Interview with Lyzan Rashid
I interviewed my older sister, Lyzan Rashid, who is a 26 year old Kurdish American Refugee. Lyzan came to the U.S. when she was only 2 years old. She came to America with her family in order to seek refuge from the Iraqi government, as they began to mistreat the Kurdish people of its nation. Being the only member of my family that was born in the U.S., I took any opportunity to learn more about the journey my family took to get to where they are today. This interview gave me a deeper look into my sister’s experience of coming to the U.S. at such a young age. It also gave me great insight on how immigration can shape someone’s worldview, especially when they still have so much to learn from the new word around them.
The interview was recorded over zoom while we sat side by side. I had given Lyzan my list of questions a week prior so that she could get a feel for what type of interview this would be and so that she could think about each question I would be asking. Since Lyzan grew up being very proud of who she is, proud of the sacrifices our parents have made for her, and proud of where she came from, she was thrilled at being given the opportunity to share her story.
Kurdistan is a region of the Middle East that spans across Northern Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. Many Kurds fled Iraq due to the increasing threats of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Even at such a young age, Lyzan remembers the refugee camps, the U.S. military soldiers, and the uncertainties along the way. Lyzan speaks about the hardships through her parents’ and her own lens.
From Turkey to Guam to the U.S., it was an unpredictable journey, but Lyzan found comfort in being with her family. Upon arriving in the U.S., Lyzan and her family went to St. Louis, Missouri along with her uncle’s family. Talking about the sense of comfort she received from knowing family in the U.S. demonstrated the network effect, explained by Douglas Massey. Our father, living in the U.S. previously (to attend university), also gave them the upper hand since he was already familiar with the western culture and had made connections while there. After a few years, when it came time to move out of Alabama, Lyzan’s family found the support of her aunt’s family in Northern Virginia. They had been living in Virginia since their arrival to the U.S. as refugees and they became a great source of support when Lyzan’s immediate family decided to move there.
When they first arrived in the U.S., Lyzan’s family was aided through Catholic Church Charities (CCC). CCC’s mission was to help refugees get back on their feet after having to start their lives over in America. Lyzan described the aid they received from the church as, “Anything from furniture to where we could go get our groceries.” In contrast to Piore’s findings on the labor market and the U.S.’s need for immigrant workers, Lyzan and her family did not come strictly in search of job opportunities, but as a way to seek safety and comfort. However, their initial warm welcome to the U.S. drastically shifted when Muslim Americans were seen as bad, or even dangerous, people after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. While talking about her and her family’s initial experience being warm and welcoming, Lyzan later mentioned the discrimination she faced a few years after they settled. I kindly asked if she would feel comfortable elaborating, which she agreed to.
After 9/11, Muslims began to be associated with terrorists. This lead racists and white supremacists to make harmful remarks and carry out heinous actions on the Muslim and Muslim American communities. Lyzan mentioned how, “the piece of fabric on our heads can sometimes feel like a target on our back,” due to the prejudice her and her mother have faced while living in the United States. This ties back into the notion of xenophobia. Typically, it is white American born citizens of the U.S. who fear the entrance of foreign people into, what they believe to be, their land. Lyzan spoke about her horrendous encounters with xenophobic people. It’s a unique type of harassment that immigrants go through solely because they were not native born and/or appear to be foreigners.
Later in the interview, Lyzan made a very important point about how immigrants are treated in the United States. When speaking on the reasons people may not like immigrants, such as taking others jobs and being viewed as dangerous in the U.S., she stated, “Immigrants, I think, are the scapegoats for a lot of this,” meaning the things people view as negative aspects of the U.S. are often blamed on these immigrants who come to America in order to seek refuge or to access better opportunities in order to better their lives and those of their families.
When it came to assimilating and integrating into the western culture and social norms, Lyzan acknowledged the privilege she had in coming to the U.S. at such a young age. It was not difficult for her to catch up with her American born peers. This was also seen as an advantage when comparing her experience to that of our parents, who had to completely change their way of life. Lyzan also stressed the importance of language throughout the interview. She talked about how grateful she is that her parents made sure she understood and could speak the Kurdish language. In western culture, having a foreign accent, especially a thick one, is typically associated with lack of knowledge. While acknowledging the barriers language can bring in the United States, Lyzan stressed the importance of speaking multiple languages and how she associates language and accents to higher levels of experiences and intelligence. I believe people born in the United States, who only speak English, face difficulties and a level of ignorance when it comes to understanding the difficulty of learning English as a second language. Additionally, a person who has never had to learn a second language can erroneously assume someone who is learning English is not intelligent. She also spoke about knowing friends who are children of immigrants and how they have parents who did not prioritize them learning their native tongues, and therefore growing up to only know and speak the English language.
