The percussion drops out, and a series of slow tones, almost like trumpets, play instead. Longoria: The main thing keeping Aséna from connecting to kids her own age isn’t the stuff she doesn’t know.Īséna: The things they talk about is, like, TikTok, malls, games. Longoria: Aséna says she didn’t really mind being called an old lady-’cause a lot of times in class, she kinda feels like one.Īséna: When I be friends with my same-age kids, I just feel like I’m their grandma. She looked at me, and she’s like, “Hey.” I said, “Hey.” She said, “You know you sound like an old lady?” And I was like, “Really?” She said, “Yes.” I was like, “Okay.” (Laughs.) Like, instead of “restroom,” she would say “toilet.” Instead of “excuse me,” she’d say “pardon me.”Īséna: So one day a girl in front of me-she turned her head back. Longoria: There were a lot of basic words she didn’t know. Only thing that I learned from my British English that I learned from my teacher in a year was restroom. Longoria: (Jokingly.) “Where are we going now?” Yeah!Īséna: Yeah! Like, expensive, you know? It’s like an art gallery or something. It was, like, right before lunch, and the teacher was like, “Okay, kids, let’s go to cafeteria and eat your lunch!” And I was like, “What the hell is cafeteria ?” Sounds so fancy to me! You know, it’s like, uh, French or something. ( A slow but steady cushion of sound-a plodding percussion line, a jazzy synthesizer-lazily plays underneath the conversation.)Īséna: I didn’t know what cafeteria means.
Longoria: I first asked Aséna Tahir Izgil, 19 years old, about the things she did not know when she first got here from China four years ago.
Longoria : You can go ahead and click Record. Longoria: So when I finally sat down to talk to her. Ramirez: Okay, perfect! Now you can stop recording. Like, my teacher asked me, like, complicated questions, and I’d just say, “I don’t know.” And then it’s done! So I still love it to this day. Julia Longoria: What you’re hearing is a mic check between producer Natalia Ramirez and our guest, a new young immigrant to the U.S.Īséna: I remember my favorite phrase in, like, whole English language was “I don’t know.” (Both laughs.)Īséna: Because it just avoid me from a lot of troubles. Ramirez: (Lightly, also laughing.) Yes? How many people?Īséna: So there is five people in my family.Īséna: This is, like, the basic question I learned when I learned English with my teacher. Natalia Ramirez: Okay! Good morning! Um, so are you with a lot of family right now? ( A heavy, low, roiling sound ever so slowly crescendos, up and up, and ends when a brief blip plays.) Freeman.Ī transcript of this episode is presented below: Sound design by David Herman, with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at episode was produced by Julia Longoria, with help from Gabrielle Berbey and editing by Katherine Wells and Emily Botein. This episode’s guests include Aséna Tahir Izgil and her father, Tahir Hamut Izgil, a Uyghur poet and author.įurther reading: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps, Saving Uighur Culture From Genocide, ‘ I Never Thought China Could Ever Be This Dark,’ China’s Xinjiang Policy: Less About Births, More About Controlīe part of The Experiment. to escape genocide, adjusting to newfound freedom, and trying to deal with the grief and guilt of being a refugee. This week on The Experiment: Aséna shares her family’s story of fleeing to the U.S. “And then the things I think about genocide, Uyghurs, international policies … all the annoying adult facts.”įor years, the Chinese government has been persecuting her people, but few have escaped to bear witness. “They talk about … TikToks … clothing, malls, games, movies, and stuff,” she says. The pain she witnessed before escaping in 2017 has aged her beyond her years, she says, making it hard to relate to American teenagers. Here in the United States, 19-year-old Aséna Tahir Izgil feels as though she’s a “grandma.” Aséna is Uyghur, an ethnic minority being imprisoned in labor camps by the Chinese government.
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