School #12

I went with Natalija Osheverova this morning to Daugavpils School #12 to visit an English language class at the fourth form -- I am guessing about the 11th grade in American terms -- to talk about Martin Luther King, Jr., given that his holiday was earlier this week. Natalija is the director of the USA Information Center at the Latgales Regional Library, which has a collection of English and American books and lots of programming about American culture. Part of my job here is to this kind of work, and I have some free time; my colleagues are conducting final oral exams for the previous term, and the new term doesn't start for a few weeks. Plus, this is a good use of your tax dollars and mine, which funds the USA Info Center.

The classroom was bright and cheery -- a little smaller than an American high school, but otherwise it all looked very familiar. And I have been told that Latvian students are reticent, but this wasn't the case. I cracked a joke, which is apparently what I do without thinking about it, and we were off and running. Natalija had a nice PowerPoint presentation about Dr. King that hit the big points such as the freedom riders, the Montgomery bus boycott, and a YouTube video of the "I Have a Dream" speech. My goal was to give them a bigger picture of the current diversity of the United States, in short why Dr. King's work matters. So I got U.S. census data from its website that broke down the ethnic and racial demographics as estimated in 2015. There were surprises on my part: one girl accurately guessed almost every demographic correctly (the white, that is, European American population is 61.3% of the nation, and she guessed 60%); everybody knew what Hispanic and Latino meant, which I did not expect, and they all got the idea that Hispanic is an ethnic and not necessarily a racial designation; and they totally got the fact that in about 30 to 40 years, there will be no racial majority.

Inevitably, the conversation that followed turned to Donald Trump, as I expected it would. It was heartening to realize that these Latvian students were as shocked as I was that Trump won the election, and in a previous visit, Natalija explained the complicated business of the Electoral College, so I didn't have to wade into that morass. They had great questions about immigration policy under Trump, which is an issue in Europe, with refugees flooding north from the Middle East into places that are not ready, culturally or economically, to deal with the flood. I said that I didn't think a wall was going to be built, and followed up with the basic fact: immigrants are already here and they continue to come. Policies will not change that. It was nice to find some common ground there.

We also discussed Dr. King's policy of non-violent protest, which really resonates in the Baltics. This is of course how the Baltic nations challenged and eventually threw off Soviet rule with the "Singing Revolution," citizens singing patriotic songs with their arms linked around each other across all three Baltic states. That's my kind of revolution and my kind of country.

The two teachers could not have been more delightful, impressed as they were that I had already managed a presentation after only four days in Latvia. (In all honesty, it is pretty darn impressive.) And my parting gift was -- of course -- a box of Laima buttercream chocolates. Natalija and I are making plans to return.

Photos of the class will be found on the USA Info Center's Facebook page shortly: http://www.facebook.com/InfoUSADaugavpils. I know you've been asking about photos, but I can't take them until I have a cell phone, and I have tried to make my needs known to a salesclerk in the local telecom stores. This I cannot do without a translator; give me something simple, like buying pickles (gurki) at the local Mego supermarket.