When asked if she felt American, Lyzan stated that she would call herself Muslim American or Kurdish American before she would solely call herself an American. This is valid, especially considering her unique experience living as a Muslim in America. While interviewing Lyzan, it became evident that she acknowledges that she is not viewed as a typical American by other Americans. She attributed this due to being visibly Muslim, as she wears a headscarf, also often referred to as a hijab.
Although Lyzan notes that she is very connected with her Kursish culture, she has regretted not going back to visit, since immigrating to the United States. She started the conversation by speaking about how great it would be to eat Kurdish food in Kurdistan. The way she talked about this made it seem as if it was a right of passage for her to go back and have those types of experiences. She then shifted to a more sentimental reason as to why she wished she could go back to Kurdistan. She stated, “The one thing that I miss and I know the rest of my family misses is my grandmother”. Lyzan even discussed how her grandmother left Kurdistan as a refugee and how they were able to visit her in Germany when she still lived there. It is clear that visiting her grandmother would mean a lot to her, but I wonder if visiting her grandmother in Kurdistan would be even more meaningful, being that she is now located in her birthplace.
While asking Lyzan about her views on immigration would seem almost silly after speaking so passionately about her and her family’s experiences, I went ahead and asked her about her current views on immigration. Instead of diving deep into politics she was able to clearly state her views right off the bat by stating, “Honestly, the more the merrier”. She even brought up the idea that America was founded on being a “melting pot” and how this is something she was taught in school very early on in her history classes. It seems as if Lyzan gracefully challenged new aggressive views on immigration by going back to what, or should I say who, made America what it is today… immigrants. It is clear that she understands ideas of national security, but that she also acknowledges how this can be manipulated in racist way that keeps immigrants and refugees out of the United States. She then mentions how she has personally worked as a civil servant during her tenure at the Department of Energy. Her mindset is not that of dividing the haves and the have-nots, but that of someone who came as a refugee and contributed to the country and therefore acknowledges anyone coming to the United States can contribute to the country. While the example she used (working for the Department of Energy) is a direct public service, the way she mentions the many different jobs available in America leads me to believe she finds any contribution to the United States equally as important.
While discussing her views on immigration, she pivots into the idea some anti-immigration believers may hold. The idea that immigrants “steal” jobs from American citizens. She quickly rebukes this argument by stating, “There’s just such a long list of skills that immigrants bring and I think that it’s selfish for someone to think that someone coming in is taking their jobs and if that’s the job you wanted go for it. There’s so many opportunities. America is not a thirty bed hotel with only thirty beds, so to speak. Sky’s not the limit, it’s much higher honestly, truly. And there are jobs for just about anyone and everyone”.
Lyzan became very passionate about her views on immigration as she proudly spoke of friends who are Dreamers, undocumented, naturalized citizens (like herself), and even American born citizens. She even jumped into speaking about Representative Ilhan Omar, who came to the U.S. as a refugee and now works to better the lives of everyone residing in the United States. It is clear that Lyzan is able to humanize the experience of immigration to a point where she sees everyone on the same playing field. She put it very clearly at the end of the interview when she stated, “We’re just people”.
My final question for Lyzan involved her having to give a message she wished everyone knew about immigrants and/or refugees. She described how important it is for people to think outside of themselves and their experiences in order to even partially understand the complexities of immigration. She stated, “Try to imagine what that would be like if suddenly, let’s say America wasn’t a safe place for you anymore and other countries were willing to take you and you had to drop everything, you know literally take a small bag with you. Imagine leaving all your possessions, leaving your job, leaving your friends, your family that can’t go or won’t go. Imagine saying goodbye to your mom who may be too old to go or basically breaking all ties for an opportunity that you aren’t even sure is going to work out”. Lyzan words seem to come from the heart and from a place where it seems that she truly wishes people could see beyond their privileges.
Finally, without breaking, Lyzan shifts her message from accepting immigrants and refugees into America to those immigrants who are already here. She references Dreamers who have built incredible careers, served America’s armed forces, and have spent their entire lives in America and how absurd it is to deport them to countries they have never even considered their homes. She also stated, “I think people forget that immigrants are people. They are not statistics. They’re not quotas. They’re none of those things. They’re not children in cages. They’re people and I think once you realize that it could be you, it could be someone you love, I think that’s when you then realize that ‘okay this is really messed up’”. Finally, Lyzan ended the interview by encouraging people who are not familiar with immigrtaion or immigrants to educate themselves by serving. Lyzan said, “once you immerse yourself in those communities you’re able to humanize these people and see how, how much a little bit of help can go a long way… immigrants/refugees are people and if you know some, talk to them, ask about their stories. If you don’t, try to educate yourself”.
Mastan 0:00
Hello my name is Mastan Rashid and I’m sitting here with Lyzan Rashid. Can you please start off by introducing yourself?
Lyzan 0:08
Hi my name is Lyzan Rashid I am 26 years old I work as a therapist in an emergency department at a hospital. I have been living in the state of Virginia for the last fifteen plus years.
