ESL unites Memphis retirees, refugees
On any given Wednesday, 93-yearold Julia Allen can be found convening a slew of fellow seniors in the dining room of her retirement community, Trezevant Manor.
Some are fellow residents and lifelong Memphians. And some come from cities much further afield — as refugees from Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In partnership with the refugee resettlement agency World Relief Memphis, Allen’s group meets at Trezevant every week as an English as a Second Language study group. Their long-term goal is to help 11 elderly refugee participants pass the naturalization test that they must take within seven years of being granted entry to the U.S. — if they hope to access social services.
As refugees, the elderly English students are protected by international law
from being forced to return to situations where their lives are at risk. But refugees are granted aid for only 90 days.
“You can just imagine how you would be, walking into a room in one of these countries,” Allen said, pointing at one of the maps placed on each table. “Trying to learn English, especially when you’re this old — it’s just really hard.”
But at the same time, Allen and her fellow residents are quick to point out that the program isn’t a one-way street of charity. In a society that often marginalizes seniors’ experiences, the tutors get a crucial sense of fulfillment from participating in the program. Many are retired Shelby County schools teachers.
Throughout the course of her career, Allen helped to create two landmark community service programs, with the Memphis Interfaith Association and Rhodes College. When she moved into the retirement community and gave up her car, Allen thought she’d have to put her life of volunteering behind her.
But every week, World Relief picks up each of the ESL students and transports them to Trezevant — where Allen’s oneof-a-kind organizing initiative hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“There are a lot of people here who share my views,” she said. “And there are a lot of people who don’t.”
A former civil rights activist who organized integrated spaces in the 1950s, with Church Women United and students from the historically black Lane College, Allen takes the mixed response in stride as nothing new.
“Some people then didn’t like it,” she said, recalling that her critics during the civil rights era would often assume she was an agitator from out of state.
“They’d say, ‘Where are you from?’, thinking I’d say New York,” said Allen, a fourth-generation Memphian. “And I’d say ‘Memphis,’ ” she said, laughing.
Allen attributes her worldview as much to the influence of her family of “staunch Republicans” as she does to her husband Ray Allen, who founded the Wesley Foundation campus ministry at the University of Memphis, with a stated commitment to diversity and inclusion.
“They weren’t social activists,” Allen said of her family. “But they certainly did not believe in belittling anybody,” she said.
Current U.S. policy on refugee resettlement was born under bipartisan support when the Refugee Act unanimously passed the Senate in 1979. In each of the last two years, the Trump administration has dramatically reduced the annual ceiling of refugees allowed into the U.S., down from 85,000 in 2016 to a record low of 30,000 for 2019. The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees estimates that there are 25.4 million refugees worldwide.
According to a spokesperson, World Relief has resettled 1,287 refugees locally since 2012, when its Memphis office opened.
Allen considers their acceptance a boon to society.
“A country is enriched by the diversity of the people who live in it. And when you only want your kind, you stalemate your development,” she said. “We have much to learn from other people, other countries, other cultures.”
And she believes that the exchange among members of her group every week makes a difference, no matter how small.
“I think little pockets of this here and there and everywhere are bound to change lives, bound to change outlooks,” she said.
“If we will allow to ourselves to get beyond just being with people who think exactly as we do. That’s the trick.”