Teen made friends and built English skills but faces a long road ahead.
By lisa schencker
The Salt Lake Tribune
Heber City » When KaPaw Htoo arrived in this country, he wanted to be a singer.
After a few months in Utah schools, the Karen refugee aspired to become a doctor.
By the end of his first school year in the U.S., he had a different outlook.
"I think I will work in the meat company," the
17-year-old said in Karen, a language spoken by his people nearly 8,000
miles from here. KaPaw Htoo was born in a Thai refugee camp to parents
who, like many Karen, fled oppression and violence in their nearby home
country of Burma, now known as Myanmar. He and his family were among
more than 800 refugees, including many children, who moved to Utah
between the falls of 2010 and 2011.
The Wasatch High student was lucky to leave the
Thai refugee camp, where he and his family relied on food rations and
weren’t allowed to work or come and go as they pleased. They had little
hope for a better future there.
It hasn’t been easy here either. KaPaw Htoo
(pronounced CAW-paw TOO) — a quiet teen who exudes a cool confidence,
smiling often and changing his hairstyle daily — has more opportunity
now, but his future remains uncertain.
Learning English has been a daily struggle for KaPaw Htoo, who just finished his junior year.
He still speaks very little. He reads and
writes at about a kindergarten level. The teen, who arrived in Utah with
only a third-grade education from Thailand, probably won’t graduate
with his class next year.
KaPaw Htoo also has spent the last year
watching his dad struggle to support him, his mother, and four younger
siblings with a job at a Heber City laundry company.
KaPaw Htoo’s father, Ka Myee, wants better for his son.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune)
KaPaw Htoo tries to correctly pronounce individual words from the novel
“Where the Red Fern Grows,” without full comprehension of what he is
reading in an English class with instructor Brent Price.
KaPaw Htoo, 17, a Karen refugee whose family fled oppression and
violence in their home country of Burma, arrived in Utah from a refugee
camp in Thailand about a year ago. KaPaw Htoo just completed his first
year of school as a junior at Wasatch High, although he speaks very
little English and reads and writes on a kindergarten level.
Wednesday, May 30 2012
"We came here [but] it is not for us," Ka Myee,
41, said through an interpreter of himself and his wife. "It is for our
children."
But those dreams can sometimes seem frustratingly distant.
—
Bridging a chasm »
On a recent day near the end of the school year, KaPaw Htoo sat in art
class, quietly scratching away at an etching of a gargoyle, as the
conversations of other students swirled around him. The ear buds he wore
whenever he had a free moment at school were in place, delivering tunes
from a playlist that included Katy Perry, Rhianna and rap.
Art teacher Liz Sprackland stood behind him as he worked.
"Beautiful," she said, tapping a finger to his
creation. Minutes later, she hung his etching on the board, an example
of exceptional work.
The chasm between KaPaw Htoo and his classmates seemed to temporarily disappear. It was ever present in his other courses.
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