I have been in the United States since the age of two and I’m currently a citizen of the United States of America.
Mastan 0:34
Can you please tell us a little bit about where you were born?
Lyzan 0:38
Sure. I was born in Northern Iraq better known as Kurdistan and I was born in the city of Sulaymaniyah also known as Sulaymani. I was born and my parents were born there and my older brother was also born there and you know like I said I was there and came to America at the age of 2, but I was there up until about 1, 1 and a half years old and I can kind of go into where we went after that in a little bit I suppose.
Mastan 1:15
So, Why did you migrate to the US?
Lyzan 1:19
We came to the US in 1996 through Operation Pacific Haven and that was through the United States military and basically a lot of awful things were happening in Iraq and especially in Northern Iraq to the Kurdish people there and basically a lot of people were fleeing to save their lives and their families lives and for better opportunities elsewhere so my family and I at the time were taken to refugee camps in Turkey. We were there for a little while until we were transported to a military base in Guam where we stayed for just a little while until placements were made, so while in Turkey people weren’t all sent to Guam but those who were they were given different placements throughout the United States, as Guam is a territory. For example, my family was placed in St. Louis, Missouri and my dad’s brother’s family was also placed in St. Louis Missouri but then my mom’s sister’s family was placed in Northern Virginia. And that’s just a little bit of my family, so my dad did at the time have another brother with a family who decided to stay in Kurdistan. My mom is 1 out of 9 children, so the rest of her siblings, most of them decided to later basically seek refuge in other countries, such as Germany. Some decided to stay in Kurdistan as well. From Guam my family decided to move to St. Louis, Missouri and it was basically just to seek safety.
Mastan 3:08
How did you migrate to the US?
Lyzan 3:10
Basically through the government channels. Like I said, Operation Pacific Haven, so my parents and a lot of their friends and family members from Kurdistan heard that the United States was coming in to save those that may be in trouble with the Iraqi government depending on the type of jobs they had at the time or their affiliations or if they had any roots to the United States, so this was basically a mission to go in and save any of the vulnerable populations and my family, and like I said not just my immediate family but my distant family, a lot of us fell into that category, so basically this was kind of like a God send that the United States had come in and offered us this opportunity.
Mastan 4:08
Do you remember it being hard or easy for your parents to find or get a job here?
Lyzan 4:14
What’s Interesting is that when we came to the United States there was a lot of technicalities, so my family is privileged in that my father did study in the United States and he finished university here and my mother is also college educated and she finished most of her schooling back in Kurdistan. When we came in, my father already had his degree to be a civil engineer and my mom had a background in education and psychology, and so basically you would think that since he finished school here he could just dive into the field and secure a job being that he speaks English and finished school here that things should match up, but actually we received a lot of assistance from Catholic church charities who helped and to this day they help refugees. My father ended up getting a job that wasn’t in his field at all and so did one of my uncles who, like I said, was also in St. Louis, Missouri with us at the time. It wasn’t a smooth transition at all. Eventually my parents were able to find a way, which I’ll talk about a little bit later, but it definitely wasn’t – you live this type of lifestyle here and we’re just gonna move and live that same type of lifestyle here in America.
Mastan 5:56
Did you feel welcomed or was it a hostile experience or do you know if your parents had a good experience or not?
Lyzan 6:04
I was very young at the time but I do have some memories of it and I talk about it with my family often. The Catholic church charities really helped my family find placement and anything we needed. Anything from furniture to where we could go get our groceries type of thing. Like I said, my dad had lived in the U.S. for some time while he finished schooling. This was the first time my mother had been here. The first time my aunt and some of my cousins had been here as well, so it was a pretty welcoming experience and I mean even in Guam I have these memories of some of the military personnel handing out toys to the kids and we still have some of those toys stored away somewhere in our garage to this day. So it was a very welcome we want you here, we want to make sure you’re safe, but that kind of did shift a little down the line. After the church was involved and after my parents – after they weren’t involved I should say- after my parents secured jobs in their fields and discrimination was definitely something my family has dealt with and still deals with today unfortunately. Overall the original welcome was very heartwarming to say the least and definitely my parents felt that support through the very difficult transition.
Mastan 7:42
What was it like getting accustomed to the social norms?
Lyzan 7:47
So, being so young, it wasn’t a lot of adjusting on my behalf, but it was very much so on my parents. I would say more so on my mother’s being that she did not finish her schooling here, but it was a lot of knowing anything from what people wear to what people eat. It could be anything along those lines. An example I’ll give is in a lot of countries, this sounds silly, but in a lot of countries they don’t refrigerate their eggs, so all of a sudden you go to a grocery store and you’re like why are these cold and you come home and you’re like suppose to put these in the fridge. So even very small things that we don’t think twice about can be sort of a small culture shock to people or an adjustment process. For me being as young as I was I just kind of went with it. I mean I noticed people weren’t speaking Kurdish and we were not living in the same place anymore or you know who are these strange nice people bringing us things. I remember those moments, but being as young as I was I think was a privilege in its own right that I got to grow with it and kind of assimilate in a way, but I think most of those growing pains were felt on my mother’s ends of things and I think the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve been able to recognize that, but it’s been interesting for sure
Mastan 9:37
I know you mentioned discrimination earlier, going down the line as you’ve been here. Would you feel comfortable elaborating on that?
