Reflections

by Laura Burian

As a teacher, I like to think that a lot of important learning takes place in the classroom. However, when I reflect on my own education, I find that many of my most powerful learning experiences have taken place outside of the classroom setting.

During my junior year of college at Duke University, I spent spring break biking through rural Northeastern North Carolina – a relatively impoverished and isolated area – with a group called the North Carolina Student Rural Health Coalition. We were raising money for free clinics staffed by medical students from Western North Carolina, and raising awareness about the plight of the impoverished, disempowered, and primarily African American population of these rural communities. We sincerely hoped to come back from the trip having done some good for communities in need.

Every night, we biked to a different community, where local residents described the situations they faced and asked us to help with activities like delivering dinner through Meals on Wheels or cleaning a community center. These activities probably created more busywork for the local residents than they actually provided help, but we gladly bought the illusion that we were helping – until one of the community organizers set us straight.

This gentleman asked us to distribute flyers urging everyone to vote for one particular Reverend in an upcoming city council election. The Reverend’s flyers listed, among other things, that he was a Republican and he supported President George Bush’s “War on Drugs”. One of our pre-med students with liberal political convictions said that he was uncomfortable distributing these flyers for many reasons: we were not here for political purposes, but to help with the medical clinics; we did not know anything about this candidate, but many of us were not supporters of the Republican party; and we did not all necessarily support the “War on Drugs” the way it was being fought.

Upon hearing this list of objections, the community organizer exploded. He condemned us “do-gooders” for thinking we could come into their community and tell them what to do.  He was angry that we looked at the “War on Drugs” from an armchair perspective while people in his community were struggling every day with the addiction, violence, and destruction that results from drug abuse. He told us that we, as privileged rich white kids, had no business in their community at all unless we were committed to being in this struggle for life. He berated us for not even recognizing the privilege that separated us from so much of the world.

His words stung. I found it almost impossible to digest what he was saying as I was so caught up in the powerful negative emotions being directed at us. I felt that he was not treating us as individuals but as representatives of an oppressive group to which we did not feel we belonged. My instinct was to run away. But I also wanted to struggle though the pain to get to a point of understanding.

I remained involved with the Coalition until graduation, and then my life took a different path. However, one of our group members – the pre-med student who had sparked the conflict with his reluctance to distribute the flyers – stayed closely connected to the cause for many years. Throughout his time in medical school, he helped the medical and nursing students in the clinics build better relationships with the communities they served. He worked with community leaders to ensure that they were truly being heard and that they were the ones driving the agenda of the clinics, rather than outsiders. Upon graduation, he took his medical practice to a rural community similar to the ones we visited.

Lila Watson and her fellow aboriginal activists have said: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” This, in the end, was the message I took home from that eye-opening experience: those of us who do come from privileged background and have the urge to “do good” must first recognize our privilege and how it separates us from the life experience of so many others. If we want to truly be of service of others, we must first take the time to listen, learn, and understand our own situation as well as that of those we wish to serve. We must recognize what keeps us apart and what ties us together. Only with this recognition is it possible to become a partner to promote positive change.

Laura Burian is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation, and Language Education at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where she received her MA in Chinese/English translation and interpretation. She has worked as an in-house translator, interpreter, and legal assistant in the Beijing office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She currently combines her teaching at MIIS with extensive freelance work as a translator and interpreter and teacher of short courses in the US and China. Her clients come from the non-profit sector, the private sector (primarily in venture capital), and government (including the US Departments of State, Treasury, Energy, Commerce, and Defense). She is also a professional violinist and fiddler and mother of two amazing children.