Perspective: Welcoming the Stranger

...After a few months' preliminary American experience, Souma can probably begin a training program for typewriter repair, computer programming, a bank job, or other skilled employment...

...At about 8 pm I left, leaving the party in full swing...

...Humanitarian concerns, I suppose, mixed with some curiosity and a real dedication to the Jewish values of social justice...

...why then was it up to us to pick up the left-over pieces, we wondered...

...When I returned at 10:00, Souma's happiness was evident everywhere...

...Strapped in to the front seat of my car, he strained to absorb everything he saw out of the window: tall buildings, Christmas decorations, flashing lights...

...His wife, Somsovath (36) carried the youngest son, Seng-preseuth, aged 4. Walking on their own, desperately clutching the new toys they Lucy Y. Steinitz, who teaches at Spertus College of Judaica, and at the University of Chicago, is completing a doctorate in gerontology...

...In the late afternoon it was my turn to leave the house, and I took Seng-outhith, the eldest, with me...

...But bit by bit, each hurdle is overcome...

...he said...

...Many agencies across the country are working to bring in Indo-Chinese families, and most are looking for sponsoring'oragnizations or individuals...

...Later that evening, and on Sunday, Souma told me a little bit about himself and his family...

...On December 8, 1979 they arrived in their new home in Chicago, Illinois...

...She is a seamstress...

...Helping other people is part of our religion...

...Food was shared on newspaper on the floor (reminiscent of camp days?—all regular meals are eaten around the kitchen table, Western style), and the children ran wild around the house...

...now an ear-to-ear smile greets me whenever we see each other in the apartment...

...Juif," I said in French...

...They had lived there for a year and a half...

...The sense of dif-ferentness and discovery sometimes felt overwhelming, however, as both of us struggled constantly to understand each other's culture...

...We played some more with the Lego system, and I tried to get in a few minutes of work on the side...

...Enormous relief accompanied our knowledge that Souma spoke a very good English, and an almost fluent French...

...A blank look fell across his face...

...My friend Leah and I waited nervously as we heard reports that their plane was delayed, and we drank liqueur and ate crackers until the door-bell finally rung...

...Where did his own future lie...

...Flapping around in his new shoes (first time) and big orange parka, he looked more like an Eskimo than a newly arrived Laotian refugee...

...Next morning everyone woke up with an inevitable winter cold, for which they were doused with Vitamin C and lots of hot tea...

...Already, their middle-class heritage was evident...

...personally, I feel very enriched—and grateful—for the experience...

...Mother, father, and two young girls (with the younger, aged 7, over a head taller than Seng-outhith) all crowded into the front room, making a total of nine...

...Souma also shared some fears with me...

...The family is adjusting with marked rapidity...

...After each meal she washes and dries all the dishes, scrubs the stove and sweeps the floor—my kitchen has never looked so clean...

...Interestingly, they had brought their own aspirin...

...Once their youngest child also begins kindergarten next September, Somsovath may also begin seeking work...

...intermittently I heard the funny croak of the little toy frog we had given them, with which they seemed to be playing non-stop...

...Bouts with the flu, with the Chicago teachers' strike, and with traces of sub-zero weather raised somexof the biggest challenges...

...The two of us went out in search of needed shoes and underwear, leaving them alone for the first time for some much-needed rest...

...Somsovath has made herself at home in my kitchen, improvising in my dishware when "proper" implements cannot be found, cooking traditional "sticky rice" on the triple boiler that the family had brought along from Thailand...

...We became good friends on that ride...

...While the financial cost to sponsors is not usually very great, the commitment does take its toll in time and emotional resources.Unquestionably, however, it is enormously rewarding...

...I wrote these initial impressions after the Phosaraj's first weekend in America...

...In my response, I tried to make a personal connection to his situation...

...What would it be like when they met...

...All his life he had been a soldier...

...An older brother, also a military officer, was captured by the (Communist) Laotian People's Party, and is currently held prisoner...

