By Amy Baskin

Director of Community Education and Communications

Unless you are Native American, everyone in America came here from somewhere else. What is your story? How did your family come to America? Why did they come here? What language did they speak? What challenges did they face? What traditions did they bring with them and do you still practice them?

Many people move to Austin from other countries. They move here for jobs, better opportunities for their children or because they could no longer live where they were. They may come as an immigrant or a refugee. An immigrant is a person who comes to a country where they were not born to settle there. A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

Austin Public Schools Adult Learning Center is a resource that helps refugees and immigrants to learn English, soft skills, math, digital literacy and how to navigate the community. We offer classes during the day and evening at the Community Learning Center. Our classes include several levels of English. From pre-lit students who come to us without a written language or knowledge of how to read in their home language, to advanced students who are focusing on writing and mastering English we meet the needs of most every learner.

A majority (62 percent) of the 265 students we have enrolled this year are between the ages of 25-44. They represent 24 different countries and 22 different languages. Fifty-eight percent of them are female and many are skilled or trained professionals in their countries. They might be a banker, doctor, nurse, teacher or accountant, but lack language and professional certificates needed to practice in the United States. Our learners are excited to be here and have incredible stories to share.

Imagine now that you and your family have decided to relocate to a new country. How would you go about finding the resources you need to live in that new country? How would you learn the cultures and language? How would you keep your traditions alive? How would you find foods that you know and are comfortable with? Hopefully, you could find community organizations to help you navigate the community and learn the language. Hopefully you would find friendly faces that would welcome you, smile at you and perhaps ask you to share your story. We have a great opportunity in Austin to meet new people, learn new things and hear stories of incredible resilience and gratitude. The Austin Adult Learning Center is proud to serve the immigrants and refugees in our community.  They are awesome people to know.