Lyzan 9:47
Sure. So I think a couple things play into that. So for example, as you hear me speak right now, I very clearly do not have an accent. I’m sure I can make a phone call and a question as to my race, my ethnicity, my religious background, etcetera wouldn’t come into play. However my mother has an accent and for some people that is some sort of mark on society, however I’ve grown up to believe and know that an accent is just basically a signifier that someone speaks more than one language and they may be more intelligent than you. Anything from that to the way you dress. We are a Muslim household. I wear a headscarf, my mother wears a headscarf, my sister does not, and that is her choice and It’s all of our choices whether we do or we don’t. However, that makes it very interesting when we go out because the piece of fabric on our heads can sometimes feel like a target on our back because you go out and it’s like okay they know exactly, or they think they know exactly who I am, which gets pretty difficult.
I think I didn’t notice any of this until my family eventually about a year and a half after living in St.Louis, Missouri we moved down to Mobile, Alabama, so we’re in the deep south here and my uncle’s family decided to stay in St. Louis, so while we’re in the south we didn’t notice too much, or I didn’t notice too much as a kid about people trying to give us a hard time. I should also mention my mom hadn’t decided to wear a headscarf at that time, I also was very young. I was 5 years old, I didn’t know what that was, I didn’t wear one either. However, around the time my mother decided to start wearing the headscarf, people had questions, they had never seen it before, but it was more out of curiosity, but unfortunately the timing of when she decided to start wearing the headscarf, or the hijab, publicly was right around the time of September 11th. So here is this young mom who decides to wear this and it’s, you know, mostly accepted and she feels good about it and all of a sudden you have breaking news and you have a lot of people in the country who are starting to associate the way she dresses with a religion and associating that religion with these acts of terrorism and you ask anyone of Muslim faith if we consider those terrorists as part of our religion or culture, we do not. So I think that’s really around the time when there was a big shift and so I definitely started noticing that.
As I grew up, my parents always told me that if you’re going to wear the headscarf you have to be very careful and honestly when I decided to, my parents told me not to. They said it’s going to make your life a lot harder, you don’t have to do it and I really felt empowered by it and I decided to do it. Unfortunately, to a certain degree they were right. I did have instances with people yelling things at me from cars. I had an instance where in school someone ripped it off my head. Less than a year ago I had a car that followed me and basically the person just kept yelling “Are you Muslim? Are you Muslim?” kind of harassing me as I’m just going down a street. It varies, this isn’t a daily thing I would say, but I think being very visibly not white American makes me and my family an easy target in that respect. I think that, like I said, the shift was probably around there and around 9/11 and the shift, I mean, had a lot to do with the way we dress. If we were still in Kurdistan, if I was wearing a headscarf or if I wasn’t, no one is going to think twice about either of those decisions and this is pre and post 9/11. So I think discrimination is definitely something that we face and something we still continue to face today
Mastan 14:46
Thank you for sharing that
Lyzan 14:48
Yeah
Mastan 14:49
What was it like attending school here?
Lyzan 14:52
So attending school here -I mean I really don’t know any other experience or any other way I suppose of- but I do remember very specifically that when I entered Kindergarten, I’m sure it was marked somewhere in my files that I came from a refugee family, so it was very I guess clear marked in my file that “not American born something” because I definitely was thrown into ESL classes, so english for second language speakers and so I was put into a room and this happened only once or twice and everyone in the room had different backgrounds. Some of them were from the Middle East, some of them were from South America, kids from all over who English wasn’t their first language. I basically entered the school system with this assumption because I was not born in the United States that I struggle with English or that I needed additional assistance and so this wasn’t something they screened me for. I kind of wish they had. Which tells me that maybe this wasn’t coming from the best of places, thinking that maybe she needs this support because there was no screening, but soon they found out that my English is up to par with kids who were my age and so you know like I said I was only in there maybe one or two times and they had removed me from the class and then I was just thrown into I guess the norm, the regular, whatever you want to call it. That experience isn’t just isolated to me. A lot of my cousins were given the same thing where they were thrown into these ESOL or ESL learning environments and then they were pulled out. Like I said earlier, I really think this was more of an issue of kind of stamping our files a certain way and not really screening for our needs. I kind of with it was the latter, but other than that American school education is really all I’ve known. I’ve done public and private school and it’s been a mix of the good and the bad, but I think everyone can speak a little to that. In regards to being a refugee coming, I think that ESL process of putting us in those classes was the most interesting and the most specific to my experience. Other than that, no one really knew that I was a refugee for quite some time, especially until I decided to start wearing a headscarf later down the line. No one really questioned, “were you born here?”. I’m very clearly -when you look at me you can clearly tell I’m not American born white American so to speak and that I’m Middle Eastern, but until I started wearing the headscarf, no one really questioned “hey like where are you from?, where are your parents from?” but I really think early on that was the caveat to the experiences we had in the school education system.
