So refreshing: some like to actually learn our traditions!

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Their 1st Thanksgiving
Turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce: Another lesson in being American

By John Biemer
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 23, 2006


About two dozen high school students from around the globe got their first taste of Thanksgiving during first-period class Wednesday morning.

Teenagers from Mexico, Poland, India, Afghanistan and China--united by their fledgling English-language skills and the fate that brought them to Glenbard East High School in west suburban Lombard--dug into mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie at an hour when some teachers were still toting coffee mugs.

With that potluck meal, prepared by English Language Learning teachers and bilingual aides, the faculty hoped to instill the simple meaning of a cherished American holiday.

Many of the students have been in the country for just months, arriving with vast differences in their prior education.

Lucia Maceda, 15, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Glendale Heights, sported a gold crucifix and a sweatshirt with the words "Girl Power." She declared the meal, particularly the potatoes, "very delicious."

Through an aide's translation, the one-year U.S. resident said she was "thankful to God for everything he has given us throughout the year and thankful for the food here today and for being healthy."

Pratik Patel, 16, a native of India who lives in Glendale Heights, is a vegetarian, so he ate only a rice dish prepared by the aide who helps him in his language of Gujurati. But the teen with a wispy moustache beamed while describing his first Thanksgiving experience.

In India, there are "no fun days," like this, he said, other than Diwali, a five-day Hindu festival of lights. "I have my holidays, but it's no fun," said Patel, who hopes to become a pharmacist. "Here is fun, so fun."

"I like the United States," he said, smiling. "The future is different in India than here."

The faces in the classroom reflect shifting immigration patterns that are changing once-homogeneous DuPage County suburbs. Large cities used to be the gateways to America, but now many immigrants head straight to the outskirts, sometimes helped by refugee resettlement agencies such as Wheaton-based World Relief.

Arash Ahmedyar, 16, of Glendale Heights, is a refugee from Afghanistan who has lived in the U.S. since 2001. Before that, his family fled Kabul to escape the Taliban and spent 12 years in Pakistan. His parents had Russian schooling, he said, and the Taliban were "trying to kill people if they were educated in Russia or other outside countries."

As he waited to join the line to get his helping, Ahmedyar declared Thanksgiving "kind of fun."

In 1986, the Glenbard district's four high schools had about 8,000 students, of which 80 were enrolled in the English Language Learning program. This year, with a student body of nearly 9,000, there are 272 students in the program, speaking 29 different languages from Albanian to Vietnamese.

Spanish speakers are by far the largest group, about 45 percent, followed by Gujurati at 10 percent and Polish at 7 percent. But more than 1,300 students speak a language other than English at home.

"This area is just becoming more diverse, economically and socially, and my view is that is a good thing," said John Moss, the district's director of special services. "It does introduce these students to the world they're going to live in. If it's not the way it used to be, that's because the world is not the way it used to be."

Math teacher Tom Rogowski, who was up past midnight cooking the turkey, carved it at 7:45 a.m. because first period is when the "newcomer" and the first level English language classes meet. Behind him was a green chalkboard decorated with a placard that read "Celebrate Diversity!"

"What do we have on our table?" teacher Sue McSherry asked the students.

"Turkey," some said.

She held up a dish. "What else do we have?"

"Potatoes."

Then McSherry lifted a casserole dish containing something dark red, gelatinous and can-shaped. "What else do we have here?"

There were blank stares. The cranberry sauce was a stumper.

"This is a traditional Thanksgiving dinner," McSherry said. "We ask that you try a little bit of everything."

Many Mexican students in the English language program had halted their formal education in about 5th or 6th grade to begin working, only to find themselves in school again after they came to the United States, teachers said. Catching up is even harder because their families are often transient, so they drop out and move on without explanation. Every year they stay in the same program, their prospects are brighter, said McSherry, who called herself the students' "Mama Bear."

"If I can hang on to them for a year and roll into that next year, I have a good chance of getting them through high school," she said.

Other students, like Patel and Bartek Ciezobka, 16, of Lombard, a Polish immigrant with black wire-rimmed glasses who arrived last December and hopes to become a pianist, come with a solid education.

"They just need the English," McSherry said. "It takes them about a year, year and a half, and then they just take off."

But it takes longer to break through to some students, such as Hung Ling, 18, who arrived two years ago as a stowaway on a ship from China before meeting up with relatives in Lombard, teachers said.

Ling was shy. He spoke no English. The school staff had no Chinese speakers, so teachers were stymied. Recently, they figured out that he likes to play the clarinet, and he began to loosen up.

After his meal, Ling said he liked Thanksgiving: It reminded him of New Year's Day in China.

"I like the turkey," he said with a tentative smile.