donation and supports have cut. So these people sometimes will don’t have access to water or food or clothing, or like proper infrastructure and health care. And it was worse than it used to be Now, when I was there.
22:20
It’s so much dirtier.
22:23
Well, yeah.
22:25
When you have a lot more work to do, what would you say that looks like just as far as the schools or just anything?
22:33
Okay, when there’s like a lot more work to do a lot more work to do for international, like from a local level to international level. How can we create international policies and accountability from these countries and leaders?
22:56
Oh, my God, it’s also like political too, and I don’t want to talk about that.
23:02
To create a system for people to have their paper. One is that these refugees are stuck in camps, because they are considered stateless. If you’re stateless. These imaginary paper and these imaginary lines, define who people are, you’re not this, you’re not this, you’re not us, you’re not, you’re not them. And that makes it harder for a stateless person and a refugee and undocumented person, to have an identity to be able to have access to job to education.
23:35
And yeah, if you end up living in a refugee camp, you can’t have a future.
23:41
You can’t get out of that cycle. Like there is like a physical imaginary, whatever barriers for anybody to get out, unless there is a pathway.
23:53
Like for my case, the pathway was either to resettle turn to another country, or I stay in a refugee camp. But that same thing with international issues with like, Okay, folks who came from the southern border of the US, they either stay there or like face the violence and the persecution, or they flee and become undocumented, the United States.
So like, for me, I came to the United States for safe haven. I came and I received my paper and everything but others who come here, we still have, like, even the other issues for the undocumented community who don’t have that.
24:33
So it’s very interconnected in so many ways. And yeah,
24:40
yeah. Thank you for sharing.
24:46
Yeah.
24:51
Should we skip to like, I guess we did go over reading the first question. Yeah, we can ask that. Okay.
25:08
So you being in Guilford alumn, could you tell us your experience being a refugee student at Guilford College?
25:17
Yeah, huh. Okay, I really hope in this to summarize as you all summarizes, and not verbatim quote me
25:29
my love and hate relationship with Guilford is
25:33
one.
25:37
Guilford
25:40
did not in some way or like create a space for me to be myself or, or a community space. And especially someone who is a refugee and who came from like Southeast Asia, like, my identity markers was very hard for me to have to find community at the same time at Guilford College.
26:06
I had to I had to leave Guilford to find that space.
26:11
So my identity is one. I was a Southeast Asian and a refugee and the first gen and not many students in this identity
26:26
either live on campus or come to this school.
26:32
So I felt quite lonely with my experience.
26:36
at Guilford Yeah, okay. Questions?
26:44
Right. I think that’s your question. Oh, you guys aren’t taking notes here? Oh, yes.
26:50
Yeah, I just didn’t have quite an awesome experience. But I’ve learned to be able to, like, find community and be okay. And like, my whole entire feeling while at Guilford was: this is temporary. I’m going home after this. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, Finally, when I graduated, I get to go home and be with my family and my community back at home, which is Chapel Hill.
27:17
Yeah, Guilford didn’t have that quite of a resources or like people. And the administration at the time was just like,
27:28
not cool. Not really supportive of programs.
27:37
Yeah, let’s just leave it there.
28:34
Yeah, thanks for sharing about community. How do you feel like you have community at home with your family? Like, how would you define your community and what is needed? Yeah, so
28:53
I did end up finding my community which is with CMJS.
28:58
So it was really good for that I found that community and Bonner so but outside of that, it was really hard for me to connect. So I just want to name that even though Guilford wasn’t quite supportive. I had those two groups who are really supportive.
And my experience there and how I find community when I come home is like, okay, my family is quite big. We’re very close to each one another and I don’t know it’s just something, growing up as a kid we fight a lot but like we love to hang out with each other. So I definitely miss my family. Like my family. We’re really family oriented, and we like being in each other’s space. Whether we like it or not.
29:38
And so that piece of like I did miss home, I miss my family miss hanging out my niece and nephews. And the other thing I found my community was that like, back here, I did so much like community work too back here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro and all of that there’s like there were more ethnic community for my home.
30:00
from Chapel Hill that I just feel more connected. It was really hard there were like Karen families in Greensboro, but they were from like, another like refugee camps. I didn’t know them that well.
30:17
And I didn’t really like it was hard for me to build relationships with them because I was a college student and I didn’t have access to transportation for a little bit.
So what I really define as a community was that like, people were like, I can just like celebrate my culture, celebrate myself and be myself and it was hard to do that at Guilford or in Greensboro. So, here, I found that because I had my family
30:45
and two I had a lot more network and connections back here that I just feel that
30:55
I just feel like myself.