Mastan 18:37
Do you feel American?
Lyzan 18:41
That’s an interesting question. I do, but I think my cultural ties are pretty strong as well. I think that’s a really tough question because I am an American citizen, I have an American passport. If you ask me do I think my parents made the American dream possible for us and have achieved that I would tell you 100% yes. I think I would consider myself a Muslim American before I would say that I’m solely an American. If someone did ask, if I was traveling somewhere pre-covid or post-covid, “where are you from?” I would think that I would say I’m Kurdish before I would say that I’m American. But if “where do you live?” I would say America. I definitely do not take for granted the privileges that come with living in the United States, but we don’t really have the best, I would say – the rest of the world doesn’t see us in the best light, so to speak. Like I said, I would consider myself a Muslim American or a Kurdish American before I would consider myself solely an American.
Mastan 20:15
Would you say there are any advantages having the cultural and immigrant background that you have?
Lyzan 20:24
Absolutely. I think it allows me to put myself in the shoes of others and it also kind of gives me the best of both worlds almost. Like I said, I would still put American in my title when letting people know who I am and how I identify, but that’s not all that I am. Having my roots be in Kurdistan and in Northern Iraq, I have a lot of, whether it’s beliefs or holiday celebrations or anything down to the food, you know it could be a variety of things that I get from that side but then also know living in America and being an American I have those opportunities that other people that are maybe still in Kurdistan or in other parts of the world do not have. I have access to clean water. I have access to electricity. Going down to the simplest of things. I definitely get the best of both worlds and I’m very blessed to identify with the culture and I think that identifying with my religion also plays into that. I think it would be very different if I was a Muslim American that was let’s say white and born and raised in America with parents who were also born raised in America. I think that that’s a whole different experience and once again I would still have the same label as Muslim American or maybe that person would just go by American, but I think my religion, my culture is very intertwined in a way even though not all Kurdish people or not all Middle Easterners are Muslim by any means, I think for me it’s a very unique experience that I acknowledge. It really gives me a different lens to see the world because I don’t make assumptions as well. I think knowing my parents came from where they came from and the hard work they’ve put in, I don’t make assumptions about people anymore whether it’s how they live their lives and how they spend their money and how they dress. Those are things that I think people read on other people very quickly, so if someone – lets say you see a 16 year old who just got their driver’s license roll up in – they come up in a very nice car and you assume oh their parents gave it to them, their parents have all this old money, or whatever it may be and like oh they’re so spoiled or whatever and it could be that their parents came from nothing, like literally nothing and like they rebuilt a whole life and they worked very hard and that was something that they felt like they wanted to give to their kid as a gift or maybe it was a hand me down or like it’s a shared car. You just don’t know and I think that western culture is very face value sometimes so when you see something you assume you know everything about them and I think – I relate it a lot to social media, so I think western culture and like American culture, what you see is what you get and that is not true. So when it comes to the life I’ve had and lived, I know what it’s like to have a family that lives on food stamps and I also know what it’s like to have a family that is upper-middle class and I also understand that people fall in between that and people fall above that and it doesn’t speak to their whole being. It’s just what they have in those moments and that doesn’t define a person. My parents are still the same people they were when we first came here. They’re still the same people they were before we came here and I think those experiences have shaped them but their core values are still the same, so I think my experiences have really shaped the way I see others but in a more open-minded non judgmental type of way.
Mastan 24:52
Do you still have ties to your home country?
Lyzan 24:58
So when it comes to Kurdistan, I think it’s a little interesting that I’ve never been back and that’s something I really truly regret. Especially now that we’re in the middle of this pandemic. It’s not a lack of desire. I’ve wanted to go back for quite some time but the timing, you know throw in a war, it definitely hasn’t been the safest place to go back to, but I have family members that have definitely gone back multiple times. My dad has been back, my uncle who has been back multiple times, my cousins. I had a cousin who went and lived there for a little while and she worked for an American NGO there. So it’s not a lack of really access or anything like that, but I think going back would strengthen those ties I have to those roots there. Because I was so young, so everything I know is second hand in a way. I do a lot of asking where I’m constantly pestering my parents about these questions and asking to see photographs and recalling memories I’ve had being like oh is this how it happened? this is how I remember it. Can you tell me about the refugee camps we were in? Can you tell me about the neighborhood you lived in when you were a kid. So I have a lot of these ties that are second hand in a way but they feel so personal to me because I really don’t have much else.
