"A Meeting Place for US": Milpera, A Newcomer High School (Milpera, Australia‪)‬

On a hazy Wednesday morning I arrive at a suburban station south of Brisbane, Australia, exit down the long platform, skirt the edge of the local cricket oval, and approach the Milpera State High School. Moving nearby along the dusty path are other latecomers, many of whom have to travel more than an hour by train and bus to reach school. As we cross the last street, large, hand-painted letters spelling out the name M-I-L-P-E-R-A greet us. Each letter has been decorated to represent the various cultures which have called this school home--Arabic, Vietnamese, El Salvadoran, African, and others. The school is comprised of an administrative building, a teaching building of ten classrooms, two additional outbuildings, and a few small fields of grass. When I enter Room #1, students are engaged in a spelling test on words and expressions from previous reading. By now, 9:20 a.m., there are seventeen students present in class: thirteen African, three Middle Eastern and South Asian, and one European. A strong breeze stirs the curtains in the open windows, and we watch the leaves blowing off the trees in the courtyard outside. Dust from the western desert is blowing across the city of Brisbane, but here at Milpera the weather, like the instruction, is more accommodating, and the breeze feels great.