EXHIBITS

ENGL 6750, Summer 2015: Voices: Karen Refugees in Cache Valley, Utah: Life in the United States

Pyo Nwe:

"Yeah, I think it was kind of a little bit challenging. When me and my family first came to America, there weren’t a lot of Karen people, and we really didn’t know a lot about America I guess. Well, at first, people were giving us those apple juice – we thought it was oil, so we didn’t want to touch it. And then when they gave us lotion, we didn’t know what it is, so we use it for our face because it smells nice, right? If we wanted to say something, there weren’t any interpreters back then. And if we wanted to go buy groceries, we didn’t even know where to go."

"Yeah, sometimes, I don’t know, if we’re in trouble or something – we just don’t know what to do. We just kind of need a guide, I guess."

Pyo Nwe Life in U.S. 003 - 5_29_15, 3.56 PM.m4a

Pyo Nwe audio

Aye Win:

"Well, uh my children they have a...you know better life here than I did back then. I’m happy to see my child get to go to college and that’s just had never happened in my family."

Aye Win audio

Snay Tun:

"Well, I think that living in the USA life, live under regulations and stuff. Then, it's good to be better for us if we follow them than if we didn't. Because we know that in the US everyone live under the rules, so we can get in trouble if we don't follow them."

"Well, I really like [living in Logan], because I, well, in my sight, I see like homes, there's space between one and another, but when I live in Salt Lake City, I saw the apartments like kinda sticky."

Snay Tun audio

Kyaw Eh:

"The biggest shock was when snow time – when the snow was coming; it was really, really shock for me. Because when I live there since whole my life over there, I never seen snow. I just see in a video or movie like that, but I didn’t know how does it look like – that’s why it was very shock for the snow."

"My house in my country, we just built with the wood, the roof with the leaf (you know the leaf, the tree leaf, the big leaf) – we just made the roof of our house. We don’t have any like the wall close every side like this; we have to like – we can open the wind come through, come and go through our house. And it was a lot of different because we live style different, completely different from here because here is we have snow, we have to turn on the heat; in the summer time we have to turn on the air condition – but over there no, we don’t have nothing: no electricity, nothing, no internet, no phone, no TV."

Kyaw Eh audio

Eh Htoo:

"Well I do want my family to come here, I do – but it’s not possible because my family, they grew up in the village and I don’t think they would like this place here, Utah (not Utah, but in the United States). Although we have better education, better food, it’s not something they would like."

"It took about four months to become a citizen...So it took three months to apply for it, and then after that they will call me to go and scan my finger. And after that I took a test, and I passed. So, really quick."

Eh Htoo Life in the U.S. 003 - 5_29_15, 4.40 PM.m4a

Eh Htoo audio

Tun Lay:

"Living here is very, very peaceful, happy for me and my family: I have work, I have food, I mean, there is nothing to worry about (like being free, peaceful), being free."

"When I first arrived in the United States my family, we were put in a house (like in an apartment), and people were saying, “Later on, if you guys cannot pay the rent, you guys will be kicked out.” And we were really worried, and that was one of the fears that we had in our first month."

"I have no problem eating American food here; it’s better than what I used to eat back there."

Tun Lay Life in U.S. 003- 5_29_15, 3.07 PM.m4a

Tun Lay audio