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243
Chapter Eleven
This article presents the story of Chandra (her real name), a middle-aged,
Guyanese-American woman attending an adult education center in the Northeast United States. Chandra grew up in extreme poverty in Guyana, and was
taken out of school at age eight to help meet the family’s basic needs. At age 22,
she immigrated to the United States in hopes of better opportunities. Through
narrative methods, Chandra’s story is constructed from 34, narrative and expository, written texts that she composed for a literacy tutoring program, as well as
three, in-depth, oral interviews. The result is a moving account of Chandra’s
childhood in Guyana, immigration and acculturation in the United States, and
her determination to continue her education despite the obstacles she has faced.
Keywords: Adult Education, Immigration, Narrative Inquiry
“Just imagine if you couldn’t read, how hard it would be. And you would want to
learn, but it’s hard. sometimes people don’t think to understand if you don’t know
how to read how hard it is.” – Chandra Byman (her real name, used with permission)
Immigration is life-changing in many ways, and often results in culturallinguistic identity shifts (Pavlenko, 2004; Rumbaut, 1997). Many immigrants are
faced with the challenge of acquiring a new language; however, even for those who
speak some variety of the local language, living in a new cultural context requires
shifting communication patterns to adapt to the subtler, social and behavioral
cues surrounding language use. Additionally, for adult immigrants, participation
in formal education (e.g., English classes, general education development (GED),
or higher education), can play a key role in adapting to their new home, as well
as increasing earning and employment opportunities. Throughout this process,
there is the discovery – or perhaps, the (re)construction – of one’s own voice and
identity as it exists in a new language and culture (e.g., Kinginger, 2004).
Chandra’s Story
An Adult Education Student Journeys From
Fear to Gratitude
Danzak, R. L. (2017). Chandra’s Story: An Adult Education Student Journeys from Fear to
Gratitude.The Qualitative Report, 22(5), 1227–1236.
Qualitative Research in Practice : Examples for Discussion and Analysis, edited by Sharan B. Merriam, and Robin S. Grenier, John Wiley & Sons,
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244 Qualitative Research in Practice
These challenges, and others, are addressed here in the narrative of Chandra
Byman, a tenacious, fifty-year old woman attending an adult education center
in an urban area of the northeastern United States. Chandra grew up in a small
town outside of Georgetown, Guyana, in a large, loving family living in extreme
poverty. Her parents’ struggle to feed seven children meant that basic education
was a luxury, and Chandra was taken out of school at age eight to help fulfill
household needs. At age 22, she boarded a plane and started a new life in a completely different, faraway place: Queens, New York. After more than two decades
of working as a housekeeper/caretaker in the tri-state area, Chandra, now a U.S.
citizen, decided to return to school to earn her GED.
In many ways, Chandra’s immigration narrative is typical: As a young adult,
she took a bold risk and moved from Guyana to the United States in hopes of
escaping poverty and increasing opportunities for herself and her family back
home. This turning point was a first step in a series of huge transitions in her
life. In other ways, however, Chandra is different. At the heart of her story is education: her deep sadness and longing for the basic education of which she was
deprived as a child and adolescent, and her continuous struggle to recover, as a
middle-aged adult, the schooling she missed. Chandra is hungry for knowledge,
and – as she stated – having grown up without teachers or mentors to guide her,
now serves as a role model for her nieces and nephews in Guyana and Trinidad,
encouraging them to stay in school and read as much as possible because, “knowledge is power.” Thus, Chandra’s narrative offers compelling insights into the
experiences and feelings of an immigrant, adult education student who, daily,
pushes herself beyond her comfort zone into new and challenging worlds while,
in the process, reconstructing her sense of self, and moving from a place of fear
to a place of gratitude.
My roles in Chandra’s story include teacher, mentor, friend, and investigator.
I am a university professor and researcher; however, foremost, I consider myself
an educator. I am bilingual and, for the past twenty years, have been a language
teacher in one way or another. Chandra participates in the language-literacy
tutoring group at the adult education center where I volunteer. Due to my own
experiences learning and teaching languages and living in other countries, I am
particularly drawn to the immigrant experience. In my research, I work to promote others’ understanding of this experience through the voices of those that
have lived it.
Methods
Chandra’s story was co-constructed on the basis of narrative inquiry (Bassi
Follari, 2014; Clandinin, 2013; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), that is, “the study
of experience as story” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 13). Her narrative was documented
over the course of two years during which she attended small-group, English language and literacy tutoring at an adult education center, where I volunteer as
a tutor. Since fall 2014, Chandra and four other women – all immigrants with
diverse goals – participated in biweekly tutoring sessions of two hours each.
