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Crossing Borders
Volume 7, Number 1 - Fall 2008
Georgia Program Meets Needs of New Immigrants
by Anndee Hochman
In Gwinnett County, Georgia, recent immigrants are learning to speak up in both their native and acquired languages.
Through bilingual People & Stories/ Gente y Cuentos series designed to meet participants where they are—in ESOL programs, at the library, in the elementary schools their children attend—librarian Karen J. Harris reaches people “who haven’t had a chance to be heard because of their own life situations.”
By reading and discussing literature—in Spanish one week, in English the following session—Harris has seen participants gain confidence, insight, language skills and a sense of community in what, for many, is foreign territory.
Harris, coordinator of diversity for Gwinnett County libraries, learned about People & Stories at a library convention in 2002, attended a sample session and found it “magical, focused on the literature and the beauty of lyrical stories.”
Harris later traveled to Boston for an NEH-sponsored coordinator’s training. Her first series, held at Gwinnett Technical College’s English-language institute, drew a dozen people. “I was just enthralled by how this program will bring non-native English speakers into the fold quite easily. So many of the stories are universal,” Harris said.
She remembers the discussion of Hernando Tomez’s story, “Just Lather, That’s All,” about a terrorist who requests a shave from a barber in Colombia. The barber knows of the man’s crimes and has the opportunity to kill him. “Most of the story is the barber’s internal dialogue: Am I a barber or am I a murderer? We asked, ‘Is there anything that would make you kill somebody?’ People really got to see what was inside them.”
Another meaningful story was James Joyce’s “Eveline,” in which a young woman must decide whether to pursue her love for a man to Argentina, if it means abandoning her family. “One young woman had not said much; finally she said she knew how Eveline felt. She’d fallen in love with a boy from another barrio, and she was disowned. She just left and came to America on her own. She finally got to talk about all that pain.”
The Gwinnett County program is a model of flexibility: Harris has tried nighttime and daytime series, sessions in the local branch’s magazine room, in the college library and in nearby elementary schools. “There was a unique tie between what the children were learning and what [their parents] were learning. It gave the children a sense that, ‘Oh, my mom’s involved. She’s doing stories just like I’m doing.’”
Harris and her Spanish-speaking co-facilitator encourage participants to attend all sessions, although jobs or family responsibilities can make that difficult.
“The language in the stories builds. The themes get more complex,” Harris said.
And, in a branch community that comprises 30% Spanish-speaking residents, 35% African-Americans and a variety of languages including German, French, Urdu and Liberian, consistent attendance at Gente y Cuentos also fosters a sense of community.
“The program changes lives,” Harris said, recalling a woman so shy during the initial sessions that she never spoke and could not even look coordinators in the eye. “There was a story she could relate to about the death of a father. Later we learned she couldn’t read in her own language. By the time she was ready to graduate, she said, in broken English, ‘Thank you so much. I have a voice. I can speak and say what I need to say.’”