30:58
Yeah, thank you. Um, how do you spell Karen? Yeah, it’s just spelt like Karen. Oh, but Okay, here it is. So it’s just spell like, the pronouns that people use as Karen The foreign people would would want it to start using then ya. That’s actually how you would say in my native tongue, like, in your Yeah. Uh huh. Can ya?
31:31
That’s how you would like try to pronounce it.
31:37
Can you tell us a little bit about Karen? Yeah, so like Karen people, we are the second
31:46
We’re the second largest ethnic group in Burma. And we were persecuted because of our ethnicity. And also it’s because of
32:05
I think our ally ship during World War Two with Great Britain and America and all of that. And the Burmese sided with Japan and like the Communist Party.
32:18
So the Karen people we have been in Burma for like many, many years.
32:26
Um, gosh, I don’t know how to even like, also, this is like, the effect of genocide is like you don’t they want to ethnically like completely cleanse your whole entire tribe. So
32:41
that’s all that I can say. For now. There’s not much information about where we come from our history and our people.
32:49
Yeah.
32:52
I wanted to skip around since we already talked about the next question about when you first came to the US. But now I wanted to ask,
33:02
Since we see that you’re the executive director of transplanting traditions Community Farm, what drew you to the farm work?
33:11
Yeah. So it actually really is connected to my people and my ancestor, and my parents and
33:23
I like a more like a spirit connection. Where the reason why I do food system work is because
33:32
of all these reasons why I became a refugee and like stories I hear about my ancestor and how they are they stewards to land, how they are like stewards to food and the way we think about the food system, and the way we think about community and how,
33:47
my people if we were to live, they used to be in a communal relationship with the land and each other in the animals and the food.
33:58
That’s what draws me to food system work and why I’m with transplanting traditions, my ancestors and all a lot of like other Karen people, they own land in Burma. And that’s like, their way of like making
money but it’s also a way for them to like, they are farmers and the country was like, I think used to be the number one leading rice producer.
So agriculture was just part of the way of life. It was something and my parents grew up being a farmer and like they got it from their parents and their parents got parents, and they would trade food among each other and live off of the land. So in some way, like for me after being cmjs I was like this was such a way to like resist a capitalism.
34:49
And, and the reason why transplantation I was like after we resettled to the United States.
34:56
There are many barriers that the community experiences
35:00
job security, low paying job living IN poverty and transplanting tradition was founded to provide education to provide land access food for people to like. And then the knowledge that we teach to the community about growing food here in the United States, they could grow the food themselves feed themselves, and not having to, like rely on food stamps or like, you know, put money aside from work to buy food because you can really grow your own food. And over time, we see that as, as a food system as we’re trying to address climate change and like food, and, in the food system work.
35:45
Being a farmer is a sustainable career as well. Okay. It’s somewhat like a sustainable career for some people, depending on their income goal. And the people we work with is,
35:59
the amount of money they make is enough for them, they’re not trying to make money, their goal is just finding a job that that provides them with joy and satisfaction, and that they’re also feeding other people, like taking care of other people. So it’s like a win win of a job where I make sure I mean, my role.
I look for the funding, I tell the stories of the my community and the resources that we provide that we are having an impact on them directly. Now like a lot of our farmers that we work with have income between and this is our own personal goal, some of them from $10,000 to $100,000 a year and all that money, it goes directly back to their own pocket. So we’re trying to provide them with that.
36:50
So a way of to addressing refugee resettlement issue is through education and food and farming.
Sat, Apr 13, 2024 3:37PM • 17:41
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
bonner, community, feel, culture, preserve, question, burma, parents, pictures, war, education, learn, older sibling, food, work, wanted, self sufficiency, growing, united states, arrival
00:00
Okay. And it’s still recording? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Let’s see, I think it’s covering the cure really?
00:17
I’m gonna ask the next question.
00:23
Since I had a mirror, but give me
00:25
a second here this.
00:26
Okay, so what’s the question underneath this one?
00:41 Official Start
So I guess you did kind of touch on this one. But if you had anything else to add, what would you say is your most important or is most important when it comes to building the community around cultural and traditional food?