As a tutor, my way of work with these women has been to use writing as a
medium to advance language, literacy, and critical thinking skills (e.g., Klein,
Qualitative Research in Practice : Examples for Discussion and Analysis, edited by Sharan B. Merriam, and Robin S. Grenier, John Wiley & Sons,
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Chandra’s Story 245
Boscolo, Gelati, & Kirkpatrick, 2014), as well as to encourage the students’ expression of personal experiences and opinions. Thus, Chandra and her peers have
read and written narrative texts about their childhood and adolescence (inspired
by Cisneros, 1991), and their immigration journeys (based on Vargas, 2011), as
well as numerous expository texts in response to articles about women’s issues,
education, poverty, racism, peace, the environment, etc. Due to the authentic
nature of the students’ writing, we sometimes sent their work to relevant, outside
audiences. In one such case, Chandra published an article (Byman, 2015) in The
Change Agent, an adult education magazine for social justice, about her recollection of celebrating Diwali as a child in Guyana.
After working with Chandra for one year, she and her classmates gave consent to use their writing and participate in a series of interviews for the narrative
inquiry (the study was approved by my university’s IRB). Ultimately, Chandra’s
story is comprised of 34 of her written texts composed for tutoring; two, hourlong interviews (December 2015); and a 32- minute follow-up (March 2016). The
interviews, which took place in Chandra’s home, were unstructured and openended, in the style of oral history (Fontana & Frey, 1994), and recorded with
her permission. After the recordings were transcribed (56 pages, double-spaced),
Chandra reviewed printed transcripts and we met again for a follow-up, member
check (Anfara, Brown, & Mangione, 2002), where we discussed questions about
the interviews and clarified/expanded on certain points. The member check was
also recorded and transcribed.
I also should disclose that, in May 2016, I gave Chandra a printed version
of her narrative, almost complete, to review. She returned the copy to me with
various minor, editorial corrections to the text. However, I opted not to edit the
text, but rather to preserve her voice by maintaining her original writing and oral
language from the interviews.
Thus, the account presented here is a tapestry woven from Chandra’s own
stories, told both in writing and orally. The result is a rich narrative of Chandra’s
journey, from struggling as a child in Guyana to immigrating to the United States,
becoming independent and, finally, taking action to continue her education and
development. In her own words, here is Chandra’s story.
Growing Up in Fear: “Sadness
in One’s Heart”
It is hard to be uneducated and have to struggle every day of your life to do something like reading, you know, a simple task. Sometimes, people should walk in
other people’s shoes to feel how hard it is. Because, for me, it’s very frustrating
when I can’t do something, and it’s not like I don’t want to learn. In my village,
I never had a role model who I could look up to. I never heard anyone talk about
education and the importance of it. For me, my greatest wish is to learn more
each and every day.
As a child growing up, I always feared and wondered where my next meal
would come from. It was a scary feeling to see the night seeping in and you
might not have any food to eat before going to bed. Can you imagine what
this does to a child’s emotions? Only sadness in one’s heart. All I know is it was
Qualitative Research in Practice : Examples for Discussion and Analysis, edited by Sharan B. Merriam, and Robin S. Grenier, John Wiley & Sons,
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246 Qualitative Research in Practice
very scary for a child to bear these burdens. Actually, as an adult it is more or
less the same.
I’m the oldest out of the seven siblings. Growing up in Guyana, we were very,
very poor. Because work was very scarce and money was scarce, I was taken out of
school at a very young age and had to help out with the chores in the house: cook
and clean and scrub the floor and fetch the water. Basically, your day would start
out in the morning to get up, make breakfast for your dad so he can go to work
and then, he would leave, and you would do all the household chores and then
you would get ready to cook dinner and fetch the water, chop up the wood, and
then get ready for the next morning.
My house in Guyana was located in Wales, south of Georgetown. It was on
a busy road with lots of taxis and buses. It was a small house with white paint.
We didn’t have a bathroom or toilet inside our house. The bathroom and toilet was outside. We went outside for showers. We had a little small kitchen that
they made out of whatever material that they could find. My mother and grandmother made a mud stove. It’s two holes so you can put the pots on the top and
then, in the front, it has a hole. So you would stack the wood, and then you would
light it, and then it would go up in the two sides so then you could cook.
