Student Spotlight: Laxman Tamang

My name is Laxman Tamang and I am from Nepal. My nationallity is Nepali. I have lived in the USA for just over 3 year United States. I was born in a refugee camp, and because of that I have struggled.  I have struggled learning a new language and culture. When I was living in refugee camp most of my life and after finishing up high school there it was very difficult to go to college.  There are  because many economic problems there and it’s hard for most families to afford college.  There are many schools but if you don’t have money you cannot attend.  My family didn’t have money to send me to school so realistically I had no future in Nepal.  Due to this  because I did not have a lot of opportunity to succeed. When I came to the United States, my life was also difficult because to learn communicate with people in a language that I did not know at all. I will say I have learned from and grown because of my struggle.  My struggle now is knowing how to deal with the hard situations.  I’ve learned that even in hard situation when you are stressed you need to know how to stay calm and deal with using reason.

When I was seven years old I started going to school. After three years, I went to a middle school called “Green Vale Academy,” which was made up of bamboo and thatch. The students had to sit on rugs for seven periods, but every two periods we got break time for 15 minutes. We had no technology, so the teachers had to use a blackboard to teach us. When I was in seventh grade, I quit school because my father brought my stepmother and I to work doing chores and odd jobs to help support the family.  .   Living in a refugee camp was very hard because there was no job and house.  One day my family got an opportunity to resettle in the United States of America so they took advantage of it. I had always desired to come to the USA because my dreams were big and I wanted to succeed in life.   Also my family wanted me to have a better life than they had.

Since I arrived in United States in 9th grade, my family and I have been struggling for a better future. At first, it was quite challenging for me to adjust to this new environment because everything was new. I  was very excited to have the opportunity to receive an education   The school I attended and currently attend is the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex or JSEC.  After being in high school for two month I was very excited to be in the United States and learn because I was from Nepal and I did not know much English.  Lots of people make fun of my accent and my first goal was to learn as much English as possible. It was really hard for me to understand the language because people talk so fast here and sometimes you cannot understand what people say.

There is such a large Hispanic population in Providence that students rely on speaking Spanish in class to understand what is being taught.   I realize that teachers do have to teach in Spanish sometimes to meet the needs of those students.  Now that I am a Senior I want to take a chance to express the fact that I get confused sometimes because Im trying to learn English and when Spanish is tossed in my mind gets confused.   I came here in hopes of learning English.  In most classes students speak Spanish and many teachers do as well.   Instead of getting frustrated I try to understand that maybe those students need instruction in Spanish and English and the teacher does this  to ensure the lesson is being communicated.   I used to not understand why classes aren’t taught by the teachers in English but then I tried to put myself in everyone elses shoes.    I think I could have learned much more if each class was consistently taught in English.    If I could recommend something to the teachers it would be to please teach equally in English and Spanish and not 75% in one nad 25 % in the other.

I am so happy to have shared my story with my classmates at JSEC.  I am normally quiet and shy and glad I have the chance to share.  I have never actually had the chance to tell this to anyone until now and I have built up enough English to speak my voice and communicate.   I really do like JSEC, I am 20 and will be finally graduating from JSEC and am hopeful as there is much more opportunity here for me than my home country.  I hope each and every student here realizes all the opportunity they actually do have here in the United States and do not take it for granted.