Refugees and locals try to bridge language barrier to make Buffalo more ...

Han Moe, a refugee from Burma, has been in the United States for 15 years. He's fluent in English, so he accompanied a neighbor, also a refugee, to a local hospital, where he tried to explain to staff the medical and language situation.

The staff told Moe they didn't need him.

"They said they had their own system," Moe said.

But that didn't last too long.

"Two hours later they come back out," Moe said. "'Can you help us, Mr. Moe?' They think everyone from Burma speaks Burmese."

The hospital had run into a problem many others now face as more immigrants settle in the Buffalo area: not knowing what language to try to interpret.

Refugees from Burma, for example, speak Burmese and several dialects of Karen. No one on the hospital's telephone interpreter system could figure out which one Moe's neighbor spoke.

A new wave of immigrants has arrived in Buffalo over the past 15 years, and now 7 percent of the city's population consists of resettled refugees from places like Iraq, Bhutan, Burma, Somalia and Sudan.

More than 60 languages are spoken in homes that send their kids to Buffalo Public Schools.

It's no surprise, then, that as refugees and locals try to adjust to the new demographics, they run smack into the same obstacle confronting Moe's neighbor: the language barrier.

Social workers, police, government leaders and refugees agree that, of all the challenges of assimilation, language is the most difficult.

Moe, who has served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, works as a medical assistant and interpreter at Jericho Road Community Health Center. Even so, he said at a recent conference on refugee health, it can be hard to communicate with some medical professionals.

Beyond language, there also is the basic problem of adjustment to the American way of life, from public school schedules and weekly trash collection to how the smoke detector works and what it means to have a paycheck direct-deposited.

"Most new arrivals, we need to teach them how to survive here," Moe said. "You have to educate them about how to live in Western New York, how to clean, how to cook."

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/refugees-and-locals-try-to-bridge-language-barrier-to-make-buffalo-more/