Food was very hard to get there when I was growing up. If you didn’t have
the money, you would have to go without. Sometimes we wouldn’t have any vegetables to go with the rice, so my mother would buy a pint of milk, and then you
would eat the rice with the milk with some sugar, so that would be your meal, and
then you would go to bed. We never had TV, we never had any fancy dishes or anything like that. Everything was enamel plates and enamel cups. There were a lot
of things that we could not afford to buy, like toothpaste, simple things like that
to brush your teeth. So my father would, after they cooked with the fire, the coal,
he would grind it up, and you would use that to brush your teeth because you
couldn’t afford to buy toothpaste.
My father was a cane cutter. He was very strict and, I guess they did not know any
better or anything, they would spank you if you did something wrong. I remember
sometimes two of my brothers used to like to go off and play in the woods or go
searching for things. And in the cane field there was a big bridge and they would
go there and dive from the top to the bottom and swim. Before my father would
get home, my brothers would come home and pretend they didn’t go anywhere,
but then my father would somehow find out and he would spank them. Sometimes after that, he would put the three of us outside to sleep for punishment.
That was his way of punishing you: he would open the door and send you outside
to sleep. So my mother would open the door for us after my dad fell asleep.
My dad was a heavy drinker as well. But he was a great man looking back at it
now. People respected him at the sugar factory. They all knew who he was because
he was a hard worker during the week, and he would go to work if they would
call him in the middle of the night. Then comes Friday when he gets his pay; he
would start drinking: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That made me very angry
because he never brought home the money because, back there, they would give
credit, so if you want a bottle of rum, or a bottle of gin, or something like that,
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Chandra’s Story 247
you can go to the shopkeeper and ask them for the bottle of rum, or beer or whatever, but when Friday comes, they would be at the sugar factory waiting to take
the money from the people. So, my father would have to give them the money so
then he brought home very little.
My mom was a housewife, and then she went out to look for work just to help
out in the household. My mother did all kinds of jobs to put food on the table.
She was a very creative lady and tried to use whatever resources she had with little material to do things to make the house look homey and comfortable. Even
though the house was very small and tiny, it was cozy. She made it that way.
My yard was like a rainbow with lots of beautiful flowers. For example, all
around our house were lined with bright red, deep blue and purple flowers. We
couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning to see which color would bloom first.
We also had lots of fruit trees. When the fruits were in season it was so much
fun climbing up the trees to pick the fruits. The fruits were juicy and sweet. Our
house had a hammock that was made out of a rice bag. It was a great feeling to
rock back and forth, feeling the cool breeze rushing through your body. It was
very relaxing. We would fight over the hammock because it was so many brothers
and sisters to share it. Whoever gets there first would be the lucky one.
We didn’t have many toys, so we had to find things in our yard to play with.
For example, candy wrappers, we would use that for play money. We would also
find things from the flowers and fruit trees to have a market. I couldn’t afford to
buy clothes, so I would wear clothes that were donated to me. One time my aunt,
who was living in Queens, New York, sent a little mirror, and I was very grateful
because I was so excited. I was like, “Wow It’s from America!” It was just a little
compact mirror. But not really, because the barrel of supplies from my Aunt was
not coming for us. It went to her children, but I remember vividly that one time
the little mirror, and I was very grateful for it.
The life was very difficult and, because you were so poor, people sort of looked
down on you. You can’t imagine waking up in the morning and you don’t have
the kerosene to put in the fire to light the stove or light the wood -the wood would
be so wet, so, what do you do? Sometimes my mother would say, “Okay, you can
go to the neighbor’s house and knock on the door to see if you can borrow a little
bit of kerosene or some matches or a little baking powder to kneed the flour.” But
I would be so embarrassed to go because it was early in the morning, four o’clock
in the morning. Who wants to go over to the neighbor’s house to beg for some
baking powder or a match or kerosene or something? So sometimes we would
just do without because I don’t want to go. They had dogs and the dog would
bark. I remember I got attacked by the dog one time. So I was always afraid.
School in Guyana
I remember my mom sent me to a kindergarten. There was a neighbor who ran
a little kindergarten for just some students and I was going there just a little bit.
Then I went to first grade, second grade, and then, because of my family being so
poor, I had to leave school.
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248 Qualitative Research in Practice
So I just went to second grade, and I always felt very bad in school because
all my friends were like bright and smart and they would get all A’s and B’s, and
I would come in very far. At the end of the year, I would feel pretty bad about
it because I try very hard and I would say, “Why can’t I get number 10 in class?”
Because in Guyana they go first place, second place, third, fourth, fifth, and then
those are the grade that you did very well. Like if you get first, you are very, very
brilliant: you would go up and shake the headmaster or headmistress’s hands
and stuff like that. On the other hand, if you get something wrong, they had
a long cane and they would hit you on your hand because you didn’t do well
-especially this math teacher I knew, he was very strict and everyone was afraid of
him because he would hit the kids.