...When another Am Chai member joined me to help out on Saturday afternoon, we decided to draw pictures of their feet on white paper and then look for second-hand shoes at some of the local Salvation Army thrift stores...

...But best of all were the many pot-holes on Lake Shore Drive...

...later I said that I was Jewish...

...I was part of the welcoming committee greeting them in my apartment, where the family was to make their first American home...

...My religion also came up in conversation...

...It would take a few years, I explained, though I was confident that they would do very well in this country...

...Then I said, "Remember...

...Si c'etait sans moi, le Paris sera pris . . ." (The answer is "a"—"pris" becomes "Paris...

...Thai is very close to Lao, and they all speak it...

...I should know the equivalent in Laotian history...

...When we later learned our family would be comprised of anti-Communist Laotians, with whom a strong military connection existed, the group underwent considerable re-evaluation...

...my parents were also refugees and came to the United States when they were almost as old as he and Somsovath...

...Souma is aged 38, a professional soldier once trained in the United States (for six months, 1972), unable to work since the Royal Lao government fell in 1975...

...In the Bible .. .?" Complete astonishment suddenly replaced the unknowing stare of moments ago...

...what kind of work could he do now...

...Oh," he finally comprehended, "Hitler . . ." I am in awe...

...One by one, I read them off to him, pronouncing "Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot," very slowly and carefully...

...Souma and Somsovath retired into their room and compiled a list, in English, with the help of the Thai-English dictionary that they had brought with them...

...Now it is over two months since they first arrived...

...By 10:00 we all went to bed, though I couldn't sleep a wink that night...

...But I understood a little how he felt...

...Somsovath's family was scattered all over Thailand and Laos . . . The Phosarajs hadn't starved in the refugee camp (they were in one run by the United Nations, and therefore among the best), but conditions were crowded and local corruption made adequate nutrition very hard to achieve...

...Souma, who has himself been assiduously studying English while also teaching the rest of the family, is now seeking full-time employment...

...Initially, another Laotian family was supposed to have arrived several weeks before, but they were delayed because of illness...

...Chan-nukah was this Friday night, I said, the same day as his birthday...

...After three weeks they moved into their own apartment, with the two adults attending English classes and the older children enrolled in a nearby elementary school...

...All of us in the group are Jewish," I added...

...Monday morning I awoke, with delicious smells penetrating my bedroom...

...Another Am Chai member went with her, and an hour and a half later they returned, with a bag full of rice, vegetables, some meat, eggs, bread, and American cookies for the children...

...Somsovath started to prepare the morning meal, her eyes popping out when I showed her the two large fishes we had bought to eat, and how the oven flipped on automatically with the turn of a small handle in the front...

...Simple Jewish Cookery," he pointed to me, and then read aloud "Jewish Holidays" from the introduction...

...Most of us had actively opposed the war in Southeast Asia...

...Some of our friends, upon hearing of our sponsorship, have asked what motivated us to do this in the first place...

...We laughed our way through the morning, in curiosity, in shyness, in excitement...

...A traditional meal of sticky rice (unfortunately with all the vitamins washed out), egg, boiled vegetables, and slivers of meat made my own breakfast of cornflakes and milk a poor comparison...

...Four days earlier they had left their refugee camp in Thailand, just across the border from their home town of Vietiene, in Laos...

...He is the youngest of six children, all of whom still live in Laos...

...So were the children...

...Souma was already cooking rice when I first walked into the kitchen...

...Still no recognition...

...Hauling boxes out of "their" closet, they began trying on donated clothes—laughing as the children's pants seemed miles too long, or when the skirts Somsovath tried on revealed too much of her knees (strictly forbidden in Lao culture...

...When we first got involved last autumn, we had initially requested an ethnic Chinese family from Vietnam, reasoning that the situation of this group most closely paralleled the plight of German Jews in Hitler's Europe...

