Rising Village’s Anna Fu and Nathan Hughes greet people from across the globe as they walk into the Conversation Café.
The café isn’t really a café; it’s a place to hang out for refugees and immigrants who’ve already completed their English as a second language class, but still want to immerse themselves in a slower-paced language-learning environment.
It’s in two local churches. On Mondays, like tonight, it’s at South Tulsa Baptist Church and Thursdays it’s at Believers Church.
Hughes made sure to bring tea and small snacks for the learners. He's passionate about giving refugees the chance to learn at a more relaxed pace.
“It’s low pressure. You’re not doing classwork, tests, or anything. You’re just kind of getting to talk with people from a lot of a variety of different languages and backgrounds,” Hughes said.
Hughes said he believes that more people should try to learn about one another.
“My recommendation to anybody would be to sit down with somebody from another country,” Hughes said. “If you got a neighbor or somebody that you cross by a lot, ask them about their country. Ask them about where they’re from and what their story is.”
One of the biggest hurdles for people coming to the U.S. can be conversational English.
Peruvian Gustavo Ferrer came to the meeting early. It’s been difficult for him to get to as many as he’d like recently. Ferrer is a forklift operator, and many Mondays he works a 12-hour shift. Ferrer said learning English can be tough when only talking to native speakers because of the speed of the conversations.
“Sometimes in different places it’s difficult, because, I understand, but when they speak a bit faster sometimes, I can’t recognize the word,” Ferrer said.
The unencumbered learning environment helped refugees and immigrants feel a bit more welcome in Tulsa. Rising Village’s Conversation Café does that by trying to knock down the language barrier one chat at a time.