School in Guyana was traditional. It was pretty big classes. I remember wearing uniforms to go to school. My mom would make our uniform and it had to be
ironed and stuff like that. The teacher would do the times table, you know, twoone two, two-two four, and they would write it and then you had the times table in
the back of your exercise book so you had to learn all that stuff. And I remember
vividly that they did present tense, past tense, and verbs, and stuff like that also,
but because I left school at an early age, I forgot all those things, so it’s very hard.
I truly believe if you come from a family that is not educated, you feel ashamed
and frightened, and most important, tears in your eyes. If you cannot read, it is
embarrassing to go places and to do things with friends. This behavior can create
violence, ignorance, and people who don’t know how to speak their mind. Growing up in Guyana, I was so ashamed and embarrassed to leave our house. I was so
sad when I saw my classmates going to school. I would look through the windows
until everyone went by; then I would cry for hours. I believe education is the key
to success because when you have knowledge you have power.
Avoiding Childhood Marriage
I was I think 14 or 15, so very young, very naive and uneducated, and not knowing a lot of anything. My father wanted me to get married, so he would look for
people to get me married at a young age. But I was very stubborn and didn’t want
to get married. I remember one time my dad had a cousin and they came to visit
my mom and my dad. He brought a friend with him, and the friend had a good
job, and had cars and stuff like that. My dad wanted me to get married to him and
I said, “I’m not going to.” I was very firm. So the guy then bent down to tie – I had
an old, like Converse shoes that we wear, and he was bending down to tie it. So
I gave him a good whack. When they left, my dad was very upset. He said, “Oh, you
were getting a gold spoon and you refused.”
After that, I continued to do my work and continued to do the chores. And
then, my aunt knew someone also, another person in Venezuela, and this person
came to Guyana and he was standing at the gate and he said, “Oh I like this girl
for my son,” but his son was in Venezuela and they were arranging all the marriage. They brought me to the embassy to get my passport to go to Venezuela, and
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Chandra’s Story 249
I was just praying and praying. I was like, “If this is not for me please don’t let me
get my passport.” Everyone got their passport: my mom and my aunt and everyone else who were going got visas, except me. I didn’t get the visa and something
was wrong with my passport, so I didn’t get the visa so I was not able to go. So that
didn’t work out.
A Way Out
I think was 17 or 18, my brother was working with these rich people in Georgetown. He was the gardener there. You had to get the bus from Wales to Georgetown
and then they would pick him up at the market and bring him where they lived
because they had cars and they lived in a very residential, a very nice neighborhood in Georgetown.
I would write letters asking them to please help me, “I want to help my family.” After months went by, I got the interview by them, and they said I could work.
They had a little café, and I was there selling ice cream and little pastries and little
things like that. I did not like that job because I didn’t know how to interact with
people when they came into the snack bar.
To my surprise, one day I got a call and they asked if I could come to their
office. They interviewed me again and asked if I would like to come to their home
to take care of their four kids. I remember having a smile on my face, happy that
I landed a good job caring for these kids.
I went and I helped: made breakfast and stuff for the kids and cared for
their uniforms, because they were all going to private schools in Georgetown.
So they would wake up in the morning and they got their breakfast and their
uniform would be ready, and the driver would come and take them to school.
The parents were business people in Georgetown and they had a house in Miami,
Florida. I went there with them three times, to help with the children while they
did their business in Miami in the summertime. I would stay home helping the
kids, because they were rich kids so you had to stay home and cook and clean and
wash their clothes for them.
Those people were always good to me and my family. After the kids grew up
and they went off to colleges -two of them went to Miami and I think one went to
Canada- I asked the boss if he could get me a visa or write a letter to get a visa for
me to come to the States. I brought the letter and with my passport and that was
how I was able to get the visa to come to America.
The Transition: Growing Hope
When I got my visa to come to America, I was happy and sad at the same time.
The moment the plane took off was the most difficult: tears welling up because
I knew there was possibility waiting for me. I said, “The risk I will be taking will
only help me and my family. I don’t want them to forget me.” I was so worried
that one day my sister and brothers will no longer remember what I look like.
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250 Qualitative Research in Practice
When I came here I was 22 years old, inexperienced, and did not know anyone or anything. It was a cold, bleak March day. Life had to start all over in a
new country. I was lost and frightened not knowing what was ahead. Months and
months went by before finding a job. I missed my family and wanted to go back
home. I always reminded myself, “Never give up.”
