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Between the Lines |
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Interview with Mary Pipher |
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The Middle of Everywhere
Mary Pipher
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Biography |
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| Mary Pipher is the author of three best selling books, the most famous of which is Reviving Ophelia, which was on the New York Times Bestseller list for over 2 years. Her books have catapulted her from being a psychologist in Lincoln, Nebraska, to international fame. She speaks all over the country all year, has received the Gold Medal of the American Psychological Association, and is considered one of the great wise women of modern psychology. She currently lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
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Interview |
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Q: Why did you pick the title, The Middle Of Everywhere?
A: Some people call Nebraska the middle of nowhere, but I have always believed the center of the universe is wherever one lives. By paying attention and cherishing one's hometown, it becomes the middle of everywhere. But there is something else. Our school system now has children from fifty different countries and thirty-two different languages. Walking down the streets in Lincoln, I see women in burkas, Middle Eastern and Vietnamese grocery stores, El Salvadoran and Bosnian restaurants, musicians from Peru, and Sudanese boys wearing high-school letter jackets. My town, which used to be pretty homogenous, is now filled with newcomers from all over the world.
Q: What interested you about this topic?
A: I've always been interested in how other people live. As a girl I played a globe game. I would shut my eyes, put my finger on a globe, and spin it. Then I would open my eyes and imagine what life was like in the place my finger was touching. What did the streets look like? What were people doing? What time of day was it there? How did the food taste?
Q: How does this new book fit in with your other work?
A: Reviving Ophelia is about the effects of the culture on the mental health of adolescent girls. Another Country examines the way American culture treats its old people. The Middle of Everywhere is about the effects of cultural collisions on mental health. So all three of these books grew out of my deep interest in how American culture affects its different populations.
Q: How did you research this book?
A: For the last three years I've seen many refugee families in therapy. I developed a project called "Thrive" that educated mentors from various ethnic communities about our mental health system and also educated me about systems of healing in other cultures. My husband and I have sponsored three families: a family of four lost children from the Kakuma camp in Kenya, a family of six beautiful Kurdish sisters, and a young couple from Sierra Leone. In short, I've immersed myself in the world of refugees.
Q: What is the difference between an immigrant and a refugee?
A: Immigrants come to America mostly for economic or personal reasons. They come for school, to work, or to marry. Refugees are allowed into our country because they are judged to have a well-founded fear of persecution based on their membership in a social, political, ethnic, or religious group.
Q: Why do they come to Lincoln, Nebraska?
A: Because Lincoln has low unemployment and a relatively low cost of living, we were selected by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement as a preferred community for newly arrived refugees. We are one of the top twenty cities in America for new arrivals. Some of the other cities are Philadelphia, Denver, Los Angeles, Nashville, Atlanta, Austin, Miami, Kansas City, Spokane, and St. Louis.
Q: What challenges do refugee families face in our culture?
A: Families who don't speak English face immediate problems with work, school, housing, medical care, and transportation. Families from traditional cultures are not prepared for television, advertising and all the sexual and violent sleaze that surrounds them in this country. They have no antidotes for junk culture and often have a hard time holding onto their values. Children learn English much faster than adults and this upends the power hierarchy. Children are soon explaining our culture to their parents, translating for them, and helping them pay bills and fill out forms.
Q: You wrote this book before September 11. How did that tragedy alter your perspective on refugees?
A: I finished The Middle of Everywhere on September 9. On September 11, I was on vacation in Canada. As my husband and I headed out for a hike, a ranger approached us and asked if we were Americans. When we said yes, he said, "You'd better find a TV. Something terrible is happening in your country."
At first, I felt my book, which encourages Americans to welcome refugees, was irrelevant. Later I realized that it's more relevant now. Americans are much more interested in the world than they were before September 11. In order to be safe, we need to understand how others see us. Many of my stories are of Kurdish, Iraqi, and Afghani families. I hope these stories will educate Americans about the lives of people from the Middle East.
Most refugees have experienced great loss and have come from terrible situations. Yet, many are resilient people who are able to heal and move on. They can teach us to live in the world with broken hearts. They can help us understand what we need to do to be strong and how to help each other through whatever sorrows come our way.
Q: How is Lincoln reacting to its large middle-eastern population since 9/11?
A: For the most part our town is handling the tragedy admirably. We have had only a few racist incidents and many individuals and groups have actually become more interested in helping our local Muslims. After September 11, our community action program organized rides to school and grocery deliveries for refugee families too frightened to leave their homes. One of our synagogues has organized a winter-clothes drive for refugees.
Q: How has writing this book changed you?
A: I have learned what humans will do to each other and for each other and my ideas about what it means to be human have expanded. I have learned a great deal about the world's politics and geography. I have learned how rich we Americans are and how much we take for granted. And yet I have become more appreciative of our freedom and the rule of law.
Researching and writing this book has been the best learning experience of my life. I've been able to interact with people from all over the world and yet sleep in my own bed every night. Intellectually it has been challenging to try to understand a little about the fifty cultures in our town. Emotionally I have been deeply touched by the encounters I've had. I've been profoundly changed by my experiences with refugees.
Q: What will readers learn from this book?
A: A friend of mine who spent a year in China wrote that he wasn't sure what he learned about China, but he learned a great deal about America. In this book, readers will discover a very different America than the one they know. They'll see America through the eyes of Afghani women struggling to raise teenage boys in a culture of video games, rap music, and beer, or through the eyes of Bosnian families trying to make sense of Reader's Digest Sweepstakes and telemarketers. They'll watch The African Queen with an African family and go folk dancing with Iraqi sisters. By the end, I hope readers will have a better understanding of how others see us, an understanding that is of vital importance in a world that grows smaller and more connected every day.
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