I have a lot of family that are still there. Like I said earlier, my mom is one out of nine and she has one sister that never left and this whole time she’s been there and so we’ve always been in contact with her and we’ve never lost contact with her or anything but it’s been a barrier, so the distance has really been a barrier to feeling as close to my roots as I want to, but I think I’ve really thrived on these stories. It’s not just who still lives there, so for example a lot of my family went to Germany, so some of them that went to Germany eventually moved back to Kurdistan and then moved back to Germany or they moved back to Kurdistan and then stayed. We visited Germany a lot when I was a kid, so I would have those memories of going there and asking them and asking to see their photographs and asking their different stories because only one of my mom’s siblings and one of my father’s siblings went through the process of Turkey to Guam to the US and the rest of them never came here to live here and some of them have visited. So their immigration stories and their stories of how they grew up in our culture is a bit different than what I’ve been told, so even though they were in the same household as my mother, where they ended up is very different.
I think something that really helps bridge the gap between the information that I’ve been given and have seen in photographs and documents and things along those lines – those stories have really made me feel this connection to the point I really feel like I need to go back at some point. As if there is a void or something where this is where I’m from, this is where I was literally born and it feels like very quickly we were swept out of there and brought here to the US, but I feel like once I see it for myself then experience it, I’ll understand, but unfortunately it is a bit more modernized now and it’s almost a little bit westernized. Placed where there used to be tiny villages, now there’s skyscrapers and then there’s these hotels and restaurants and things like that, so it’s definitely different than what my parents experienced and like I said my dad has been back and he’s had business there and things along those lines, so he knows how it’s changed, but I think it’ll be very interesting to go back for my mother eventually because her memory is still very much what it was the day before we left so to speak. She often goes back to “I’ll never forget that day when I had to say goodbye to my family and we packed up and we left” and so I think it’ll be very interesting to see how those stories she told me evolve from what we see now, but I very much do feel Kurdish and I think another factor that plays into that is that I speak the language and that is something I am so privileged and so grateful for because I do have a lot of friends whose parents speak multiple languages and they came to the US at a young age and their parents wanted them to assimilate to western culture so they didn’t bother or they didn’t find it necessary or important to teach them their natve tongue so to speak but that’s something my parents were very adamant about. Something we used to like to joke about was I have an aunt who when we were in her house here in America when we were visiting, you couldn’t speak English and we found that very bizarre. We were a group of like eight teenagers and me and all my cousins were like “why is she doing this? Like that’s so weird. Why would we speak in Kurdish to each other?” but it was those little things that really forced us to speak in out native tongue and appreciate it because when I meet people who don’t speak a second language, I really feel like they’re missing out on something cause there are emotions, phrases, words that I can only describe in Kurdish. There are no English words for them or if I translate it wouldn’t make sense.
And I think I’ve never felt more grateful than when I was finishing up my masters degree – and like I said I’m a therapist in mental health counseling – I had a client that came in that needed services and he only spoke Kurdish. Somehow someone in the office remembered and they called me and you know I wasn’t in the office, I wasn’t supposed to be in there until a couple of days later, I had this weird break happening, but they called me and they said, “Hey I know you’re not on call or anything, but hey can you just talk to this guy? We think he speaks the same language as you.” For me it was like yeah I doubt it. There are multiple dialects of Kurdish and so they put him on speaker and we start talking and I sensed such a relief in him. This person I actually ended up seeing four-five months giving him services completely in Kurdish, so here I am in the profession I was studying to enter, this was the career path I was taking, and here I am using my native tongue to help someone, something I would not have if my parents didn’t make sure that I knew this language or put importance on or prioritize. I think one of the best things ever was – or one of the best feelings I got was at the end when the patient was done with his services and I was getting ready to discharge him, he said that, “thank your parents for me because the way you speak is very native,” and what he meant by that was It wasn’t – I didn’t have an accent when I spoke in Kurdish and it wasn’t as if I was someone who had learned it secondhand. So for example, you learn to speak Spanish in school, you’ve never spoken Spanish in your life, a native speaker is going to know that Spanish is not your first language. So speaking with him, letting him hear me speak the Kurdish that I’ve grown up speaking, he was very comforted in that my parents prioritized that. It was a very nice moment and I definitely came back and told my parents. It was very comforting for them because it’s not so much just keeping the culture but also being able to carry it on, so I think for that gentlemen being able to give him those resources he would have otherwise not gotten I think really places an emphasis on the ties I have with my culture and my language.
Mastan 34:19
Is there anything you miss about your home country or is there like a specific person or thing you want to visit?