00:58
Yeah, I think for me, my answer is brief, like building community is just being … inserting yourself in the community, well, don’t set your opinion, like, consume yourself, get out of your comfort zone and be in the community and eating with a community like food brings people together. And at times, like food can become like a discussion point for people to build community. And that’s at my workspace, like literally, we would bond over food at times, I get carried away too with my co-workers who are not Karen who are like American and like, I’ve learned to build relationship and like a work community with them. Because it’s just through food, they share their food with me, I share their food with me and and so in some way it’s not only like we’re here for work, but like, Oh, we’re here to address larger system work. And like, we can do that through like, having like a good foundation of like a relationship. So I really think that when it comes to community building, it’s just being there listening, and trying out everything and just get out of your own comfort zone. Yeah, it’s tough. But once you do it, you see the beauty of, of the Yeah. And like, amongst everyone, and like how like, and then that’s where community start to expand. And my definition of community has shifted so much. Yeah, it has expanded, it hasn’t shifted, it has expanded, like my circle gets bigger. Yeah, before we even went to like before high school, I think of community is just people from my, like, ethnic group, high school, got bigger. And then college is like, chosen community or chosen family or like how you build your community is just so different. We’re, I’m in this community for this purpose. And I’m in this community for this other purpose. And they all are connected. Yeah. Not I have a bigger circles of community itself for different action or like purpose, but like there is like a bigger picture is like, Oh, we’re here together.
03:30
Great. Thank you.
03:32
Could you describe the process of integration to the US while also preserving your culture?
03:39
Yeah. So growing up, I didn’t really quite had that opportunity to preserve my culture or there wasn’t resources because my the community from Burma are fairly new to the United States. The first arrival was in like around September, August, August, September was when the United States resettle folks from Burma, and refugees from Burma and Thailand. So we were still fairly new. And something was within me, and I guess because like, I’m just a nerd. I like to learn and I was like, there was something that growing up that people were actually I didn’t know I was a refugee until I was in school in the United States. Someone told me that I was a refugee. Someone told me that I was poor. And so about the whole culture thing about my experience with like, my arrival. I felt that like, I started asking a lot of questions. I think when you’re like eight to 10 years old, you ask a lot of stupid questions, but you ask a lot of curious question. You’re curious. And I was just curious about my identity. Why who where and like, why are we here? Why are people have different color hair or different color eye, because I was used to Asian people and going to school through like my observation and see things. I just feel like why is there like Hispanic Heritage Month are like, why are people wearing their culture clothes? Or like, why are people celebrating their culture, but I’m not. And I had to go through years of investigation and seeking and learning. And through that, I learned that I wanted to preserve my culture. Because the reason why I want to preserve is because of the war and the genocide. And there is no textbooks, there’s nothing to tell me about who I am. And that’s where it has me all along. And why I ended up majoring Community Justice Studies is because and being part of Bonner was because this is my opportunity to either do it now. And to preserve this culture, and how can I do that, and that is just through all of the nuances, all of the learning at CMJS, has taught me how I can do this, and what does that look like to preserve my culture? Or to advocate for my community? And yeah, and my hope is that in the future, there will be more celebration, more literature and like more knowledge of the actual truth. Right now, there’s still things that has been written about my people are like white scholars, or what, or journalists or whatever, who are doing coverage on Burma, that is not telling the stories of the people who are being displaced in Burma right now. So really, through my whole integration and preserving my culture. And as an American. Yeah, I identify myself as an American, because I grew up here. So but for me to hold on to that identity and making sure these things doesn’t go away. How can I also like Be gracious to myself and not be like, full of anger, while also knowing that like, I can be an American, and also preserve my culture and be so be a Karen American? Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you for sharing. Yes.
Yeah.
07:26
Do you think that your curiosity brought you closer with your parents and wanting to learn more about culture, and have your parents like, still kept their culture? Yeah,
07:38
the way we preserve our culture is through our parents, we, we continue to wear our cultural clothes, we continue to eat our food and try to speak in our native language. That’s one way of like, the visible thing that we could do. And I don’t think in some ways, I wanted to do this really bring my parents closer together. Because my parents also, they grew up during the war time, so they never received their formal education or an education. So since birth, like my mom tried her best to try to go to school, but the war just couldn’t prevent her from continue going to school. And my dad, he just like, stopped going to work. I mean, school, I think I remember a different people tell us different time, like one person told me my dad went all the way to fifth grade once a second grade, so I don’t know. But he did end up leaving school and just to work, and help out at their parents’ farm and like, get men to go do manual jobs, so that he can help provide with a family. And then my, yeah, I mean, I think it’s like multi generation when my and my grandmother and like, so both my paternal and my maternal paternal parent grandparents growing up, they were growing up during the war as well. So it’s like, many generations living through war and the aftermath of the war. That a lot of things were lost and the people we were just in the survival mode, how can we survive? How can we get through day to day? So? Yeah, it doesn’t really answer your question. But
09:20
No you’re fine. Thank you.
09:24
I had one question that was based on …. So for when you were able to try to embrace your culture, I believe that’s what you were saying. And you had the help of Bonner and CMJS what are some ways that Bonner and CMJS helped you with this?
