Building Houses, Building Lives

Abstract

This article uses a narrative format to describe situations in which immigrant families from a SoutheastAsian hill tribe, the Mienh, adapt to technological and cultural change within a California elementaryschool which sponsors a family literacy, school-community garden, and house building project. Muchhas been written about the ways in which immigrant families and personnel at their schools struggle tocommunicate. My thesis is that even in the case of immigrants experiencing huge cultural and techno-logicalchange, from an oral subsistence culture to an urban technological society, adjustments can becreative and empowering, if schools incorporate community "funds of knowledge" into their instruc-tionalplan. Real projects such as storytelling, gardening, and house building provide rich contexts forintercultural dialogues which enable teachers and Mienh parents to build a Mienh-American house,asymbolic construct in which both traditional and modern technologies are combined.