Search Results for: Say K Paw

Army of Good
17 August

Say K Paw’s Long And Triumphant Journey From Near Death In A Refugee Camp To Getting The Best Grades At Nursing School. She’s Got Her Certificate.

by Jon Katz

I’ve always been especially touched by and proud of the story of Say K Paw, a refugee of the Myanmar genocide, which destroyed everything her family-owned; they fled to a refugee camp in Thailand, where she nearly died of rare heart disease.

Her parents got her to the United States, where she received life-saving medical treatment, and went on to Bishop Maginn, where Sue Silverstein took her under her wings.

She was one of the first refugee children I met and interviewed – you can read her story here –  and one of the first whose tuition we paid both at Bishop Maginn and Bishop Gibbons.

She was accepted at the Maria College Nursing School this summer, which she had just finished. She will start her nursing career in September. The lowest grade she got all summer was a 90. I remember Say K telling me that she wanted to be a nurse so she could help sick children the way she was helped.

She seemed shy, but she isn’t. She wrote a beautiful essay about the tragic persecution and slaughter of the Karen People in her country, which continues today. She wants to be an advocate and help Americans understand what is happening in Myanmar is urgent and essential.

Seeing Say K Paw grow stronger and more confident was a gift. She was one of the Bishop Maginn students who helped train Zinnia to be a therapy do. Everything she does, she does well.

 

 

She was the artist of the week in Sue Silverstein’s art program again and again. Say K Paw suffered greatly on her path to America. She is a person of enormous character, talent and courage. Congratulations, Say K, on becoming a nurse, your dream for years. Her wonderful essay on being a refugee still rings in my ears.

“Nobody wants to be a refugee,” she told me. But she became one and turned it into grace and meaning.

Congratulations, Sue, for helping a refugee student who needed love and direction and got so much from you. You did it again and again and do it still. I’m proud to know you.

Thanks also to the Army Of Good. We paid Say K Paw’s six-year tuition to get her to her dream. She is a proud and valuable new citizen of our country.

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12 February

Happy Endings: Say K Paw, Artist Of The Week AT BMHS

by Jon Katz

See what you did!

You might remember Say K Paw, I met her at the Hackett Middle School in Albany, she was a student of Kathy Saso. She was eager to transfer to Bishop Maginn High School, but her family couldn’t afford the tuition.

We raised it for her and this is her first full year at Bishop Maginn.

She loves it, is learning English and feels safe and welcome. This week, she was named Artist Of The Week for the painting that sits over her shoulder in the school lobby.

The refugee children often struggle in the public schools. The classes are large and they have trouble learning English and they are often teased and bullied. Say K Paw says she is learning a great deal and feels safe.

That word means a lot to these refugee children.

They sure know what it means to be unsafe.

It was sweet to see how happy she is (the middle school was very hard for her) and how happy the school is to have her. She had some hard years, it was so nice to see her.

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2 March

One Man’s Truth: Fending Off The Correction Squad. Elitism 101. This Might Be My Best Reply Ever, Says Maria

by Jon Katz

As the country moves towards a total eclipse, I have studied the sun, which I have decided is purple. I’ll explain to you later.

Social media has spawned many good things and a deepening number of not-so-good things. In addition to the Troll Division, there is now a PC Division and an Amateur Diagnoses division for people and animals.

I find them all creepy in different ways despite being a Dyslexic who can’t always see straight and clearly.  I make a lot of mistakes.

Writing in the open online is both gratifying and suffocating.

I was taught to mind my own business, never to correct people I did not know, and to be polite to strangers. Those cultural ethics have all been washed away by the Internet just like a California flood,  and the civility that used to be a common goal or manner has sometimes been violated. Now, it is violated as a matter of course, often by me.

There are no longer any restrictions to obnoxious hordes taking cover behind their computers in their distance and anonymity. I’m working on a healthy response to it.

I wish there were a hearing aid for jerks. I remember my grandfather winking at me as he secretly turned off his hearing aid when my grandmother yelled at him. I feel that way about social media at times.

Last week, a Ph.D. art professor at a very elite college chastised me for daring to  question the precise definitions the art Moguls have placed on its terminology (at least the stuffy wing of art Moguls.

I have never been invited to their meetings.

She wrote that her opinions on art terms could not be debated and insisted that I refrain from ruminating about the confusion between a still life and a portrait. Someone might agree with it.

How dare I think about it, she said. I just seemed ignorant.

A school student there rushed to her teacher’s defense and reminded me that Maria’s art degree (master’s in sculpture) was not worth much since she has no Ph.D. like the professor. So, I needed to pay attention to her.