Lyzan 34:28
I would love – so I eat a lot of Kurdish food and I love Kurdish food, but I would love to taste Kurdish food in Kurdistan, so that’s something I feel like I haven’t been able to really experience even though my mom, completely unbiased of course, is one of the best Kurdish cooks and a lot of the Kurdish people around here will tell you. But the one thing that I miss and I know the rest of my family misses is my grandmother. Fortunately we were able to see her a little bit more than a decade ago. She had left Kurdistan with some of my aunts and my uncles from my mother’s side, so this is my maternal grandmother. She moved to Germany, so when we would visit Germany at the time she was still living there and we got to see her and it’s been a very very long time as I said it’s been over a decade since we’ve been able to see her because she left and moved back to Kurdistan. Coincidentally enough, my parents, I’d say like three years ago, two-three years ago, they took a trip out to Turkey and they had the intention of going to Turkey, going to Germany to see my family, and then with some of my family members going to Kurdistan so my mom could see her mom again, but once again timing is a very strange thing. While they’re in Turkey there’s a coup, so not very safe. So they speed up that trip and go to Germany and then when they’re in Germany there’s a few instances of attacks and things along those lines and they weren’t able to go to Kurdistan. It’s been difficult being able to get that to happen and it’s been very disheartening to not be able to go back, but I think if you were to ask anyone in my household what’s something you miss the most, it’s definitely gonna be my grandmother or family members that we haven’t been able to see.
Mastan 36:50
What are your current views on immigration?
Lyzan 36:54
Honestly, the more the merrier. I mean America is a melting pot. That’s what they, for as long as I’ve taken history classes in school, that’s what everyone has referenced to or referred to it as and I think that we have so much to offer and I think that immigration and issues with the border and things along those lines is painted with such a negative light. People who see immigrants as opportunists and people coming in to take jobs and people coming in to use up your tax money and things along those lines, I think that’s awful. I think I personally have added to the United States. My parents have added, whether that’s financially, whether that’s through their services. I was a public servant working for the Department of Energy for a while. There’s just such a long list of skills that immigrants bring and I think that it’s selfish for someone to think that someone coming in is taking their jobs and if that’s the job you wanted go for it. There’s so many opportunities. America is not a thirty bed hotel with only thirty beds, so to speak. Sky’s not the limit, it’s much higher honestly, truly. And there are jobs for just about anyone and everyone and I think we need to recognize people who are immigrating and why they are immigrating. So whether it’s they don’t like where they live and they want to come here and contribute, okay. Whether it’s you’re seeking safety and their refugees, okay. But I think all of this talk about building this wall and border protection and keeping out bad people, I think that that’s a conversation that needs to shift. People coming into this country aren’t looking to make it worse. They’re looking to make their lives better and in that process I guarantee you they’re going to make the US a better place.
I have friends who are Dreamers, I have friends who are undocumented, I have friends who are American born citizens, naturalized citizens like myself, friends who have been refugees like myself, and all of us have something to add and the idea that there is a capacity or that the vetting process isn’t good enough and to be honest we’ve been taking immigrants in for a very long time and there are many statistics that are out there about who’s dangerous and who’s not and where I guess attacks have come from or like things along those lines and immigrants I think are the scapegoats for a lot of this. In reality, like I said earlier, people are looking to better their lives and in the process better the places they go to.
If you wanna go ahead and take a look at Congress, for example, if you wanna look at Minnesota, I think a great person of reference is Ilhan Omar. So Representative, a member of Congress, Ilhan Omar came to the US as a refugee, became a naturalized citizen and now’s a member of Congress and she’s not voting on things that just better her life. She has that worldview that I talked about earlier of coming to the US as an immigrant and then also understanding western culture and American culture and identifying as a proud American for her. But she’s also a refugee Muslim American. All of those go together. To have someone in congress that has this lens is something that is priceless. It’s truly priceless because why would we want people in power, so to speak, who have this one viewpoint of what it’s like to live in America? So if someone who was born and raised in America, top 1%, has been to the best schools, let’s say parents have paid their way through their schools, so they haven’t experienced student debt, they haven’t experiences homelessness, they haven’t experienced food insecurity, they haven’t experienced living without health insurance. All of these things they have not experienced, right, and so you want someone like this in office to vote for other people to have these things when this has been a privilege to them. There are representatives that realize their privilege and acknowledge it and want everyone to have what they had, but I think that’s pretty rare for someone in today’s age and the administration that is currently in place to realize those things, so when you have a refugee, an immigrant making choices, it’s not just for immigrants. She’s not just empowering immigrants. She is empowering all of her constituents, the US that she represents and she wants to help because she knows what it’s like to have and to not have and I think then realizing that everyone deserves to have and being able to differentiate what is a basic human right and I think having that lens is so crucial and so important.
