Connecting Communities with ESL

I’m originally from Northern Kentucky. I moved down here to go to WKU (Western Kentucky University) in 2019. My sister was already down here, I had a lot of family down here, so I was very familiar with the city. And one thing I found out pretty quickly was that Bowling Green is really diverse for such a small city in Kentucky.

I was studying International Affairs and Spanish at the time, and so I wanted to be involved in some capacity with the international community. I thought, I might not be able to study abroad or go to other places right now, but Bowling Green is really diverse, there’s a lot of people, and so I wondered how I could get involved in all of that.

My sophomore year of college, I started volunteering with the English program at Refuge Bowling Green. I would just come to class, sit down at a table and talk to people, and help people fill out their worksheets or stuff for the day. I wasn’t teaching or anything, I would just come and volunteer and just help out where I could. And I loved it. I mean, it’s so much fun. I think my favorite part of it is the personal, relational aspect of it. That’s what I love.

I was volunteering for a couple of years, filling in as a teacher here and there. One day I was at a class and a teacher was sick at the last minute and the ESL coordinator was like, “Maggie, can you do it?” And I was like, “I guess?”

I didn’t know how to teach this class, but they were advanced students and just wanted to talk. So I started teaching, found out I love teaching English, started teaching more, had my own class, did my own thing. Then, the ESL coordinator left for another job and so they asked me to come on part-time when I was still in college. That was a crazy time and I was tired a lot. But after I graduated, they hired me full time in January 2023. So I graduated a semester early, and went full-time with Refuge as the English Program Manager.

It’s changed so much since I’ve been here. When I first came, we were funded by one grant and it was really small. I was the only paid staff member for the ESL program, working 30 hours a week. But we were still serving a lot of people, our classes were pretty big. And we were the only program to offer childcare and transportation like we do, which is a really big need, especially for the moms, who often have the most barriers to education. Some of our programs have received their first federal grant, which totally transformed this program. We can hire teachers now.

I have a Children’s Program Coordinator, RJ. I love her. She took a lot off my plate because I was coordinating transportation, childcare, and Adult Ed. It was crazy for a while. But I love that, I love being with the people. And, you know, I wouldn’t want to just sit behind the desk and do work and administrative stuff. I want to be with people. With the Afghan community, I’ve been here since their day one of coming to Bowling Green. I think that’s a community that I’ve really gotten to connect with. It’s really surprising to me when I talk to so many people who were born and raised here and have no idea about the diversity here. They kind of know, because of the school system and stuff like that, but they don’t really know the numbers of it.

So I started to ask myself, how could this happen? Where are these families? Other than English class, where are they going? What stores are they going to, what parts are they frequenting? I just started going where they were. I just inserted myself into their lives. I let them know that I’m going to be around, and they know that I’m going to help them if I can. I want them to come to English class, obviously, and develop their English skills, but I think for a lot of them, their English develops better outside of the classroom. Being able to speak and practice and talk, and go to the store and just talk about what’s the name of this, etc, I think that has been really impactful for a lot of them.

And I think a lot of people come into it thinking that they just need to change and they need to become, I don’t know, “civilized,” or some other terrible words. Like they need to come and change and be exactly like Americans and all this stuff. And yet they have so much to give. Their hospitality is unmatched. The way that they welcome you into their home, the way they feed you and treat you like family, is something that is lacking in America.

They’re also entrepreneurs. They’re out here trying to start all kinds of businesses, restaurants, stores, etc. I love it.

I think it’s important to remember that they lose family when they come here. You know, they don’t have anybody. Some of the Afghans and many others have been separated from brothers, sisters, their husbands, and parents. They come here and they’re isolated. English class is one of those things where they come together. Learning English is great, but I love that they come together to see their friends. It’s so good for their mental health to get out of the house, and to come and have community and things like that, and if I can be a part of that, if they consider me a sister or an aunt or friend or whatever, then I’ll be that for them, because they lost so much in coming here, you know? But I also want everybody else to know what they can gain from it, too.