Capstone project has Paw Ler Shwe reflecting on his roots
When Paw Ler Shwe walks across the stage to receive his bachelor’s degree in health sciences on May 15, his steps will represent a much longer journey. His journey is one of distance and one of acceptance — learning how to succeed in a new environment, coming to terms with his identity, and, above all, helping others down the same path.
As a child in 2006, Shwe and his family left the Karen (pronounced kuh-rin) region of Myanmar for St. Paul, Minnesota, escaping a war-torn region by moving in with family that had left the country in years prior.
Minnesota has the largest Karen population of any state in America, numbering over 17,000 — but even with a large presence in the state, Shwe says there wasn’t much help available for Karen refugees to make the transition into American life easier. He says that lack of assistance fostered a sense of self-resentment, that he carried for many years.
“I shifted away from my culture as a kid,” said Shwe. “During middle school and high school, I didn’t really want to be Karen anymore. I wanted to just be an Asian-American person — that was it.”
Through his time in college, however, Shwe found that his thoughts were changing. After taking the Intercultural Development Inventory assessment through the University of Minnesota Rochester, he discovered that he had moved from ‘denial’ to ‘acceptance.’ Those results helped him realize that he wanted to embrace his family’s experiences.
Since that day, Shwe has worked to become an active member of Minnesota’s Karen community — volunteering with the Karen Organization of Minnesota, while dedicating his final (and most intense) UMR project towards helping other Karen kids succeed in America.
Each UMR student has the opportunity to put together a capstone project, combining their research and coursework with an individualized theme that is personally chosen by the student. In Shwe’s case, he used his capstone to tutor Karen students in St. Paul’s public school system, acting as a translator and guide for two children who reminded him of a younger version of himself.
Successfully completing those months of tutoring, Shwe says, required a long look inward: what did it mean to him to be Karen?
“I wanted to dig deep in my identity and try to go back to my roots, to see what I could do to help those students,” said Shwe. “This is a process that I’m going through to learn more about myself and my people, and I’m taking it slowly.”
Myanmar in the news
Part of the Karen experience, unfortunately, includes a long history of battle with the Burmese government — and recent events in the country have brought the plight of the Karen people (among other ethnic minorities in Myanmar) to the global stage.
Since 1949, the Karen people have been entangled in a series of conflicts with the Burmese/Myanmar government, displacing hundreds of thousands of people from their original homes — including many members of Shwe’s immediate family.
Submitted photo
“My parents went through it. My sister, my brother... they all ran from the military, their villages were burned, everything,” says Shwe. “What you’re seeing right now, it didn’t just start a few months ago — this has been going on for some time.”
The latest addition to the decades-long saga came February 1, when Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup d’etat — forcibly removing the country’s democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from power, and issuing a year-long state of emergency. The resulting civilian protests have been met with state-sponsored violence, and over 600 people have been killed.
Phone lines and internet connection have also been cut, so thousands of concerned people like Shwe haven’t been able to connect with their relatives.
“My pastor can’t reach his mother,” said Shwe. “He doesn’t know if she’s safe. This past month, there was a bombing on the Karen villages. One of the villages was one of my friend’s grandparents’ villages, and they don’t know anything about his safety. It’s been very hard to deal with this.”
Finding acceptance
The coup has only deepened Shwe’s commitment to his history in recent months, he says — he’s participated in protests at the State Capitol, donated time and money to Karen refugees, and plans to spend his next few years trying to improve the lives of others that made the same trek he did in 2006.
After graduation, Shwe says he’ll take a gap year to work as an interpreter before heading to nursing school. Once nursing school is completed, he says he wants to go on a mission trip — possibly to another part of America, possibly to Thailand —- to help more Karen youth succeed in school and stay healthy.
His long-term goal is to work in pediatrics, caring for the youngest members of society — and once his capstone is presented and his bachelor’s degree is official, Shwe will be one step closer to doing so.
His final year at UMR was beset by tragedy in his homeland, but also marked a major period of personal growth. His top goal for the future, he says, is to help other people struggling with their heritage recognize the beauty of their experiences.
“I want to teach the younger generations to accept who they are,” said Shwe. “I’ve been struggling for as long as I can remember to accept who I am, and I think the experience I’ve had with my capstone, plus everything that’s going on right now, has helped me find my identity.”
This story is included in our April edition of On Campus.
