By Eileen McNamara
Published on 6/15/2007
He Talks The Talk, But Topics Are Trial
Tibetan Immigrant Finds Fitting In At High School The Real Test
Old Saybrook (US): In a T-shirt and jeans, Tenzin Palyon Lama looks like an average American high school teenager.
Even when he talks, the recent Tibetan immigrant’s English is nearly flawless, though accented.
But until a year-and-a-half ago, 18-year-old Tenzin, who graduates this month from Old Saybrook High School, was living in Nepal with his two siblings. All three were thousands of miles from their parents, who lived and worked here for 10 years before they were able to bring their children to their new home in America.
“It was very difficult, being apart,” Tenzin said.
It was also difficult, he said, acclimating to American culture when he got here.
In Nepal, he went to a private school where the curriculum and schedules were modeled after American high school. Learning the English language was mandatory, and most subjects were taught in English. It was vogue for students to talk about their plans, real or imagined, to travel to America, and many of the students were children of American and European diplomats.
Because of that Tenzin had no trouble, when he arrived here in December 2005, figuring out the idioms of the region’s language or catching up with his studies when he enrolled at the high school. But socially, he has struggled to fit in.
Part of the reason, Tenzin said, is that by the time he arrived in this country and started high school, his peers had known each other for years and had long since formed lasting friendships and ties. While he always felt welcomed by students and faculty at the high school, he has made only a few friends. And even those, he said, are school chums, not people he socializes with outside of school.
He entered school here as a junior and most of his peers, he said, were active in sports and after-school activities. In his Nepalese school, he said, there wasn’t so much emphasis on extracurricular activities, and he felt he had little to talk about with his new schoolmates.
“People over here were more open, talking all the time and talking about sports and things,” he said. “I could understand people, but I felt like I couldn’t be as open. In Nepal, all we focused on were studies.”
And here, for the first time in his life, Tenzin said, he is a minority.
“It was a huge difference, to suddenly be a minority,” he said.
“Inside his heart, he has pushed down so much. He’s just not as open” as other kids, said Tenzin’s mother, Tsultim Lama.
Despite all that, Tenzin during his first year at Old Saybrook High School made high honors and in his senior year made the honor roll. He’s been accepted at Merrimack College in Massachusetts where he will study either business or engineering.
“He’s just a remarkable young man,” said Kathy Scully, his guidance counselor. “He’s very friendly and very appreciative of all the opportunities presented to him and his family’s efforts to give him those opportunities. He puts an enormous value in all that.”
Though he’s been schooled, both here and in Nepal, in all things American, Tenzin remains fiercely proud of his Tibetan heritage. Like his parents, he believes it’s important to retain his native language and culture. Moving here, he said, has taught him the importance of understanding the diversity and richness of his heritage.
“People here know about the Dalai Lama, but they don’t know about all of Tibetans,” he said. “They’ll see something and say, ‘Oh, that’s Tibet,’ and I’ll say, ‘That’s not Tibet, that’s one part of Tibet.’”
Like all seniors at the high school, Tenzin had to develop a senior project, a yearlong assignment that all seniors must complete before they can graduate. Tenzin’s project was a research project and presentation on his Tibetan culture, which he presented to the school and the community in an assembly at the school. He hired Tibetan performers from New York City, who did traditional Tibetan dances and songs.
“I wanted to show my town and my community my Tibet,” Tenzin said.
In his home with his family on Ledge Road, the family practices their religion and language to keep their culture alive, Tsultim Lama said. But she’s not worried Tenzin will forget about his heritage when he moves away for college.
“He could change a little bit, but not a lot I don’t think,” she said. “He’s grown up with our culture and his base is Tibetan.”
e.mcnamara@theday.com
