Emily Meyer
Junior Megan Thrasher, right, and senior Suzi Maanum, center, mentor a refugee family with seniors Leah Ryan and Emily Meyer (not pictured). The group started volunteering through Professor Hank Tkachuk’s Intercultural Communication class, but has cont
Intercultural class helps area refugees adapt to F-M culture
Imagine walking into a grocery store in another country. You go to the canned food section, and there are pictures on the cans of green beans, dogs, and babies. What do the people in this country eat? This is the feeling many refugees get when they walk in our grocery stores, according to Dr. Hank Tkachuk of the Communication department. Although the cans contain green beans, dog food, and baby mush, these refugees of the Fargo-Moorhead area may have been confused without the help of their Concordia mentors.
Concordia’s Intercultural Communication class has been providing the community with refugee mentors almost every semester for the last 16 years. The class is an elective for communication majors, and has recently been proposed as the senior core capstone for all communication majors.
Tkachuk believes this experiential component of the course is important, as many students from this area have little intercultural experience.
“There is an ethical principle of providing benefit to another and not thinking of them as an element of study but as a human relationship,” Tkachuk said.
The families this semester come from Bhutan, Iraq, Somalia, Burundi, and Liberia. They are placed in Fargo by the Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota. They are given a loan from the Lutheran Social Services to buy a plane ticket, and are expected to be self-sufficient within 180 days of arriving in the United States.
Kaitlin Cochrane is a junior in Tkachuk’s Intercultural class. Her group has been visiting their refugee family, composed of two sisters and a brother in their twenties, for the last few weeks. The family escaped Bhutan when they were very young and have since been living in Nepal. The two sisters are extremely well-educated, having already completed a college degree in Nepal.
“One of the first questions they asked was ‘What are the rules and regulations of living in Fargo?’ This led to a discussion about laws, housing, and education. They really want to get a college degree,” Cochrane said.
The siblings are planning to attend North Dakota State University once they complete their English as a Second Language classroom requirement.
For senior Leah Ryan and her group, mentoring was a commitment that could not just end after one semester. Their refugee family is from Iraq and consists of a mother and father that have a 6-year-old daughter as well as a young baby. The family left Iraq because they are Christians, a fact which Ryan feels has helped the mentors relate to the refugees.
Ryan enjoys working with the family, as she enjoys taking a break from spending time with all college students by being with a traditional family.
“Many of these people come over here and have nothing except the clothes on their backs. They need friends, and we are trying to help them assimilate into the culture,” said Ryan.
Mentors serve a variety of functions for their families. Their main goal, according to Tkachuk, is to be a friend and help the family feel at home in a new culture. They also are advised to show the newcomers around the community, teach them how to use public transportation, and answer any questions that might arise about the American way of life.
Next time a refugee family mentored by a Concordia student strolls into a local grocery store, they will be able to decipher the confusing pictures in the canned goods’ section. Thanks to an Intercultural mentor, they will not think Americans eat dogs… or babies.