I taught writing at NYU for five years but never finished college.

(Note: This might be a course in Elitism 201 in disguise.) Since I didn’t pass this along to Maria at first, I escaped being thrown out of the house at breakfast.

If you think I don’t like creative stuffpots who tell other people what to do, you don’t want to be near Maria if she is told her artistic ideas are unimportant because she has no PhD.

Another person, eager to defend the professor,  diagnosed me as being a narcissist because I wouldn’t say I couldn’t bear being disagreed with, although I’m disagreed with every hour of my life, 24/7, see for yourself. To me, being agreed with isn’t the point.

Thinking about what I write is the point, like it or not.

I admit to being nasty too often in response to nastiness. There’s no real excuse for that. I’m doing much better.

Fortunately, I also have the temperament and skin of a mule. I suspect this amateur shrink has yet to have a Ph.D. in psychology or any training. My real shrink, whom I was talking to that day, laughed out loud when I read the comment to her and suggested I had real problems much deeper than that one.

Curious, one of the amateurs shrinks seems to believe to have discovered my secrets.

He and others believe my life centers only on what people say about me. I think I’m pretty nice to people who are nice to me. But I’m biased.

My therapist and I did both end up laughing, which is rare. She’s pretty serious in her work, and I am a challenge.

(Looks red to me. The offending flower)

I admit that my patience for online know-it-alls and yentas (gossips, pests, and rude people)  is wearing thin, especially since I insist on writing openly about my life, and many people find that a target they can’t resist.

Except for the stuffpots, gasbags, and snoots, I’m okay with it.  I’m having fun with my delete button.

And now, the latest stink bomb from social media to come on the scene are the Correction Legions. Some people online live to correct other people online. Pornography makes more sense to me; I can’t fathom how people get off on correcting strangers online.

Pamela sent me this message when I put up a red picture of a tulip yesterday. She has the blunt, didactic, and unquestioning vibe that the correctors have. She has no interest in the flower itself, just the color of it as she sees it or a “mistake” if she can find it.

The florist said it was red; a tag marked it red, and I saw it as red. This isn’t controversial, or anyone’s business but mine, but this is America in 2024.

Everyone with a computer is all-knowing and uninhibited. There is no penalty for being obnoxious, offensive, or intrusive on our Internet. Assholes can come to the party for free.

“The first flower picture above is orange, not red,” Pamela announced without further comment.

I responded to her, and Maria said it was my best response to the digital mosquitoes that swarm social media. They bite a lot, but mostly, they itch. There is no spray with which to wipe them out.

Maria is a wise person.

My answer to Pamela:

“So?”

__

Pamela did not respond; they never do. They seem to need to figure out why they say what they say.

She just disappeared, perhaps stumped by my response. Readers, please do us all a favor. Please don’t send me a message insisting that the flower is green, orange, or yellow. It’s not a contest or conversation I want to join; I see what I see.

As you may have divined, I  don’t care, blessedly. Although I am 76 years old, I have a lot of better things to do, and I pray I never have that much time to worry about such horseshit.

P.S. The sun’s surface is not really purple, as you might have guessed. It’s actually red. Or orange?

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Animals
27 February

Fate Grounded. The Border Collie Challenge, Sliced Paw

by Jon Katz

Fate has been grounded for at least three days. She ran over some glass in the pasture at bullet-train speed and sliced her left rear paw open.

It’s her worst nightmare – being still for a day or more.

Trying to bandage a border collie’s paw is one of the significant challenges of the canine world; it is usually just impossible. The vets insist a cone will stay on, but the border collies I’ve had – Rose, Red, Izzy, Fate – get the cone off before we get a block from the clinic.

They are wizards at removing bandages too, and they hate to be still. Fate has been through a dozen applications already, we’ve found an excellent way to wrap it, and this one has been a record for two days.

We’ve been applying antibiotics and peroxide to the wound and removed a glass slice. She’s been out of the pasture for two days, and the wound is beginning to heal.

(Bud in the sun)

The wound has to close entirely, or she’ll open it when she gets out to the pasture. We have to be strong and unyielding on this.

The vet says to keep trying to keep the bandage; I think we’ve finally got that one working. The wound is beginning to close; one or two more days of quarantine should do it.

She’s not limping anymore. Border collies are notoriously stoic; they will keep going until they drop.

It’s tough on Fate; she loves her runs around the sheep; when we go out without her, she whines and howls piteously. Too bad, I say, keep your bandage on. She cocked her head and listened closely. I think she got it. The bandage has been on all morning.