Even though when I arrived in America I was able to speak English, but not as
good as the people who lived here. I had a very hard time adapting to the culture
and the language. I didn’t know what to do and how to do things here. I had to
pay very close attention and listen well. The culture here was very different than
where I come from.
I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Queens. I really did not know my aunt and
uncle that much because they were from a different county in Guyana. To me,
they were considered rich because they had everything, like a washer and dryer.
They had a very nice, big house, and so, when they came to visit us in the country, I was thinking we were so poor cause we had nothing. We had this small tiny
house. So I really didn’t not know them very well.
As time went on, I was able to talk to my aunt and we would stay up for hours
and hours talking about lots of things. So I got to know them and I got close to
my aunt and uncle in that aspect. I stayed with them for about four or five months
before I would get the job caring for an 89-year-old lady in New Jersey. There,
I had a small room and I stayed with them during the week and then I went home
on weekends.
At my caretaker job, I was told many times how to do different chores. It was
so hard. But I had access to healthier food. I could take medicine for cold and
cough. My family don’t have that option. Some of my brothers and sister have
never experienced life in America.
I would go back to my aunt and uncle’s on weekends and we would do small
activities like go to cricket, or go to the park and everyone would cook something
and bring it. It was a Guyanese crowd, but I really didn’t know anyone because
it was their family and friends: my aunt had all her sisters and her nieces. All
the kids were like Americanized already, but I didn’t know what to wear, what to
expect, what to say. I was always quiet and shy. You know, at 22, I was very young
and naive and didn’t know a whole lot.
I had no one. I did not know anyone. I just had the people I was working for
and then, back to my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle had their friends, but
they were not my friends. So it was pretty lonely. I would get phone cards and call
my mom and my dad and my siblings home, maybe once a week or once every
other week.
I sent tons and tons of barrels to my family in Guyana- maybe over 300 barrels.
I would buy a lot of things, anything I could find. I would send home things and
send home money to build up our house. They bought material: nails, wood, and
stuff to extend. My mother did an extension and put in a bathroom and then
running water. She fixed up the kitchen, so we had a nice kitchen. When I went
back home after several years, the house was much nicer. So what I did to help my
family was send home money and send home the barrels. They had nice clothes
and shoes and peanut butter and cheese and whatever I could put in the barrel.
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Chandra’s Story 251
My two sisters I helped go to school. They were the youngest out of the seven siblings. All of the oldest had a very hard time.
Back to School
When I came and was in New Jersey, I did not go to school. I was just working and
going to New York and just working. And when I was in Connecticut also, I wasn’t
going to school or anything. I didn’t know of any places where you can get help.
And because I was so confined to just working and going to New York to stay with
my aunt and uncle on weekends, I didn’t have any resources. I didn’t talk to people. I didn’t know where I could- I just didn’t know.
It took me a long time from when I came to this country to get some help.
After probably about 12 or so years, someone told me that it’s important to go
and get some help. I can’t remember who told me that there was some help out
there and I should go, but they said, “Go to the high school, and then you can
apply to take your GED.”
I remember working and then going to classes two nights a week. Back then,
I just read functionally. Maybe today my reading is a little bit better because
I know more and I am exposed to more things. But 10 years, 15 years ago was
just like, basic little bit of reading, trying to cope with life. I was eager to go
back to school, and I wanted to go and I wanted to learn. I was very happy when
I went. However, the first year, I just sat in the classroom and I just didn’t know
what they were talking about. The teacher, she would teach, she would write
notes on the blackboard and I didn’t know. I couldn’t comprehend anything.
I didn’t know what was a common denominator and all that stuff. So I basically
sat there for the whole year, not just one semester, but for the whole year. Then,
someone said they can help me get an English tutor. So that was how the education started.
Reading is very difficult and hard for me. I don’t know if I have a learning
disability, I’m not sure. But from what my mom said, when I was a baby, I had
very high fevers, and they used to have to put me in a bucket of cold water constantly. I was never tested or anything for learning disability or anything like that.
Still, I love to learn. I love school. I fight very hard to learn to read, but sometimes
when I can’t pronounce my words, I get very frustrated because I want to understand. Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend certain things because if you don’t
know the words and the meanings of the words, then it is hard to comprehend
what you’re reading.
I like writing. I like all the stories that we have written so far. There aren’t any
words to express, to say thank you to all the tutors and people who helped me
get this far in my life, because if not, I would just be working and making money,
but not educating myself. When I go back home to my country or to Trinidad,
where my sister lives, everyone looks up to me because I speak so well, and I’m
knowledgeable, and I can say to them or to their children, “Please read a book;
it’s important.” And they look up to me. I feel great, because even though I’m not
highly educated – I have a lot to learn- I’m so amazed that the kids look up to me
and think I’m a great person who is well educated and knows a lot.
