Chaldean Community Foundation Hosts Breakfast of Nations
The panelists and host pose after the Breakfast of Nations.
By Cal Abbo
More than 100 people attended the annual Breakfast of Nations, which showcases and celebrates the diversity of Sterling Heights.
The event is put on every year by the Sterling Heights Regional Chamber of Commerce. The city is famous for its immigrant communities including a large Chaldean and Arab population. Many local officials and law enforcement officers were in attendance.
The CCF was an apt choice for the breakfast, which featured a large buffet spread and networking prior to a panel presentation on immigrant life. Three immigrants of varying age, gender, and ethnic background sat on the panel: Ryan Rosario from Philippines, Yara Shadda from Iraq, and Siri Pipatsattayanywong from Thailand.
The event was created to expand the community’s awareness, acceptance, and appreciation of its immigrants. The three panelists told stories from their own life experience. Rosario’s testimony related to his childhood community in Hamtramck.
“I was seven years old when I moved here,” he said to an attentive audience. “I’ll never forget how families from different cultures welcomed me into their home in Hamtramck.”
While Rosario spoke about his upbringing, he compared that way of life to the one communities face now. “Whenever there was a problem on our block, everyone would pull together,” he said. “That’s what I miss. There’s no longer an open house or entire blocks where everyone knows and helps one another.”
Rosario grew up in a particularly Polish neighborhood. “All the parents had a code. If a kid did something bad, and you weren’t allowed, the other adults were allowed to punish them,” he said. “I still know Polish cuss words to this day. When they would scold me, they would offer you a nice dinner afterward. Sometimes I was bad on purpose, for those pierogis, you know?”
Rosario and the other panelists reflected on the meaning of American holidays. For him, Thanksgiving was especially important. “As Filipinos coming to the states, the meaning of the holiday is welcoming and celebrates diversity and immigrants,” he said. “Thanksgiving is probably the holiday which we felt the closest with.”
Siri Pipatsattayanywong, who came to the U.S. from Thailand years ago, said she didn’t fully understand the meaning of Thanksgiving for a few years, but that Black Friday was her favorite. “I want to celebrate the holidays Americans do,” she said. “I still go to the temple with Thai people and celebrate my culture too.” She remembers that she was mostly oblivious to American holidays and their meaning until her son went to school and brought that piece of culture home.
“We keep some of the holidays and leave some,” Siri said. “Thailand is very warm. Songkran, a Thai holiday, is always in the middle of the hottest season. We sprinkle water on each other to keep cool. We’ve brought that ceremony to Michigan because we want the kids to learn about our culture and where their parents come from.”
Siri told stories about living in Ohio before she moved to Michigan. “Ohio has a lot less diversity,” she said. “I walked to Walmart, and one kid came to me and asked where I was from. Then he asked if I would ride an elephant to the market. Also, many people confuse Thailand with Taiwan.”
Things changed for Siri when she moved to Macomb County. There’s more food diversity, more people know about Thailand, and her neighbors are many times friendlier. “I saw people from different places who were more welcoming and wanted to be friends,” she said. “Macomb County is one of the places that supports diversity of ethnic groups.”
The final panelist is very close to home. Yara Shadda’s family came from Iraq when she was just eight years old. “My parents are the ones I really owe all of this to,” she said. “They put in the hard work so I can be here with you all.”
Shadda, who is Chaldean, had to go through America’s entire school system while learning English. She talked about the difficulty in learning English as a second language, and how her inability to speak led to her being outcast at first.
By the time she got to 5th grade, Shadda knew English well enough to communicate with her classmates. “Everyone was so intrigued that I spoke another language. I would write my classmates’ names in Arabic,” she said. “Now that we live in Sterling Heights there are Chaldeans everywhere. It’s important to me to raise my kids in the same culture while also being raised in an American culture. It’s important that they speak the language and know where their ancestry came from.
Shadda is currently a student at Wayne State University. Upon graduation, she intends to pursue a law degree from the same college. Based on her own life, she’s inspired to go into immigration law and help ease the transition for others who come to the U.S. with little experience and a large language barrier.
All of the panelists and many attendees agreed on the importance of the event and continuing to spread the word and advocate for immigrants in Michigan.