Dreaming in English

A word, if I may.

Actually, three words: Courage. Determination, Motivation.

Those three words lead directly to three more: Awe. Inspiration. Hope.

Let me recall an amazing conversation I had this past week. I doubt my conversation partner had any idea of the import of his message: He was just reporting his life as he knew it to be. And, anyway, it was just a chance remark that struck me so profoundly. He couldn’t have imagined its significance to me. But the conversation left me feeling awed, inspired, and hopeful. See for yourself.

First some background (this story has a long running start): As many of you know, I do a lot of volunteer work with asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants — “New Mainers,” as they are commonly known in our community — who have fled their homelands and settled in our area. As an English tutor, I work one-on-one with a woman from Angola. Her native languages are Lingala and Portuguese, but she also speaks Spanish. English is her fourth language. Fourth! And she is not unusual: Most of the New Mainers I work with speak many languages. English just doesn’t happen to be one of them. . . yet.

I also volunteer at the Conversation Cafe, a local drop-in session where English learners can practice their new conversational language skills. There I meet people from many different countries, who possess a range of fluency in English. Some have only the most rudimentary English. Some are quite accomplished English speakers. Most are somewhere in the middle. All of them inspire me.

Last, but most frequently, I provide rides for New Mainers who do not have driver’s licenses, cars, or a social network yet. I deliver people to medical appointments, English classes, and various other activities. Those car rides are opportunities for my passengers to practice conversational English, so I work hard at crafting dialogue that will help them learn. Sometimes I draw on my French if it seems that might help. Occasionally I translate from English to French or from French to English, but mostly I choose English words that are similar to or the same as their French translations. For example, I tell them I am a retired “pastor” (not “minister”), because the French word, “pasteur,” is so close to its English translation.

We volunteers are advised not to ask questions about the New Mainers’ back stories, because those stories usually involve terrible trauma. Although I don’t typically know the details, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these are people who (a) have suffered in ways I can barely imagine and (b) have found the courage and determination to start fresh in a country where everything, everything, is new to them: New language, new customs, new people, new food, new weather, new expectations, new everything. And they often arrive here with nothing, other than themselves, their wits, their courage, their hope, and their determination. As one of them told me, “When we came here we had nothing. No money. No possessions. Nothing.”

Just imagine the challenges involved. Just imagine the courage required to undertake such a journey.

The New Mainers I have met quickly sign up for English classes and tutors. They join any and every job training course they can find. They seek work as soon as they receive permits. Companies in my area are crying out for workers, and the New Mainers fill vacancies in the work force that wouldn’t be filled otherwise. New Mainers work hard because they want to build a new life for their families and themselves. And they do all that against what is sometimes a very unwelcoming backdrop, because, while there are lots of volunteers like me, there are also very loud voices spreading vicious lies about them. See, for instance, Donald Trump’s repeated claims that other countries are sending us “people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylum, terrorists” (June 27, 2024, debate). See also the backlash against New Mainers perpetuated right here, in my hometown: Brunswick officials caught in backlash against immigrant housing project (wgme.com)

People, I have to tell you I love working with New Mainers. It feeds my soul on so many levels. I can honestly say I get more out of it than I put into it. That’s because the people I work with are so amazing. They have not only my support but my staunch admiration.

The other day, I was driving a Congolese man home from English class. Lingala and French are his first languages, but his English is quite good. Why? Because when he set out to teach himself English — before he was even in America — he bought a little television set. He tuned it to every English-speaking station and program he could find, refusing to watch anything else. At first, he said, none of the language made any sense. But he kept listening. And listening. And listening. Little by little, the gibberish became words, and the words acquired meanings for him. The more he watched and listened, the more he understood.

Can you imagine the determination this young man mustered? I am awed not only by his motivation, but also by his creativity in devising his own highly successful learning plan.

Well, as we drove along, I asked him what he was planning to do with the rest of his day. We were in the throes of a heat wave. He told me someone had given his family an air conditioner. He was going to install it in the living room so that his family could enjoy one cool room in their apartment. Then, they were going to watch a movie together in their cooled living room. Then he was planning to read for an hour.

“When you read,” I asked, “Do you read in English or in French?”

“Oh, in English!” he exclaimed. “I always read in English. I will read in English until I start dreaming in English. When I start dreaming in English I will know I have reached my goal. I know it’s possible, because I dreamed in English once already.”

That remark absolutely floored me. The determination! Hard work! Pluck!

And here’s what I want to say: The courage, determination, and motivation that young man’s comment represented are qualities we need to make and keep our country and world strong. And I get to witness those very qualities over and over again in my volunteer work. What a privilege it is for me to work with people who inspire so much awe and who fill my heart with hope. If everyone could witness what I see on a regular basis, the hateful rhetoric I hear about people coming to America to build new lives would be replaced with open arms, open hearts. Maybe even open minds.

Dreaming in English,

Sylvia