Fate is scary smart.

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Army of Good
16 October

Saw K Paw: “Nobody Wants To Be A Refugee…” A Genocide Survivor’s Powerful Story, In Her Own Words.

by Jon Katz

I’ve known Saw K Paw for several years. She is 18 now; she came to America about 10 years ago.

She nearly died of rare heart disease in a refugee camp after the Myanmar Army “destroyed our lives, villages, homes, women, girls, even babies all fell to be the victims of their atrocities.”

Her parents, having lost everything and fled for their lives, never stopped fighting to get Saw K Paw to America, where surgeons saved her life.

A different American opened the gates to freedom and saved a child.

Some years ago, I asked the Army Of Good for help for Saw K Paw, and they responded. We paid for her three-year tuition now. She helped train Zinnia for therapy work.

She is happy and healthy.

Saw K Paw is going to college next year to study nursing, just like her sister.

Last week, she submitted a piece to a local essay contest about her commitment to helping preserve the Karen culture in Myanmar, which is in dire danger of being wiped out by the ongoing genocide there.

Tonight, she gave me permission to reprint it.  It is an amazing piece of writing.

Saw K Paw is a person of great strength and character. I am so proud to reprint her essay on my blog.

____

 A Descendant of Myanmar, by Saw K Paw

“Being a descendant of Myanmar, a multi-ethnic South East Asian Country, I have one of the majority Burmese girl names, “Ma Myint,” but I am proud to get addressed as “Say K Paw,” my Karen ethnic name.

I was born in Thailand to my Karen parents, who are both native to Myanmar. I have had a long enduring life throughout my 18 years so far. I am currently studying as a senior at Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons.

  As a representative of the Karen ethnic group of Myanmar, I am glad to be here having a chance to speak out about the things our people have been undergoing for 70-plus years.

Myanmar has gone through one of the longest civil wars, and our people, including the Karen ethnic group,  forced refugees into border areas, where they still endure many hardships.

Our war-torn home imprints in our minds, having a great social and political impact on our lives.

Yet, our Karen people, our people, are not as well recognized and surfaced as other refugees in the global theater. In fact, our decade-long struggles have received less and less global attention despite the length and horror of our crisis.

       Peaceful and contented people as they are, our Karen people love the countryside, harvesting the rice fields, which provide our staple food. Many reflections come back.

We love to feed our families. We love to enjoy our simple lives with the background silhouette of the Dawna Range, a long-lasting token of our Karen’s formidable standing in the Region. 

Though the super hot dry season torments the hardworking people, our memorable harvest season should have been enjoyable if not for the civil war.

 In the name of the Post-Monsoon Season Operation, the Burmese military destroyed our lives, villages, homes, women, girls, even babies; all fell to be the victims of their atrocities.

Without food and water, Karen people ran for their lives deep into the jungle, often losing their loved ones.

      Nobody chooses to be a refugee.

But we became one among many thousands in the refugee camps along the Myanmar-Thai border. While my family was on the run, I was very sick.

I later learned that I have a heart condition called Tetralogy of Fallot. All my parents’ attempts to save me pushed them into a tougher situation among the existential living.

Thanks to the United Nations HCR program, we were able to move to the United States to save me from this critical condition. With no knowledge of language or culture, my parents never gave up, just clinging to the hope of saving me.

Somehow, they got to America. I was then just a little girl in and out of the hospital, and I would never have imagined that I would be where I am today.

        After a storm comes a calm.

Now, during my free time, I teach Karen traditional dance for our community celebrations like the New Year and Wrist Tying Ceremony.

I just do this to give back to my community and to remember my parents’ journey to make sure that I could be healthy. I love teaching our Karen traditional dance because I want to keep the tradition alive.

I want to inform the upcoming generation that this beautiful tradition comes from our great-great-grandparents.

The culture’s dance has been passed down from generation to generation to keep it alive.

I want to show the new Karen generation that this is who we are as the Karen ethnic group, coming together to see and enjoy this dance.

      I want to empower the younger generations to love and care for our people and culture.

When I was young, I never knew that I would be doing all these things, like teaching my traditional dance and representing my people in any way that I could.

My family and I were then too focused on staying alive. But we overcame our struggles. Now, I want to let the world know that we, the Karen ethnic people exist, and we want to be treated like others and loved like others.

I am here to represent the Karen ethnic group in Myanmar, proudly and confidently, with all my heart.”

  • Saw K Paw
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