Cultural Reporter Introduction: Getting to know the Karen

Looking at the term Karen once brought to me a sense of pure confusion. Why would we need to be focused on an entire group of individuals named Karen? Are these women marginalized because of the way their parents decided to label them? Was it some terrible mishap that lead their names to be their downfalls? Fortunately none of that is the truth of the matter, but the unfortunate facts are that the Karen (pronounced Kuh-ren) peoples are a cultural group from Burma/Myanmar that have taken up residence around the United States as refugees.

The Karen people have formally been a subgroup of the Burmese people since 1881 when the Karen National Associations were created by well-educated, Christian Karens to represent the interests of the Karen people to the British, the occupying colonial power of the time. Since that point the Karen people have been set apart and disenfranchised through different political and militaristic means due to differing factors in their culture, including but not limited to customs, religion and language. As of this day and age many Karen peoples have fled Burma in search of new homes due to the Burmese government and military violently forcing the Karen out of their homes and villages and subsequently setting fire to the structures. Many have chosen to cross the border of the country into Thailand where the Thai government has set up refugee camps for many of the remaining Karen. Many of the Karen people have accused the government of Burma of ethnic cleansing with respect to the Karen and the US State Department has cited the government for suspension of religious freedoms within the country. As of now many Karen have been relocated from their refugee camps in Thailand to refugee resettlement centers in the United States, one of which is Lincoln. While many refugees residing in Lincoln originate from the countries of Asia, the Karen people are the fastest growing refugee group in the state with the recent arrival of 400 Karen in May of 2011.

It is my wish to observe this culture and understand more of their customs and practices as I have had some limited interaction with Karen youth through my work in schools around Lincoln and find their way of life fascinating. Being newly relocated from a country to which they fled is a very scary and amazing life story to share, and I feel that anyone who has been able to endure a journey such as that and still make it to school everyday to learn deserves to have their past heard and documented. Looking around the internet for insight into the Karen I found that Omaha has the largest population of Karen peoples, Lincoln having the second largest, and that a new years celebration typically occurs in Omaha annually (dohsay1, 2009). This culture has its own unique practices, including traditional attire, language, food and a rich tapestry of history that one would be ignorant to not want to hear more about it from a first-hand experience. It is my hope to have the opportunity to get this information and be able to better connect with and understand a culture different from my own in the future.

In order to go about my research and find out about the experiences of the Karen I hope to conduct interviews with individuals that have some accounts of the Karen. In my past experiences at Park Middle School I had the opportunity to work with Karen students, some that had arrived the week prior to their attendance in the classroom, and was able to get to know them personally. I hope to return to Park MS where I will be able to sit down with some of my previous students and ask them questions regarding their culture and hear their first hand accounts. Additionally, in my research around the internet I found that a professor in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln has started a series of stories entitled New Voices, focusing primarily on creating a website dedicated to understanding the refugee populations in Lincoln and writing articles regarding their cultures and practices (Karas, 2011). It is my hope to sit down with the lead professor of the project, Tim Anderson, and pick his brain for what he has come to know of the Karen during his time getting the New Voices website up and running. I do expect that through these two experiences my opportunities to make connections for more immersion into the Karen culture will present themselves and I plan to take them.

At this point I am excited and ready to begin my work in finding out the intricacies and inner workings of the Karen culture and I look forward to hearing first hand from a Karen individual how he feels being in the United States as a minority culture and how that affects him as a Karen person. Check early and often for my findings as I hope to shed some light on this often forgotten group of people.

References
- dohsay1. (Producer). (2009). Karen new year celebration 1948 omaha, nebraska 1 . [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX7Nf8mQdeM
- Karas, R. (2011, June). Mosaic: lincoln's new voices. Retrieved from http://www.j-newvoices.org/site/story_print/1418/
- Kemmet, K. (2011, July 14). Workshop gives insight into karen culture. Retrieved from http://theindependent.com/articles/2011/07/14/news/local/13629422.txt