Street animals

A new documentary called Nickel City Smiler tells the story of Burmese refugee Smiler Greely (no relation to Bill Greeley) and his road from the jungles of Burma to the concrete jungle that is Buffalo's West Side...

"Ninety-eight percent of the individuals that moved into the city of Buffalo for the past two years were refugees," said Donna Pepero, who heads the Refugee School Impact Program in the Buffalo schools. "They're filling these empty houses on the West Side, all over Buffalo."

I love the way people from distant cultures talk, sometimes. Greely's young son Moe Joe talks about living side by side amongst gang members in his neighborhood...

Family members talk about threats from street gangs, and the viewer sees the aftermath of a brick thrown through the family's front window.

"We are not here to fight with these street animals," Moe Joe says. "You see, animals are in the forest, but this is an amazing animal ... This is what I call a street animal."

On the boats and on the planes
They're coming to America
Never looking back again
They're coming to America...

A story of anguish and hope - City of Buffalo - The Buffalo News

www.buffalonews.com
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Ancient Chinese secret

Did you hear about this story? A young Asian man in his 20s tried boarding an Air Canada plane disguised as an elderly white guy in his 50s (looked more like he was in his 70s). The flight crew was alerted when the man didn't complain about prostate problems during the flight. The guy immediately claimed refugee status when he arrived and was given a job offering free samples of chicken at the Galleria Mall food court...

Young Asian man boards Air Canada flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver disguised as old man: photos

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You don't have to live like a refugee (unless of course, you are one)

My nephew Andrew Blake wrote a nice article for Artvoice about a guy from Burma who operates a laundromat on the West Side of Buffalo. His name is Zaw Win (no relation to Tom Finn). He learned to speak Eglish while reading and writing on a prison floor in Burma (the laundry owner, not my nephew):

Zaw Win, a neighborhood resident and proprietor of the newly opened West Side Value Laundromat, remembers 1991 all too well. “They put me in a prison with hard labor for four years because I was fighting for freedom and democracy,” he says.

Zaw, now 40 years old, became a political prisoner in his native Burma at age 18, while still in high school. He picked up a good chunk of his secondary education (including the English language) by reading and writing on the prison floor. Pencil and paper weren’t allowed.

So what? We did the same thing at St. Agatha's.

For the full article, please go to:
http://artvoice.com/issues/v9n20/freedom_fighters