Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 27, 1994 TAG: 9408290021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``The first year, I would tell [other students] I was from Tokyo and that was the fastest conversation-stopper you'd ever seen. The second year, I put on my application that I was from my grandmother's house in Atlanta and that helped. ...
``Meanwhile, in classes, I was not skillful in raising a hand and speaking up and making myself the focus or target of any debate or anything that I would have interpreted at that time of being disrespectful of the instructor. When I would write papers, I was so influenced by Japanese speech patterns that I would use passive voice, often said `we', and [didn't] take a position on an issue. ... It's just a way of not being presumptious and demonstrating humility, engaging people in a way that isn't confrontational. ...
``In all of my experiences [at college], I was very struck by the fact everyone around me was white and yet seemed very different. In Japan, of course, I was struck by the fact everyone was not white and treated me differently.''
Nancy Gladen, 32, left her home in Mexico 14 years ago to attend college in the United States. Her parents expected her to ``meet a good looking, Southern Baptist and live here forever.''
Even before, said she had come to resent the relentlessly uplifting message painted of life as a missionary.
``We'd go to these meetings. We were all expected to be sunshiny and be happy to be MKs. When we're in the states we're trucked around to churches and interviewed and told how wonderful it is that your parents were called to be missionaries. They don't want to hear that it's not so wonderful. ... I felt like an indentured servant for 18 years. Nobody asked me what I wanted.''
Martha W. Cail, 29, grew up in Nigeria, where her father was an eye surgeon. She recently married another former missionary child who grew up in the African country of Benin and now works for the same Charlotte-based agency that placed her family overseas.
``I actually worked through about three years of depression. A lot of that was due to anger built up over a lot of years. A lot had to do with boarding school and so mom and dad were not there. ... A lot of missionary kids become very angry that they were ever sent to a boarding school because they felt that the family ties were cut off.''
Jonathan Evans, 24, grew up in Brazil and has supported himself since returning to the U.S. five years ago. He expects to earn college degrees next May in finance and Spanish.
``Neither emotionally or financially am I getting that much support from my parents. They'd rather assume that everything is going wonderfully. Even though things are not going as well, they can't do that much about it because they're not here.''
by CNB