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Eighteen-year-old Follow Me raised her arms above her head, her feet sashaying in rhythm, dancers from her troupe all around her. Once the music stopped, Me and the dancers lined up to the salute the crowd gathered at the 30th annual Asian Festival on Saturday.
About 12,000 people were expected to celebrate the Year of the Rooster at the festival, located on the grounds of the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures. The sounds of dancing and drums rose above the crowds as the smell of different oils cooking foods from around the world competed against each other.
Her cheeks flush with excitement, Me told the crowd she was proud to be a member of the ethnic Karen. Her family fled civil war in Burma, and she and the other Burmese dancers arrived in San Antonio as refugees.
Saturday’s dance was the fifth for Me, whose story begins in a time of torture and land mines. A long-running civil war in Burma displaced thousands of families into Thailand and Malaysia. Me, like many other Karen refugees, was born in one of the often squalid refugee camps in Thailand.
Me started dancing in the camps, she said. Bad conditions there meant a life of low expectations for most.
“We didn’t have anything,” said Me, who dreamed of becoming a doctor.
Nine years ago, she arrived in America through efforts by the United Nations’ refugee resettlement programs, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and the Resettlement Agency of Catholic Charities in San Antonio.
They had good pizza in America — that’s the only thing Me said she knew about America.
It was a rough transition at first, she said. Her first month, she dreamed of Thailand. In one dream of the refugee camps, she heard a voice in her native Karen language say, “When you wake up, you’ll be in America.”
The Americans were strange, she said, in the way they allowed their children to date before college and in the disrespectful ways they talked to their teachers.
But art was her way of fitting in, Me said. She found her home in arts clubs, in drawing and watercolor painting.
She met other Karen refugees like June Say, 18. The two were friends throughout high school and helped each other adjust to America. When Say learned guitar, Me learned guitar, too.
Some days were harder than others. Say recalled a teacher talking about how immigrants were taking jobs from him. In the ninth grade at the time, she didn’t think the teacher was directing his conversation at her, but the statement stung.
“I felt like I was a burden to him,” Say said. “Being an immigrant, you’re always thinking like you’re lower than everyone else.”
There are other ethnic minorities from Burma who have settled in San Antonio, such as the Karenni, the Chin, the Mon and the Rohingya, said Rey Lopez Mader, who volunteers for Catholic Charities.
These refugees include Mary Kuee, 21. Clad in red to reflect her Karenni heritage, Kuee danced in her first public performance with the group. The newly hired dental assistant began practicing last Christmas.
“Overall, they’re adjusting really well,” Mader said. “Family and education are so important to them, and they share so much with each other.”
Refugees from Burma are given Social Security cards and after a year apply for green cards. After five years they can apply for citizenship, Mader said.
Me still plans to be a doctor and is a student at UTSA. Say is now a student at San Antonio College.
“There’s nothing we can’t do,” Say said.
Sometimes, Me will hear a fellow refugee, newer to the country, say a phrase tinged with an accent from the old country. She’ll judge them, even though she knows it’s a bad thought, knowing she was in that spot years before.
Becoming American is complicated. The annual dance at the Asian Festival is Me’s way of maintaining her connection to her roots. She teaches others how to dance now.
“This is a way of showing off the culture,” Me said, “but also to remember what we are.”
jlawrence@express-news.net
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