As Hermosan David Schrader enjoys another year helping foreign exchange students from around the world adjust to their new South Bay environs, he is seeing more faces from Muslim parts of the world. That is by design of the U.S. State Department, which hopes to encourage good relations among civilians where nation-to-nation relations have been strained.
This year three area families are hosting students come from Tunisia, Kuwait and Morocco, fulfilling a goal of the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program, which provides scholarships to high school students from countries with significant Muslim populations.
Those three students and 15 others, from Italy, Thailand, Norway, Czech Republic and Brazil, arrived this year to attend area high schools, including Redondo Union and Mira Costa, under the auspices of the State Department’s venerable American Field Service, or AFS, student exchange program.
At an orientation lunch in Schrader’s back yard, Leo, the student from Morocco, said he is enjoying America, and noted the difference in how people say hello.
“We don’t wave in Morocco,” he said.
Leo heard about the student exchange program from an American teacher at his local youth center.
Another student, Steve, from China, had come to attend an area high school two years ago, and returned to the U.S. to attend Santa Monica College. Stories of students returning to their host countries are common in the exchange program, which has helped place millions of students with families from more than 50 nations.
The kids busied themselves helping Schrader and Alan Levine, leaders of the Los Angeles area AFS program, prepare for lunch. They set up a table and laid out chips, bananas and the essentials for peanut butter sandwiches. They seemed happy and comfortable, as did Schrader and Levine, who have been involved with AFS for many years.
Schrader was an exchange student himself, having gone to high school in Austria in 1968. His host father has since passed away, but he keeps in touch with his host mother and siblings.
“I go see her every year,” he said, “I do international marketing now and as a result I go overseas at least once, if not two or three times, a year.”
Levine got involved after his daughter came home from Venice High School with information about AFS. She ended up going to Thailand through the program, and her experience encouraged Levine and his wife to host four exchange students.
Levine has remained involved by helping to orient the students to the United States and the Los Angeles area.
He said the program fosters intercultural understanding, having seen students from other nations experience American culture, including a Chilean girl his family hosted, who had never before seen anyone who wasn’t Catholic.
“So many of their societies are closed societies,” he said. “They’re never exposed to other people.”
Once the kids had lunch ready to go in Schrader’s back yard, he gathered them around the table. His expression grew solemn.
“This is one of the most important decisions you will make with your host family,” he said. “You’ll have to make a decision of whether to be a Bruin or a Trojan.”
