A Family, a Dream and a Season of Fear
The New York Times
Than Than Htwe and her husband moved to America in hopes of better opportunity for their son. They were greeted with violence instead.
They are small figures moving through a subway station on a Saturday in Manhattan — a mother and her son speaking softly to each other in Burmese.
Than Than Htwe, 58, is a homebody, content to stay at her family’s Brooklyn apartment on the weekend meditating or simmering fish in a pot of lemongrass and ginger. But she scheduled a doctor’s appointment for this morning so it would not conflict with her job stitching custom aprons.
By Ms. Htwe’s side is her only child, Kyaw Zaw Hein. At 22, he carries the hopes of his family on slight shoulders. His parents waited more than a decade in Myanmar for a visa so he could attend an American university. They arrived just three years ago.