So back to your original question, my views on immigration today. The process that the US has been doing with vetting people, making sure “what are your intentions here?” – okay. If it’s worked before, it’s going to continue to work but I think having the idea of putting up a wall and shutting down, not accepting people from certain countries, having the Muslim ban that was enacted earier in the administration is ridiculous. It’s ludicrous. These are good people looking for better opportunities, seeking refuge and safety and just because you don’t know someone who has done that or you personally haven’t had to do that doesn’t mean that those people aren’t deserving
Mastan 44:00
How do you think your personal experiences have shaped your views on immigration?
Lyzan 44:06
I think it’s made me very pro-immigration. I mean and how could it not? I think it’s very clear that immigrants aren’t people to fear. I definitely have spoken with people that have immigrated to the US who think oh we should have tighter borders and that’s baffling to me because then I’m like you wouldn’t be here. You really wouldn’t be here, so who are you to have made it in and want to keep others out and why? Because now you’ve assimilated and now you consider yourself American and then it creates this divide between the haves and the have nots or the citizens and the green card holders or the Dreamers. I think my personal experience and having friends who are Dreamers and who haven’t been naturalized, who didn’t choose to immigrate here, whose parents brought them here for those opportunities, whether it’s education, housing, safety, the myriad of things is it’s really shaped me into knowing that people are people and we deserve basic human rights and I also often think of my friends who are Dreamers and then think of these child detention centers. Trying to imagine when they came to the United States or when their parents brought them here what that would’ve done to their lives if they were separated. So to go ahead and remove their parent back from the equation and send them back, quote unquote, where they came from and keep the children here or not, not even know where their parents are. I mean all of these horrible stories that we’re hearing in the news and then I think wow if the previous administration, the Obama administration didn’t pass the Dreamers Act, where would this country be? Where would my friends be? I remember before it passed I had a friend who was terrified of being deported to a country that she’s never really lived in and thinking about those things and really knowing people who are being affected by it, it has really shaped my views because I think people have this privilege of not knowing affected by it and then they themselves and I think that is the definition of privilege, so basically thinking it’s not a problem because it’s not a problem for you. So back to your question, I digressed, I do believe that my experiences have very much made me pro-immigrant and pro-refugee for sure.
Mastan 47:13
What is something you wish everyone knew about immigrants or refugees?
Lyzan 47:19
We’re just people. I think spoken simply, we’re just people. I think also put yourselves in our shoes. Try to imagine what that would be like if suddenly, let’s say America wasn’t a safe place for you anymore and other countries were willing to take you and you had to drop everything, you know literally take a small bag with you. Imagine leaving all your possessions, leaving your job, leaving your friends, your family that can’t go or won’t go. Imagine saying goodbye to your mom who may be too old to go or basically breaking all ties for an opportunity that you aren’t even sure is going to work out and you show up and you do your best and you hope that it’s a supportive environment. But I think people forget that immigrants are people. They are not statistics. They’re not quotas. They’re none of those things. They’re not children in cages. They’re people and I think once you realize that it could be you, it could be someone you love, I think that’s when you then realize that okay this is really messed up. If my best friend who has lived here for the last three decades, has a doctorates degree and has bought a house here and is paying the mortgage and pays their taxes and served in the military, served for this country’s military is scared of being deported to a country that they’ve never called home and I think asking yourself those questions by putting yourself in those positions will make you truly consider your views or maybe give you extra things to consider because I think if you boil it all down, we’re all just people and we all want the same things. We want a happy life, we want to be healthy, we want a roof over our heads, we want food in our stomachs, shoes on our feet, clothes on our backs and I think when people start to think this is mine and I’m not sharing or this is mine and you don’t deserve it or you didn’t work for it, I think it becomes very messy. But wouldn’t you want someone to embrace you and your family with open arms and provide you with services that will allow you to one day get back up on your feet to then pass it on or pay it forward to someone else. I wish people would just start to humanize immigrants and refugees and realize that this isn’t something they’re doing as opportunists this is something that is a very difficult decision to make, like I said dropping everything for something that you’re not even sure is going to work out. So I think really just humanizing people and forcing yourselves in their shoes is the way to approach it and I also encourage people to try to volunteer. Like I said, Catholic Church Charities to this day helps find homes and resources for refugees. Doesn’t necessarily have to be that service but I know a lot of different programs exist, a lot of different NGOs, nonprofits that help immigrants and refugees. So if you personally don’t know anyone I would highly recommend that you get involved whether it’s helping someone literally move into their first apartment or it’s helping them find furniture or maybe interpreter services, translating, anything, providing rides. I think there’s such a long list of ways to volunteer. Then once you immerse yourself in those communities you’re able to humanize these people and see how, how much a little bit of help can go a long way for people. So just to tie it up immigrants, refugees are people and if you know some, talk to them, ask about their stories. If you don’t, try to educate yourself
Mastan 52:10
Okay, thank you so much for talking with me today and agreeing to do this.
Lyzan 52:14
Absolutely. Thank you.
Transcribed by Mastan Rashid
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