...Two nephews and a niece live in France, where Souma also wanted to go, but would have had to wait two additional years...

...Both coming from devout Catholic backgrounds (which is unusual in Laos), Souma and Somsovath had been educated in French Catholic schools as children...

...By afternoon, too, we all realized that the stock-piled food was going fast, and more would have to be bought...

...But people are people, ran the counter-argument, and the Talmud teaches us not to judge...

...The high point came the next day when the Rockford friends came for a visit...

...On their jackets were pasted large "MAS" stickers, indicating their refugee status...

...I was the first Jew he had ever met, he explained...

...quickly Seng-outhith learned the word for "bump," and it was "bump, bump, bumpety-bump-bump" all the way there and back...

...Chicago's Jewish Family and Community Service, which provided some initial guidance and start-up money (govenment allocated—until Public aid came through) is one of a number of resources that have helped out...

...He had an old school friend living in Rockford, Illinois, whom he hadn't seen for two years...

...I answered that he was the first Laotian that I had ever met, and we smiled...

...People also helped them out when they first arrived, I explained, but then they went on their own...

...The co-operation of Am Chai members was invaluable in terms of accomplishing a myriad of concrete tasks: medical and dental examinations, filing for public aid, vocational counseling, enrollment in schools, searching for an apartment and for furniture, and an overall orientation to modern appliances, local stores, churches, and public transportation...

...Souma taught me a riddle in French that he remembered from his school days: "Je suis dans le Paris...

...while waiting for it to boil he had picked up one of my cookbooks and was beginning to read...

...Arriving in a fancy car with well-tailored clothes (after less than twenty months in the country), the reunion was ecstatic...

...Bloch, 1976) had just been given, was Seng-presith, aged 5, and Seng-outhith, aged 9. We gave them tea and offered them some food, while showing the adults how the bathroom worked, and what was available for them in the kitchen (we had purchased Laotian-style food for them), and where they all would sleep on the beds and mattresses in the front living room-turned-bedroom...

...It was 20° outside...

...She was co-editor, with David M. Szonyi, of Living After the Holocaust: Reflections by Children of Survivors in America...

...Meanwhile I had baked a cake in the kitchen to the curious eyes of the four remaining Laotians, though the children didn't much like the leftover batter...

...No," I said, "World War II...

...It was agreed that shopping was Somsovath's task, and so, expressing good taste in the clothes she chose, she dressed in American style and ventured out on her first American adventure...

...So we decided to go ahead as planned...

...Suitable outfits were found for all, save for adequate shoes to be worn outside...

...I think he had thought that Jews had been dead for two thousand years...

...First I told him that I wasn't Catholic...

...We had only learned about the Phosarajs forty-eight hours earlier...

...To greet them with warm winter coats, blankets, and weeks of anticipated excitement were four designated members of Am Chai, a cultural and political Jewish havurah which, in conjunction with Chicago's Jewish Family and Community Service, is acting as the local sponsoring "family" of the Phosarajs...

...Great fun ensued as we tickled the toes of the little ones and then compared the outlined pictures to each other...

...Looking tired but happy, five slim, dark-skinned, and incredibly handsome people walked up the stairs...

...In 1940 and 1947," I responded...

...The less material tasks were probably more fun: "teaching" the children how to play in the snow, showing the adults how to shop comparatively, and exploring some of Chicago's famed tourist attractions together...

...Impressively, all the children are very respectful of my things—never wandering into my bedroom or study without first making sure they aren't disturbing me, never taking down things that don't belong to them, never playing around the plants or other potentially dangerous areas in the apartment...

...World War I .. ." he mouthed the words slowly...

...We could celebrate them together...

...Understandably, the family already dreams of moving to a warmer climate, and ultimately back to Laos...

...Yes...

...I was too excited...

...Sunday afternoon she even started on the living room, pruning the dead leaves off my plants, and sweeping accumulated dust out from the corners...