Jamie Kang- September 11th, 2008

Hello,
It’s been about three weeks in Rome, but I have been away from home about 2 months! So, it is time for me to head home, soon. I think it was a rough start for all of us to grasp Rome in such a different perspective. When we think of Rome, we think of the Vatican City and all the historic values it has within every street and every building. I got to experience that from a visitor’s perspective (Father Kim). With him, Rome is still a beautiful city, even with its flaws. You see people going to places, conversing with each other and enjoying yet another burning day. He told his stories and toured us around Rome with such pride and sense of happiness that he feels from this city. I felt it and I still feel it, but something inside me has changed. This is from visiting schools, talking with immigrants at the market, volunteering at the refugee center, and reflecting my experiences as an immigrant in the U.S. They say Rome is a city that never changes, but it is time for a change.
I cannot imagine living here as an immigrant without adequate resources. If my parents were stranded here with no knowledge of the Italian language, what would they have done? For every immigrant living away from his/her home country, he/she will always feel multiple identities. This would be hard for anyone else to understand. Just as the teacher at the Manin school said, “It is a problem that the Chinese student goes home to his Chinese culture, living two worlds.” What should the Chinese student do? Tell his parents to live like Italians and give up their identities and traditions? In my perspective, the Chinese student will have much more broader perspective of the two worlds. The world is becoming more multicultural every year; therefore, the emphasis on becoming one culture (identity or self) has to change. It is important to use these situations as an opportunity for other students to become aware and familiar with other cultures in Italy.
Although different countries will have different rules and regulations for schools, it’s the teachers who will make the difference in students. It is essential for Italy to become multicultural with teachers as more immigrant children attend schools.
Lastly, I want to share with all of you a poem that Hijran (a political refugee from the St. Paul’s Refugee Center) wrote about his emotional and physical difficulties he must face as a refugee:

Throughout my life, I have always been hopeless, feared, and fearing. My heart has always been pouring fountains of blood over the plight of my country and my soul always strangled.
God, oh my God, I may be dragged into profanation, should you not see my plight and not listen to the voice of my heart. I might commit a sin by making complaints against your Almighty, but nonetheless, I do so by forging complaints against you, against yourself in your entire sanctity.
What would happen if my world was a better place to live in and what would it be like, as if God has vested a mother the responsibility to look after and care for the planet earth (world)?
Such that my city would not experience the man made atrocity and would observe no artilleries destroying lives. Consequently my other country men and I would wake to a bright day instead of living lives under an everlasting darkness of the bloody nights.
Religion, the religion has always proved disastrous to m e and caused me to shun it and it (religion) has affected me to the extent that I sing the songs of disapproval against my own religion.
I never perhaps whatever I have seen in the foundation of it (religion), is baseless and nothing more than pure superstitious. As a result of being empty spectacles the religion has ruined my world.
What have you brought to me, which you (religion) demand of me to pay back except for pain, disaster and countless problems?
I would seek revenge on the Prophet whose religion has brought about the destruction of my entire entity.
I will deviate and break the Arab’s much shunned and backward rules of law, the rules that made it not only difficult but also impossible for me to live a life free of fear and thirst for hate.

I hope that everyone gets a chance to reflect our privileged lives in the States!