Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [40]
I wished I had more time to be this family's cultural broker and to show them our library system, our parks, and our free entertainment for families. They were in a magical country, bright and shiny with possibilities, but they needed someone to teach them that children need toothbrushes and beds more than action figures. I felt a responsibility to help them to see that all that glitters is not gold. Courage, heart, and brains are necessary to survive in this new land. Otherwise, for new arrivals, our magical country can quickly turn into a barren landscape.
CULTURAL BROKERS
One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—ANDRÉ GIDE
The United States is a series of paradoxes for newcomers. Every plus is married to a minus. It is the land of opportunity and yet the opportunity is often to work in a meatpacking plant. Newcomers have fled war zones for the safety of our country but, in the United States, they often find themselves in our most dangerous neighborhoods. They are in a country with sophisticated health and mental health care but often cannot afford even the most basic treatments. They come for our wonderful educational system, but often their children are educated by television and learn all the wrong lessons. And finally, they come because of the generosity of the American people, and yet once here, they must deal with an unfriendly and grossly inefficient INS.
From the moment refugees arrive they are offered ideas about how to spend their time, energy, and money. There are two main ways refugees are educated. One is through the media and ads that are omnipresent. The second is through cultural brokers—schoolteachers, caseworkers, public health nurses, and American friends who may teach them to make intentional decisions about what to accept and what to reject in America. Cultural brokers help ease people into each other's cultures. Foucault wrote that "information is power." Cultural brokers give newcomers information that directly translates into power.
This chapter will discuss both kinds of American education as well as examine the conditions in our host environment. Right away, refugees must deal with housing, transportation, and legal status, as well as work, health, and mental health issues. These external factors have a great deal to do with a refugee's later success in America. Cultural brokers can make a tremendous difference.
The most important cultural brokers are schoolteachers. Schools are the frontline institution for acculturation, where children receive solid information about their new world. Almost all refugee families have a tremendous respect for education and educators. And our schools do not let them down. I have met many heroic teachers who, among their other responsibilities, become the antidotes to media and ads. One ELL teacher told me, "We're all there is between them and Howard Stern and Eminem."
Cultural brokers can teach the difference between need and want and also the meaning of the word enough. They can teach, as Bebe Moore Campbell said, that "Everything good to you ain't good for you." They can teach, as Paul Gruchow put it, that "Labor saving machines delivered not so much freedom from drudgery as enslavement to creditors." Gruchow also wrote, "Wealth is fully as capable of corrupting the soul as is poverty. What makes people happy in small doses is not necessarily good in large amounts. Too much candy, alcohol, leisure time, and shopping choices all make people miserable."
Cultural brokers encourage families to read, go to museums, draw, learn to play an instrument, and to find a place of worship or a community center. They encourage them to walk on our prairies, fish in our lakes, and ride bikes on our trails. If refugees learn only from television, they will end up unhealthy, stressed, rushed, addicted, and broke.
Cultural brokers teach Budgeting