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The class was also making sure to include Esparza, when she left for two weeks in Mexico care for her her father, who has cancer, after losing his wife to cancer. Claudia had planned to keep attending the citizenship class, via Facetime. Checks and balances In a recent class, the conversation revolved around elections. “Who will be a citizen in September?” teacher Forrest Johnson asked. A few students raised their hands; others paused more tentatively. “If you become a citizen in September, you can do what?” “Register to vote,” the student chorused. Students learned about a citizen’s duty to serve on a jury. Burmese students Bue Plo Wah and Mu Nwe jumped up to join hands in a ring with Johnson and pull back – demonstrating the three branches of government and its system of checks and balances. Some are good at speaking, some good at writing, but … they’re helping each other. Teacher Lisa Bobst Han Min Thein and Yuh Wah Thein, husband and wife, compared their new knowledge of the U.S. Constitution with their memories of Burma. Both survived student revolutions in Burma and fled to Thailand. “What is really interesting is the Constitution of the U.S., because for me this is the first thing I learned,” Han Mon Thein said. “I am 48 years old. In our country, over 60 years the military government controlled our country. We don’t know about the Constitution.” “And the Bill of Rights,” Yuh Wah Thein added. “And then in the U.S., they protect everyone by the law. In our country, they don’t protect everyone by the law,” her husband said. Yet even after students master their rights, history dates, and the branches of government – mundane- seeming details can derail them from passing the tests. “What I find is that they can’t answer all the questions that some people ask … such as, ‘Raise your right hand and put your left hand on the Bible,’” Bateman said. But Paw Pleh could. She passed her interview, and her history and civics test in late April. Last week she raised her right hand, put her left on the Bile, and was sworn in as a U.S. citizen. Sendor: julia.b.sendor@gmail.com