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Mark Schultz mschultz@newsobserver.com By Julia Sendor Paw Pleh, at age 9, escaped her village in Burma just before soldiers burned it to the ground. “I remember the Burmese soldiers killed my relatives and killed other people in my village,” Pleh said. “We had to flee to the jungle, and sometimes we had to go back to the house to get some food.” After over 14 years in Thai refugee camps, Pleh applied for refugee status in 2007, and was settled North Carolina with her five children and husband. She arrived with just one year of formal education, when she learned her alphabet. Last month, however, Pleh’s most immediate challenge was remembering to stand up when her name was called for a citizenship interview. On spring break from her UNC dining services job, Pleh sat in the Refugee Support Center waiting area, pretending it was a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office. Flicka Bateman, director of the Refugee Support Center, played the interviewer: “Why are you here today?” she asked. “How long have you been in the U.S.?” “When did you come?” Pleh was one of 54 students from Orange, Durham and Alamance counties who studied for citizenship tests this spring, through the Orange County Literacy Council. The council and Church World Services funded the classes through a federal grant and hope to enroll 200 students under the two-year grant. Orange County’s students hailed from Burma, China, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador – 16 of those students refugees from Burma and China. All told in Orange County, 13.1 percent of the population is foreign-born, 31.2 percent of whom are naturalized citizens and able to vote – according to the U.S. Census Bureau and N.C. Justice Center. Since 2005, 936 refugees have resettled in Orange County, by Orange County Health Department records. Green card required Immigrants and refugees can earn citizenship status, in general, if they are permanent residents, 18 or older, and have lived in the U.S. for five years – or for three years if married to a U.S. citizen. The federal grant required all students to present their green card when they enrolled for the classes, to verify their legal status, said Elgiva Wood, Civics Education Program Coordinator with Orange Literacy. “For citizenship class, students should be at or approaching five years of permanent residency in the US – meaning, they can prepare a little in advance of their five years of permanent residency,” Wood said. But first the residents must pass a gauntlet of requirements. For adults still grappling with English – some of whom are not fully literate in their first language – even ordinal numbers (“fifth,” “ninth”) and potential interview questions like “Are you a terrorist?” can trip up their quest for citizenship.