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252 Qualitative Research in Practice
Looking to the Future: Gratitude
Some of us have pain from childhood and cannot forget. I truly believe pain
hurts more than anything you can imagine, but we have to let the past be in the
past and not part of the future. I always tell my family, look at the beautiful side
of things. It may not always be easy.
I feel blessed and I feel lucky in some ways, and very grateful to this country
for the opportunity that it has given me. I can work, and I can have money in the
bank, I can own a home. When people ask me where I’m from, I would say I’m
from Guyana, but I live in the United States. So I feel like I live here, I can identify
it as my home. I feel more Americanized than more Guyanese, because I try to
adopt the culture here and try do to the things here.
Coming here has changed me a great deal because I was brought out of poverty. I can see what a different world is. If I was still in Guyana, I probably would
have gotten married to an alcoholic maybe, or an abuser. I probably would have
six or seven children. I would probably look like a granny, because when I went
back home some of my classmates look very old, like they’re 60 or 70 and they are
not even that old, but the life is so hard.
If I was there, I would have been in poverty. I look at my brother: he’s never
gone out of his surrounding village. And that’s his whole life: waking up in the
morning, going across the street to take a shower, fetching the clothes, washing
the dishes in the river. And that’s what they have to do. And so I am so blessed
that I can have hot water.
Sometimes people don’t think to understand if you don’t know how to read
how hard it is. And you think of all the other children in the world who doesn’t
have that opportunity to go to school or read. If you can read and understand,
it makes a big difference in people’s lives. Just imagine if you couldn’t read, how
hard it would be. And you would want to learn, but it’s hard. I should put in
more time, but I have to work to cover the bills. I wish I didn’t have to work, but
I have to.
My goal for right now, I’m hoping to get into the program to see if I can pass
my GED or the NEDP [National External Diploma Program] so I can say to everyone and to myself that I graduated high school. So my main goal is to focus on
doing that. I’m embarrassed sometimes to say to everyone that I’m going to an
adult education center. But inside of me, I’m proud that I’m doing something to
educate myself and help myself. I feel very proud of myself because I never gave
up. I am sincerely grateful to my brother who had the job, and sincerely grateful
to those people who give me the opportunity to come here to see a better way of
life, and have knowledge, and try to get educated and learn. I’ve been so blessed
to have met such nice people so far in my life.
Many people in the past have told me that I am a positive person, and have
a love for life. I truly believe this is so. This year I am turning 50. It is one of the
scariest feelings ever. I will never be 20 or 30 ever again. Perhaps as we get older,
we try to put our fears into perspective. Just this past year, I was thinking about
all the bad things that had happened in my life and feeling sorry for myself.
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Chandra’s Story 253
One day, I finally said I should start to think about all the good things that have
happened to me. I should be grateful and thankful for all the many things that
I have accomplished so far in my life. I decided that I am going to change my
outlook on life. I am going to start by creating a happy place once again. Believe
me, I started to feel so much happier and I’m not going to let anyone or anything
put me down ever again.
I am happy and excited to write and tell my stories for all of us to learn at
any age despite the many setbacks we might have in our lives. I believe we should
embrace each and every day with positive attitude in our life. It will help us to be
better people. It doesn’t matter what age we are. We can all be encouraged by
each other. I try to find meaningful purpose. One thing I can say for sure, I am
still growing and learning every day.
Closing Thoughts
Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Chandra faced the tremendous
obstacles of poverty, hunger, and lack of a basic education. Leaving school at age
eight left her with an experiential and emotional void, and a longing for education that only now, at age 50, she is beginning to mitigate. However, in spite of
the challenges she has confronted in her life, Chandra’s optimism and resilience
have allowed her to persevere, take risks, and actively participate in her growth
and development. Indeed, without teachers or role models to scaffold her, it
was Chandra’s own strength and determination that empowered her to find the
means to escape poverty and begin the uncertain (and scary) journey to a more
secure future. Years later, she was able to share the opportunities she forged by
helping her extended family, both financially and as a role model for the importance of literacy and education.
As demonstrated here, the method of narrative inquiry allows us to share
the stories of those whose voices are often marginalized or ignored. As Chandra stated, “Sometimes people don’t think to understand if you don’t know how
to read how hard it is.” We rarely know someone’s whole story. Revealing the
complexities – both good and bad- of someone’s life can teach us a great deal.
