Work plays a complex role in her life. After one year of being unemployed (except for a short time selling insurance), she found a full time job in 2004 at a laundry and was working there at the time of her last interview in 2006. She speaks highly of her workplace (she receives some health care benefits and two weeks of vacation) and her employers and co-workers. She says that they are willing to speak English with her. She also seems pleased about how her job has allowed her family to buy a house.
| Fuquin: | I live with my husband. The major thing is that I bought my house by myself. I was helped by an American agent via interpreter. No Chinese help. I picked the spot myself. It was someone's back yard. There wasn't a house there before. I watched the house being built. I was so happy. Because I came here, I worked, my husband worked. We have credit and we could buy this kind of house. I feel very happy. We started from a new point, and things are getting better and better. | |
| I: | So you said that you hired an American agent, not a Chinese agent to buy the house. Do you think you speak English more? | |
| Fuquin: | Yes, I speak much more English. I learned a lot, such as how to apply for a loan, I understood a lot. I still cannot hear so well but when I could not understand, I would look the word up in the dictionary. | |
| I: | Can you tell how do you speak English more? | |
| Fuquin: | When I borrowed money, they asked for my credit card, and my income and income tax, the forms, and the balance in the bank statement, how to sign the signature. I learnt how to do the mortgage, how to take out a loan from the bank and how many years. My house is on a 30 year, and 20% of down payment (In English). I learn each step of how to do the whole thing. I have learnt the whole process. Because I needed to apply for the loan, I started to do this one year ahead of time. | |
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However, Fuquin stopped attending ESL classes when she found full-time work and the lack of time to study English troubles her. In her last home interview (March 2006) she mentioned several times that learning English is her major educational and life goal in the U.S. But, she states that she has very little time to study on her own and with work and child care, she has no time to take classes. She was expecting another child and reported that she planned to learn English language and culture together with that child.
Three years earlier, during a conversation with a Cantonese speaking classmate (2/6/03, 206), Fuquin reported that she does not want to work until she learns English better. When her classmate suggested an evening job, Fuquin said that she needed the time outside of class, in the afternoon and the evening, to study. When her classmate said that she wanted to work full time, Fuquin said, rather presciently for her own situation, that once people start working full-time, they cannot learn English anymore.