HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Mu Kue was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. Her family lived in a bamboo hut, built by her father Pa Dah, who had fled Myanmar with his family due to violence against their ethnic group, the Karen.
On Thursday afternoon, sitting on a stage at Grace Academy in Hartford, surrounded by her family and congratulatory balloons, Mu Kue signed a letter of intent to play soccer at Springfield College.
Marge Morrissey was a founding donor and a member of the board of directors from the start of the 10-year-old academy, a tuition-free school for fifth to eighth grade girls who are under-served in Hartford. She watched from the audience Thursday.
“This is our first sports signing,” Morrissey said. “It’s just our dream come true.”
She tailed off, wiping away tears.
“Sorry,” she said. “This is what I wanted to have at Grace Academy, for these girls to have a normal life in high school with a vision toward college.”
Mu Kue, 19, is a senior at Northwest Catholic. She is a defender on the soccer team; she also plays basketball and is a speedy outfielder on the softball team who bunted an inside the park home run last season.
She is the second member of her family to go to high school, the second to go to college. Her older sister Kyoe Paw is a freshman at Springfield. Their younger sister, Paw Shee, is an outstanding three-sport athlete at Watkinson, where she is a sophomore.
All three went to Grace Academy, which has about 65 girls enrolled. Its motto is “Breaking the Cycle of Urban Poverty Through Education.” Because of its small enrollment, the school is able to support its students in many ways, even after they leave to go to high school.
“I thought it was going to be not fun at first because it was all girls,” Mu Kue said. “I had a lot of guy friends. But as the year went on, I loved it. I didn’t want to leave Grace Academy.
“They support me in everything I do. They helped me when I needed something. They’re always there for me.”
Mu Kue was very young and didn’t remember a lot about the refugee camp other than that her family lived in a bamboo house there and that they had to fill out a lot of paperwork to come to the U.S.
Kyoe remembered more.
“My family and relatives were fleeing from the Burmese army because there was a war going on and we were getting attacked and people were dying,” she said. “We had to flee day and night. There was no food. We were starving. The scariest moment was when we were being attacked and there were gunshots everywhere. I was 6. My parents have gone through worse than me. Almost their entire life.”
Mu Kue and Paw Shee were both born at the camp, which still exists in Thailand. In 2008, they came to Hartford through a U.N. program. They settled on Marshall Street, and the girls learned to play soccer with the neighborhood boys.
“As I came here, there were other people where I lived. They introduced me to soccer,” Mu Kue said. “We played street football because that’s the only thing we know.”
Kyoe went to Grace first, followed by Mu Kue and then Paw Shee. Though Mu Kue had gone to elementary school, her English was still not very good when she arrived at the school.
Bryan Cote started the athletic program at Grace Academy, where his wife Janine is the dean of students. He coaches soccer and basketball, and the teams play in a middle school league in Hartford, mostly against boys and because of that, mostly unsuccessfully. They run down to Bushnell Park to practice, setting up cones for goals.
Those were Mu Kue’s formative years of soccer. There were no rec or travel teams.
“She’s sort of self-made,” Bryan said. “She took the ball and worked on her own skills.”
“When we started understanding Kyoe and Mu Kue were going to be really good athletes and they wanted to go to Northwest, we wanted to support them,” Janine said.
“Their family needed our help,” Bryan said. “They needed more than just advocates. They were first generation. They were trying to do this from scratch. All the challenges were there: transportation, academic help.”
They have helped. The Grace community also offered resources to help Mu Kue join Farmington Sports Arena (FSA), and she played soccer there after her freshman year at Northwest to improve her skills.
“When I came (to Grace), they had a soccer team so I was like, ‘Why not try out?’ ” Mu Kue said. “I immediately fell in love with the game. I wanted to continue my career. I tried out at Northwest. It was hard at first. It was competitive. I did make the team. After that, I played at FSA for one year, and I know how the play goes and stuff. Sophomore year it was a lot better. Now I just want to continue.”
Pa Dah stood in the back of gym and proudly took pictures of his daughter Thursday.
“In Thailand, in the refugee camp, the education wasn’t very good,” he said as Kyoe translated. “I am very grateful that my daughters were able to get a good education in America, and I am very happy they pursued their dreams.
“Because of all the wars I fled from, I was happy there was an opportunity for us to apply to come to the United States. I only did that for my daughters’ futures.”
Kyoe, 21, is studying health care management at Springfield. Mu Kue plans to study athletic training. All three of the sisters are now U.S. citizens.
After she signed her letter, the students assembled had questions. What do you want to do when you leave college? Who is your favorite soccer player? Would you like to coach soccer?
“Do you ever think you will come back here and coach at Grace Academy?” another student asked, much to the amusement of Cote.
“It would be a big improvement,” he said, laughing.
On Friday, he said. “One of the visions we have is that we empower these kids, and they go off to college, then they come back and they’re leaders in Hartford - teachers, doctors, civic leaders. Or you could be a coach at the middle school.”
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