In this case, Chandra’s story may offer insight and inspiration to those serving
adult basic education students or immigrants: teachers, counselors, social workers, healthcare workers, etc. Perhaps the wisdom she has gained, and the generosity with which she shares it, will inspire others to journey from fear to gratitude.
References
Anfara, V. A., Jr., Brown, K. M., & Mangione, T. L. (2002). Qualitative analysis on stage:
Making the research process more public. Educational Researcher, 31(7), 28–38.
Bassi Follari, J. E. (2014). Hacer una historia de vida: Decisiones clave durante el proceso
de investigación [Doing a life history: Key decisions during the research process].
Athenea Digital, 14(3), 129–170.
Byman, S. (2015). My Diwali: A Hindu festival of lights. The Change Agent: Adult Education
for Social Justice, 41, 38–39.
Qualitative Research in Practice : Examples for Discussion and Analysis, edited by Sharan B. Merriam, and Robin S. Grenier, John Wiley & Sons,
Incorporated, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kentstate/detail.action?docID=5630257.
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254 Qualitative Research in Practice
Cisneros, S. (1991). The house on Mango Street. New York, NY: Vintage Press.
Clandinin, D. J. (2013). Engaging in narrative inquiry. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Fontana, A., & Frey, J. H. (1994). Interviewing: The art of science. In N. K. Denzin &
Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 361–376). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kinginger, C. (2004). Alice doesn’t live here anymore: Foreign language learning and
identity reconstruction. In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 219–242). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Klein, P. D., Boscolo, P., Gelati, C., & Kirkpatrick, L. C. (2014). Introduction: New directions in writing as a learning activity. In P. D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L. C. Kirkpatrick, &
C. Gelati (Eds.), Writing as a learning activity (pp. 1–14). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
Pavlenko, A. (2004). “The making of an American”: Negotiation of identities at the turn
of the twentieth century. In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 34–67). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Rumbaut, R. G. (1997). Paradoxes (and orthodoxies) of assimilation. Sociological Perspectives, 40(3), 483–511.
Vargas, J. A. (2011, June 22). My life as an undocumented immigrant. New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-asan- undocumented-immigrant.html?_r=4&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
Author Note
Robin L. Danzak, Ph.D., explores multilingual language and literacy and the relationships among language, culture, and identity, especially as expressed through
writing, of bilingual adolescents and adults. From a sociocultural perspective and
through collaborative, qualitative/mixed methodologies, Robin engages language learners in meaningful, authentic text composition to promote language
and literacy skills, self-expression, and participation. An interdisciplinary, multilingual educator and researcher, Robin has published various articles and chapters and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award in 2014. She is an assistant
professor of speech-language pathology at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield,
Connecticut. Correspondence regarding this article can be directly addressed to:
danzakr@sacredheart.edu.
The author is deeply grateful to Chandra for her openness and enthusiasm,
her storytelling talents, and her commitment to learning and personal growth.
Many thanks also to Stephanie Ridge for her assistance with interview transcription and data processing.
Copyright 2017: Robin L. Danzak and Nova Southeastern University.
Article Citation
Danzak, R. L. (2017). Chandra’s story: An adult education student journeys from fear to
gratitude. The Qualitative Report, 22(5), 1227–1236. Retrieved from Retrieved from
http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss5/2
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255
Once upon a time, in a land faraway, I had my first experience with narrative
inquiry. I was 24 years old, and a graduate student of linguistics at the Universidad
de Concepción, in Chile. I had no idea just how much what I experienced in the
small city of Concepción, its surrounding forests, and glorious Pacific coast would
influence my life as an academic, researcher, and writer.
My partner at the time and I had been awarded a national grant for the arts to
publish a book about two, locally well-known groups of women artesanas – potters
and embroiderers – living and working in small, rural villages in the region
(Albornoz & Stockseth [my maiden name], 2000). He was Chilean and a sociologist. I was a foreigner, but had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Art History and Spanish, making the two of us perfectly qualified – or so we thought – to
tell the stories of these women and their art.
For months, we rode buses to tiny villages, then walked for miles on unnamed
dirt roads to meet participating artesanas in their homes, where we proceeded to
interview them for hours. My partner, trained in qualitative research, always took
the lead. I never understood why he asked all the women the same questions.
I remember hearing the same, extremely detailed process for making pottery
many times: In short, the women collected clay in a nearby river, used traditional
techniques to shape it into utilitarian objects, and cooked the pieces in an open
fire. It was the same thing that their grandmothers, mothers, and aunts had done.
