Literacy a ticket to new worlds

I’m sitting at a large banquet table, and I have to admit that I’m a little overwhelmed. The conversation next to me keeps switching between English and Spanish. I join in whenever my mouth isn’t full. The plate in front of me is laden with an incredible assortment of food. There are wontons, Argentinean empanadas, and something delicious and Taiwanese that I can neither fully identify nor properly pronounce. What continent am I on, you ask? Actually, I’m in the Cole Land Transportation Museum in Bangor.

It’s the annual meeting and banquet for Bangor’s Literacy Volunteers. More than 250 people volunteer their time to this organization, working to promote literacy in the Bangor area, and tonight the tables are crowded. Tutors, students and families are here celebrating their successes.

Literacy Volunteers trains Bangor-area tutors and then matches them one-on-one with students. About half of the students are learning English as a foreign language. Thus, the banquet laid out for us this evening represents students transplanted in Bangor from no fewer than 24 different countries. The other students are United States natives working toward achieving higher levels of basic literacy.

Though I am neither a student nor a tutor – I am here with my mother and my friend Candace – I’m excited to be surrounded by this group of people who are all, in some way, travelers. Laughter and conversation fill the air as people savor the banquet, trying new things and encouraging their neighbors to taste this dish or that. “Literacy takes you places” was the theme of the evening. Those who were honored – longtime tutors, students, board members and dedicated volunteers – were given travel mugs. “You are taking us places,” emphasized executive director Mary Lyon from the podium. “Literacy takes us places, and you are the vehicle.”

Places that include, as my taste buds can attest, cultural exchange. The one-on-one format in tutoring partners encourages the kind of unique human connections that have many people saying, “I get up in the morning for this.” One pair in particular rose to speak – a Chinese woman who recently moved to Bangor and her tutor, a Mainer of Italian descent. When Shana first walked into the office of Literacy Volunteers two years ago, her husband had to accompany her to translate. Now, just two years later, Shana was able to give a very comprehensible speech. She talked about the hours of lessons, both linguistic and cultural, that her tutor Rose Marie had given her. “Rose-Mama,” as Shana calls her, had taught her more than English literacy. Their match had been one of true cultural exchange.

Everyone had a story about where – physically or mentally – Literacy Volunteers had taken them. One man spoke, emotion filling his eyes, of how he can now read to his young child. Another man no longer has to work three jobs just to make ends meet. Being literate has given him the boost he needed in the job market. It soon became clear to me that more was at stake than simply reading and writing. Personal dignity, understanding one’s rights, and reclaiming a voice to defend them with were all wrapped up in becoming literate. “I can pay my bills on my own now,” one woman said, “and I know that I understand them. Prescriptions, too – now I can read the labels for my medicine.”

One of the biggest obstacles facing literacy providers today is that most of us take for granted the ability to read and write. In reality, 1 in 7 adults in Maine are functioning at the lowest level of literacy.

Lyon, “the spark plug in the engine” of Literacy Volunteers, spoke of a new literacy program that focuses on democracy, government, voting and civic participation. How to read and understand a referendum question, for example, is a topic in this effort to reclaim people’s voices and strengthen the community.

In the kitchen, I help a dozen other people package up what’s left of the banquet. “Can I bring home the taquitos?” someone asks. One woman explains in wobbly but careful sentences the various ingredients in the sauce accompanying her dish. The recipe comes from her mother’s family an ocean away. When her tutor takes a bite, though, the look on his face tells me that the distance has been shortened to the length of a spoon.

As for the student, she has traveled the greatest distance – out from the solitude of language barriers and into a conversant, literate world. Tonight, one thing is certain: All who are here have undertaken great voyages and arrived at their ends to new, broader realms.

Meg Adams, who grew up in Holden and graduated from John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, shares her experiences with readers each Friday. For more about her adventures and to e-mail questions to her, go to the BDN Web site: www.bangordailynews.com.