09:42
Yeah, it was through the education that they provide and the experiential learning. Like they didn’t really help me like just like, you need to preserve your culture, it’s more like, what can I learn what… they provide the nuances and the the education That was important the critical thinking the curiosity, the thoughts, and like so and Bonner, I think it was like CMJ was education and Bonner was the experience and like, how can they both be together? And I definitely see them going hand in hand that helped me like, this is the idea. This is what all of these like readers or not readers like these scholars are saying we should be doing and this is what Bonner is like, this is the application, how can I take this and apply it together? And like go together? So, yeah, that was like my experience with CMJS And Bonner. They both look at like things on a bigger picture community oriented. And how can we seek liberation together? Yeah.
10:51
Well we’re closing in on the five minute, mark. I guess the last question we have for you is
I had one more question
Oh, Okay.
After yours.
After, Candace and my question. Uh, what’s one piece of advice you would give yourself when first coming into the United States?
11:07
Um, stay curious. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And I continue to stay being curious. I think just like, stay curious. Ask questions. And yeah, like, be a visionary. Like, I’m a visionary. So it’s curious that like, being a curious person and a visionary, like, a dream actually do come true. But not in a very magical way, it takes time. Umm… Yeah, so if you have something you dream, like, go for it. And at the end of the day, and making sure that like both of those, the dream and the vision that they all align together with your heart when what you truly care about. Because when I was young, I wanted to become a doctor. Hell to the no now! I was so passionate about it, I will go to I would do internship, like, and I would like Oh, my Lord. And I realized I hated science. So
12:11
Great piece of advice.
12:14
And my final question was, so you mentioned earlier about how it was difficult when you first came to the US accessing transportation and resources. So how was it like when you got to the point where you felt like you were able to just navigate better and just other support systems?
12:34
Yeah, I think our family it was many years, when we finally were able to access those things like, still, like, I’m glad after we moved to North C…. after we moved to North Carolina and Chapel Hill and Carrboro, there was free public buses. So we can ride buses around and go into town and like, like, go do those things. When my parents even like raising kids, and like live in an apartment, we decided to find like buy a car. And that’s a maybe after a few years of being in the United States, like just buying a five passenger car for seven people still not enough, but like, give us access. And for my family, we didn’t feel like we were finally financially self-sufficient. Or like, self-sufficiency wise, what the US, like determined that three months you guys can look it up is like, we didn’t feel like we were fully sufficient until all of our bills were paid on time, or not on time, but like all of our bills were paid, we have enough money for food, able to like buy educational supplies for the children, and send them off to extracurricular activity. So those were like a lot of gaps that the older sibling had to sacrifice. So I will say we weren’t really like don’t feel financially sufficient family, like all the dynamic of self-sufficiency that the US defined. We didn’t really feel that like that until like maybe the last two to three years. And we’ve been in the United States for 17 years now.
Candace: Okay.
Yeah, you just continue it’s a hustle. A lot of sacrifice a lot of hustle and yeah. Yeah, so those are the things like there’s a lot of facts that the children are experiencing that the parents are experiencing and like a lot of like friction among those things like to just be able to like come home and breathe you just feel like you have to go to work you have to do this this and this and that is just like there was never ending there was never a break like our car never had a break. And we just felt like we’re able to do that now. When maybe like the first yeah now like the for me. I have a full time job my other sister have another full time job. Until a few of the children, have a full time good paying job, where we can support ourselves and then support our parents and like our other bills. And as as like older siblings, we pay for our younger children, educational supplies. So it’s many years to really feel like we are sufficient. Yeah.
Got it. Thank you.
15:29
Well, it’s almost 5:45 We’d like to let you know that our StoryMap presentations will be on Tuesday. from 3 to 5pm if you want to attend through zoom, we can send out a link. If not, we’ll also have a recording if you wanted to.
15:52
April the 16th. April the 16th. Yes.
Okay. I don’t think I have anything but yeah, just send me a Zoom invite. I’m actually going to be in Greensboro on Wednesday, but I can’t do two days back to back.
Okay.
Yeah. and email me of pictures or honestly, you can go to Zhihong’s Facebook and just like take pictures from there like my or, yeah, or some of you guys if you guys want I can just like texture. I still have pictures on my phone. Just text me and I can just text you all pictures from my phone as well.
16:39
I guess I could in the recording, I guess. Know where?
16:46
Yeah, she might join back. But,
16:49
okay. Um, but no, like, this was the same if I hit him, but I still went into like, some extent. Okay. Okay.
17:01
Because my computer was dying.
17:03
Oh, no worries at all. Do you have any other questions for us before we? And no,
17:10
I don’t have any pictures. I mean, no questions. Oh, my God. Yeah, just send me a text or I don’t know if you guys still have my number for pictures and I’ll just text them to you all.
17:21
Okay. Great. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today. Yes.
17:28
Take care guys. Hope to see you around. Okay, bye. Bye. Bye.
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