Although they lived with financial hardship, the products they created helped
sustain their households and families. Whenever we heard this story, I thought
to myself, “But we already know all of this. Why are we asking these questions
again?” I was always eager to finish the conversation so we could handle and photograph the beautiful art that the women had made.
Of course, now I understand what those seemingly obvious and redundant
interview questions were all about. I thought we knew what the story was, but
that wasn’t the point. The point was hearing the story and, later, telling the
Narrative Inquiry
Good Things Take Time
Robin L. Danzak
Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT
danzakr@sacredheart.edu
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256 Qualitative Research in Practice
story, through the voices of the women themselves. Indeed, for several more
months, after we collected and painfully transcribed all those lengthy interviews,
I watched my partner weave together the narratives of each of the women we had
visited, integrating the quotidian processes of constructing pottery and embroidery with rich stories of their lives: how they grew up, met their spouses, built
homes and families, lost children, suffered abuse . . . and what all of this meant
to them and their work. Like the colorful textiles the embroiderers created, their
stories, once crafted, told not only the how and why of generations of artesanía in
rural Chile, but also intricately illustrated these from the women’s own perspectives, based on each one’s personal experience and view of the world. I finally
realized that it had not been our job to “figure out” the women’s stories. It had
been our job to simply ask and listen to them.
Fast-forward almost 20 years. My interdisciplinary, international education
has landed me (and my husband, who is not the Chilean sociologist) in New
England, where I am a faculty member in a Department of Speech-Language
Pathology. I have made a small research niche for myself, using mixed methods to
examine bilingual writing of adolescents and adults, quantitatively for language
features (as related to linguistic complexity), and qualitatively for content (as
related to participants’ multicultural identities). Thus, I am still reading and listening to stories: teens who were carried across the U.S.–Mexico border as babies,
growing up in fear and uncertainty; adults who fled extreme poverty, political
repression, or war at home, now struggling to adapt to new languages and identities in a foreign land. Chandra is one of these people. Two years of her writing
and interviews resulted in an incredible story that needed to be told.
Now, all these years later, as I participate as the co-constructor of people’s stories, I understand that doing so is both a privilege and responsibility. I now know
why we went back to walk those dusty roads, to talk with the same women over
and over again. It was to develop the kind of relationships and trust that would
let rural artesanas feel comfortable enough to talk openly and deeply about their
lives with a couple of young, urban, aspiring academics.
With Chandra, I naturally developed this relationship because we met twice a
week for two years for literacy tutoring. Still, one might think, two years is a long
time to get to know someone and collect data. Narrative inquiry is not the type of
research that can be completed quickly or follow a strict timeline. You have to be
willing to put in the time: to build the relationship, to ask seemingly obvious questions, and, most importantly, to listen. In the end, it’s not your story; it’s their story.
Interviewing Chandra was an amazing process. She invited me to her house,
where we had tea and talked, with my laptop open with the audio recording.
Chandra’s story was part of a larger project with a goal to shed light on the experiences of immigrant women, from diverse countries and backgrounds, by attending a language-literacy tutoring program at an adult education center. Chandra
was open and motivated to share her life experiences, both in writing and in the
interviews. I was so grateful for her time, candor, and willingness to revisit painful or scary moments. Chandra recognized that these difficulties had shaped her
into the strong, resilient person she is today. Just as I was appreciative of her, she
Qualitative Research in Practice : Examples for Discussion and Analysis, edited by Sharan B. Merriam, and Robin S. Grenier, John Wiley & Sons,
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Narrative Inquiry 257
was thankful for the opportunity to share her story. She has been an inspiration to
me and, hopefully, to others who read her narrative. In sum, like building a pot or
embroidering a tapestry, narrative inquiry requires time and patience. With these
tools, you will be able to co-construct a rich narrative, telling the story through
the voices and perspectives of your participants.
Reference
Albornoz, A. & Stockseth [Danzak], R. (2000). Las loceras y bordadoras de Quebrada las Ulloa
y Copiulemu [The potters and embroiderers of Quebrada las Ulloa and Copiulemu].
Concepción, Chile: Andalién.
Qualitative Research in Practice : Examples for Discussion and Analysis, edited by Sharan B. Merriam, and Robin S. Grenier, John Wiley & Sons,
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Qualitative Research in Practice : Examples for Discussion and Analysis, edited by Sharan B. Merriam, and Robin S. Grenier, John Wiley & Sons,
Incorporated, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kentstate/detail.action?docID=5630257.
Created from kentstate on 2022-07-09 13:11:17. Copyright © 2019. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. All rights reserved.