UNL student mentors learn with teen refugees, immigrants

On Friday afternoons, University of Nebraska-Lincoln senior Krystal Teixeira heads to Lincoln's North Star High School to meet with 15-year-old Viridiana Morales, a Mexican immigrant. The two settle down in the school's commons area to study and catch up on each other's lives. They get down to work: sharing a children's story, "If You Give a Pig a Pancake," which Morales memorized for an oral communications class. Teixeira listened intently as Morales read aloud, nodding encouragement.

At the end of the semester, Morales will have logged more than 30 hours with a personal tutor, and Teixeira will have earned internship credit. But the benefits of their time together run much deeper.

"I thought the program would be fun and worthwhile," Teixeira said. "But I've learned so much from Viridiana since we met. I'm very interested in Mexican culture and her background."

"I've learned a lot from this experience," said Pamela Lorna, a mentor who has tutored two students. "I'm interested in working with refugees and learning about other cultures. I come from Singapore and grew up in a family where I had everything, and this program gave me a chance to meet someone who leads a completely different life."

Lorna and Teixeira are two of 12 UNL undergraduates involved in this refugee and immigrant mentoring program at North Star. The program, in its third year, was founded by anthropology professor Mary Willis, who has worked extensively with Lincoln's refugee populations.

"The tutoring program was started because we had so many refugee kids in the high schools that had no support," Willis said. "All refugees need support and mentoring, but high school students are in a particular bind because they aren't necessarily enveloped within agency programs, and they need a different kind of enculturation. So, it occurred to me to have UNL students work with them. And it has turned out to be more beneficial than I had imagined. It's been enlightening and very productive for all of the students."

Willis said most UNL students are rarely exposed to populations outside of their own ethnic and socioeconomic groups. The mentoring program has given students something that cannot be obtained in a classroom: real experience and exposure to people from different countries and cultural backgrounds. Likewise, immigrants and refugees seldom have the chance to spend time with people living in their host communities; their paths simply never cross.

Willis said many of the college students enter the program thinking about the assistance they will give the high school students, but don't necessarily take into account how much they will learn from their mentees. "It's been delightful to see the outcomes," she said.

The program requires a commitment of two semesters from both the high school and college students. The mentor pairs can work on schoolwork, English language study, or just talk about life and social skills; there are no limits placed on their conversations. "Sometimes, the girls just want to learn how to shop for cool stuff that's not expensive," Willis said.

Willis and her students try to keep the program manageable and have limited participation to approximately 10 pairs each semester. They rely on the support of the counselors and English as a Learned Language teachers at North Star to help administer the program. And beginning this year, Willis has been working with UNL English professor Barbara DiBernard to engage new mentors from UNL's women's studies program. Willis and DiBernard said they hope to ultimately develop the mentoring program--which currently awards mentors internship credit--into a formal curriculum and course for both English and anthropology.

This fall, Morales is doing well in her classes, so in addition to tackling homework, she and her tutor spend a fair amount of time just talking and hanging out. Over the course of their year together, it's clear that the two have become friends. As they pose for photos of their study session, Morales insists that Teixeira unbraid her hair and fluff it for the camera. They giggle like sisters, which, in a sense, they are.

The link below is to a color JPEG image of Morales (left) reading to Teixeira.

CONTACT: Mary Willis, Asst. Professor, Anthropology and Geography, (402) 472-9677