Free Triptych by Margit Liesche Page A

by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement as a preferred community for newly arrived refugees.
    My emigration to Willow Grove involved just twenty miles, a move from one Chicago suburb to the next, to attend college. Morning coffee and a muffin at Kat’s Kafe once meant poring over my daily planner while eavesdropping on the local gossip. Now, when sipping coffee at Kat’s, the chatter at surrounding tables is unintelligible. It’s like I’m in the cafeteria at the International House at the Sorbonne. While the women’s conversation group is intended to benefit the immigrants, I sometimes wonder if I’m not the real beneficiary—experiencing cultures of so many different countries.
    The early arrivers solicit opinions from the newcomers on my shawl. The vote is evenly divided between admirers and critics.
    To get us back on track, I ask Ioana to describe something new that’s happened since our last meeting. It’s what we usually do to kick off our meetings, with each woman in the circle taking a turn. The slices of life prompt lessons and practical tips relating to acculturation.
    Ioana says she took her daughter to the emergency room because she had a sore throat and fever.
    Hoa is surprised. “But emergency rooms they are expensive.”
    â€œI call Ask a Nurse, and she tell me I should go.”
    â€œ Called Ask a Nurse. She told me I should go. Then you did the right thing,” I say. “Is your daughter better?”
    Ioana nods proudly. “I buy her medicine.” She catches my frown. “I bought her medicine.”
    The open-ended dialogue continues for another twenty minutes. Meena wants to know if the other women allow their children to drink Coke and watch cartoons. Hoa wonders if it is best to try to speak English or to stick with Vietnamese in the home. Several of the women trade names of doctors who specialize in female problems.
    We have covered a lot of ground on adapting to life in America. The other part of our meeting is reserved for helping the women to hold onto the good from the old culture while taking advantage of the new. “Engage them,” the library director had said in my briefing. “Talk about where they come from, the things they cared about, things they ought to hold onto going forward here in Willow Grove.”
    I turn the focus back to Mariska’s shawl and share an abbreviated version of her odyssey. “Now your turn. Tell us why the item you brought is special,” I say. “What it tells about the world you lived in, and how the article relates to the world you live in now. Who’d like to go first?”
    Hoa volunteers. She is wearing clothes she found at a Goodwill store. The only clothing she had taken with her from Vietnam was what she’d worn as she left. The items had to be burned after they landed, she explains. She holds up a jade bracelet. “This was my mother’s. I hide it in my body, keep it safe through all my long journey.” Someone sniffles, and I am aware of my eyes pooling with tears. In the manner of an experienced show woman, Hoa brings her audience back up again. “In America, I have learned the tricks of wise shopper. These slacks and blouse,” she adds proudly, making a sweeping gesture along her outfit, “Very cheap.”
    She is smiling and looks so happy I cannot bring myself to nitpick her grammar.
    Wai-Ling is next. She is wearing a lovely fitted red silk blouse with a mandarin collar and tiny covered buttons running, top to bottom, on a diagonal. Wai-Ling chooses not to talk about her journey, instead she shows a picture and talks about her mother and sister, both wearing full dark pants and mandarin-style shirts, still living at home in China. “My body it is here in America,” Wai-Ling says in a small voice. “But my heart remains with them, in my homeland.”
    I am only too familiar with this stage in a refugee’s adjustment. Or