Nepali native shines at Mt. Hood

This month at The Advocate, we’re exploring history, stories and people in our community during Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Oregon. And if you visit the Learning Success Center/AVID center or the Room 1451 computer lab on the MHCC campus, you may see the person featured here, Karuna Rai.

Karuna is always willing to help those that have questions about either facility and can even in some instances give a little tutoring.

She works at the computer lab under Mt. Hood’s federal Work Study program while earning her degree in the medical/health care field. She currently has a 3.2 grade point average and aspires to help people, as well as heal the sick.

Karuna is 21, and originally comes from Nepal and has lived in the United States for the past 13 years in Gresham. She’s the middle child of three, with an older and younger sister. Her older sibling has also recently enrolled at MHCC.

On her spare time, Karuna enjoys dancing, arts and crafts, hiking at places such as Powell Butte Nature Park in Portland, and traveling to Canada and through the continental U.S. She enjoys volunteering at her church teaching Sunday school, and also does community work at the Rockwood CDC (Community Development Corp.), specifically with the Nepali Community Garden.

Karuna likes eating Nepali food but says there’s currently no Nepali restaurants available in northern Oregon. Her favorite foods include momo dumplings (perhaps now Nepal’s “national dish”), sel roti (a version of flatbread), and dal bhat (a series of small side dishes).

Asked why her parents decided to immigrate to America, she replied, “For a better future… A better life.” She went on to say that her parents sacrificed so that she and her sisters could get an education and have a better life than they had.

To go in-depth into Karuna’s roots, we must first take a trip to the Himalaya Mountains, which would require a long and strenuous road. Her family came from the small village of Khudunabari, about 300 miles outside (east) of the capital city of Kathmandu, located in Jhapa Province.

Karuna’s father and mother were farmers in a caste system similar to “sharecroppers” in 1930s America. Their village had no electricity, and most tasks were done manually.

The internet and other modern conveniences that we take for granted are something that may seem a millennia away in some locations in that part of the world. Even things like running hot water or refrigerators are something that these villagers only hear about in folktales or stories from the very few villagers who migrate to Kathmandu or other cities of Nepal or India.

When she was asked if she would like to say something that describes how she’s feeling about being profiled in The Advocate, Karuna smiled and said, “Namaste. It’s a Nepali greeting. It means the light within me bows to the light within you.”

If you’re ever in the 1451 computer lab, stop by. There’s a good chance you may run into the friendly, smiling and accommodating Karuna Rai. If you have any questions, surely she or the rest of the staff would be more than helpful.