Students studying to take the US Citizenship exam, from left, Meena Budathoki, Jaga Acharya, Dhan Basnet, instructor Nancy Swyers, Dhan Acharya, Khrisna Dargee, and Ganga Gurung (Photo by Peter Francis)
WESTFIELD – The rain seemed to stop at around 6:30 Tuesday evening, as the Westfield Community Food Pantry on Meadow Street morphed into a gateway, the sort of gateway that cities all over the United States have served as over the last hundred years. A gateway to a new life, a gateway to more opportunities…
A gateway to the American Dream.
Every Tuesday evening for the past few months, Nancy Swyers, a refugee outreach worker employed by the city of Westfield, has been working with immigrants from the Asian nations of Nepal and Bhutan in what she refers to as “citizenship courses” in order to prepare to take the test to become a United States citizen.
According to Swyers, the program is a final step in a long arduous journey.
“Many of these people (Nepalese and Bhutanese immigrants) have been in this country for the past four or five years,” said Swyers, who has also taught English as a Second Language courses for immigrant children in Westfield Public School system. “After being in the country for a year, they are eligible to receive their green card. And by the fifth year, they are eligible to take the citizenship exam.”
The citizenship exam is basically an American history exam, and a reputedly strenuous one, as could be expected, one which Swyers believes her students are well on their way to taking and passing.
The students on Tuesday evening were Jaga Acharya and his wife Dhan, Khrisna Dargee, Ganga Gurung, Meena Budathoki and Dhan Basnet. Like many refugee immigrants, several of them have been employed off and on through temp agencies and with companies such as Yankee Candle, where Budathoki worker until recently laid off.
The current economic state in the country has provided an additional challenge to these proud people who have arrived in a brave new world.
When asked to list the most challenging aspects of immigration, Jaga was quick to speak for the group.
“It’s very different from Nepal,” he said in a thick accent which buttresses his rapidly improving English, “There are no Hindu temples, and English is a difficult language to adjust to.”
Additionally, while the state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles has driver’s examinations in many different languages, Nepali is not among them, which means that many Nepalese immigrants are forced to use public transportation, a very challenging concept for a population that has been living in refugee camps for the past two decades.
“Things haven’t caught up since their arrival,” Swyers says in regards to a lack of Nepali consideration from the RMV. But she does have high praise for the city of Westfield’s work with these newcomers.
“The city has been great,” Swyers said, mentioning that Westfield is one of the cities in western Mass. to hire outreach workers like herself through funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, and through measures such as the Refugee School Impact Grant.
Acharya concurs.
“Westfield has been great,” he said, before going on to describe measures taken by the city’s schools to work with his and Dhan’s children. The Achraya’s have two daughters at Holyoke Community College, with two more daughters still in Westfield Public Schools, one at Westfield High school, while another is still in middle school. All of the other women in the class also had children in the Westfield school system, as well.
When asked how the Nepalese and Bhutanese communities are interacting with Westfield’s Russian community, the city’s last large immigrant population following the dissoloution of the Soviet Union over twenty years ago, the group shook their heads in unison upon translation.
“It’s not that there is tension between the groups,” said Swyers. “It’s just that, like many other immigrant communities over the past hundred years, you tend to stick together and not associate with other groups.”
As this small but determined group makes their way each day in the Whip City, they keep their collective and individual goals close to their hearts.
“I hope to gain citizenship, a car, a good job, and good educations for my children,” said Acharya with a dogged optimism, shared by generations of immigrants before him.
By quarter of seven Tuesday, the first rays of sunshine had finally shredded through the rain and clouds, shining down on the Westfield Community Food Pantry, where seven future citizens sat with their teacher, American dreaming.
