Jessica Foster
Staff Writer

Yujing Ma, Vivian Heuer and Yan Hong Xie are some of Americaís newest immigrants.

They came to this country because of love, because they were looking for a better life, because they wanted to see what else was out there in this big world of ours.

Ma made her way to the United States, via Canada nine months ago. While the civil engineer, who now is a stay at home mom, would like to return to Canada, it is not her home country.

The country of her childhood memories, her native language and her culture is China.

ìWe keep our culture,î Ma said. ìAs Chinese itís not very easy to mix together with Americans.î

Still, she appreciates America for its freedoms.

ìHere, people have the freedom to have religious beliefs,î Ma said. ìThe freedom here is more than in China.î

She came to America because her husband got a job here. Ma said she misses her friends in Canada, where she lived for three years.
Yan Hong Xie has lived in Forest Lake for three years. An employee at a Forest Lake Chinese restaurant run by relatives, she is from south China.

She said she came to the United States to make a better living.

The mother of a 10-year-old, she gets tutoring in English as a Second Language at Forest Lake Adult Basic Education.
Xie, too, said she enjoys a different, more free lifestyle here.

Vivian Heuer is from Hong Kong. Unlike Ma and Xie, she has called Forest Lake home for several years.
While she has her Asian roots, she has immersed herself in the American way of life.

Two dozen years ago she arrived in Minnesota as an international student at the College of St. Catherine.

ìI went to St. Kateís and met my (future) husband. I graduated. He came over and asked me to come back,î she said.

It was important to her, Heuer said, for her husband to see her home country and ask her parents for their blessing.

Heuer is an active volunteer, who keeps busy delivering Meals on Wheels, substituting in the cafeteria and helping out wherever she sees a need.

She often is found helping others learn English as a Second Language at Forest Lake Adult Basic Education, where Ma and Xie are two of her pupils.

The women are among more than 60 students from 23 nations who study English as a Second Language at ABE.

Helping others learn to communicate in English is a valuable service Adult Basic Education Coordinator Jean Anderson said she is proud to bring to the community.

ìIt takes a couple of months before they really start to get it and when they get it, itís wonderful,î Anderson said.
Anderson said she learns from the students who come there to learn.

She is quick to point out these people speak more than one language and are successful, intelligent people.

ìWeíve had doctors and lawyers, architects, engineers and business owners,î she said.

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