Addressing Culture, Employment and Sustainability
Women refugees and immigrants are often cut off from services and opportunities because of language and culture.
One way of solving the problem is for them to undergo intensive English language study. Unfortunately, there are other pressures women and their families face that reduce their time in class and make learning difficult, such as care of children, chores, and the urgency of employment. English mastery takes years of steady application and study, conditions for which are rarely met in refugee and immigrant homes. This problem is ages-old and well known, but there is no mechanism for fixing it because any single step would impact the entire network of refugee providers.
Another way is known but less understood: Communication and learning through a cultural approach. This can take the form of providing meals for Latino families, accommodating their children and setting up separate ESOL classes for husbands, as has been done in Reading Connections’ Motheread program. Such an approach allowed women to predictably attend in the evening, even after a full day of employment, with their family's support.
Backstrap Weavers also advocates for the essential needs of refugee and immigrant women and uses aspects of ESOL and job training, but it frames them in the positive, validating terms of cultural preservation. For women interested in selling their work, they must learn about the potential market and expect to educate Americans about their wares to understand their value.
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| Demonstrations like this teach Americans the value of weaving. |
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| Demonstrations lead to language and other interaction with mainstream Americans. |
Refugee and immigrant women here cannot expect to match the price of “ethnic” goods sold at stores like Pier One Imports or Ten Thousand Villages, where overseas labor costs are tiny.
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| Pricing is a fundamental exercise to establishing value. |
Much of their approach to work and pricing resembles the models established by American craftsmen, potters, jewelers, and fine artists. Like most Piedmont craftsmen and artists, few refugee and immigrant women can make a living solely by their weaving. Instead, it is a transitory step that takes women out of the house and classroom and into direct social contact with mainstream Americans.
For a few master weavers like Ju Nie, they may also take on a teaching role, demonstrating to both their own community here in the US and to Americans their traditional methods.
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| Large turn out for the 2010 World Refugee Day celebration. |
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| Selling woven crafts at World Refugee Day. |
In many immigrant and refugee jobs, women work surrounded by other women unpracticed in English. In such jobs employers only expect workers to understand simple instructions and no more. There are no chances to practice English in an eight-hour shift and few chances for advancement. A woman brings home needed dollars to the family but she remains culturally and linguistically isolated. Some women we know cannot cite three American references for their job resume despite being here for more than ten years. Once the pattern is set, it is difficult to change.
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| Telling life stories. |
Women who weave can receive the praise from their community for preserving cultural values despite the harsh conditions almost all refugees and immigrants face in the Piedmont, they can pass on their technical and artistic skill to daughters and extended family members, they can learn about American business practices and norms, they can sell their work at a respectable price, and share with customers something important about her work, life, and culture.
Recent venues
Art Oasis, 2009
First Friday, Gate City Yarns, Downtown Greensboro, October, 2009
Winter Show, Green Hill Center For NC Art, 2009
ArtQuest, Green Hill Center for NC Art, March 2010
Sewing and English classes, Caldcleugh Multicultural Center (ongoing)
Movies Without Borders, Faith Action International House, 2010
Greensboro Children’s Museum, June, 2010
World Refugee Day at Festival Park, June, 2010
