1a) Zee Mahdi Interview, History 150 Spring 2017, Conducted by Darian Wimbish, March 24, 2017.
2a) This interview was done in study room 2201 at the Rose Library on East Campus. Zee and I planned to meet there to conduct the interview due to our busy schedules we met Friday morning to conduct the interview. I used a voice recording app already pre-downloaded onto my phone to record the interview. After the recorded interview was done I immediately transferred the recording to my Mac. However, the recording needed to be converted to mp3 so I used a website called Zamzar which converted the recording to mp3 allowing me to upload it on the WordPress site.
2b) Zee Mahdi was born in Iraq, but her family decided to come to the United States due increasing war and violence in her native country. In addition, her family felt the United States offered better opportunities than in Iraq. She was eight years old during this process and went through things no eight year old should go through. Thankfully, her and her family made it to the United States for a better life.
2c) While doing some research I couldn’t help but notice the timing in which my interviewee and her family left their home country of Iraq. It was during the War in Iraq which violence affected a lot of people included the people who are native to the country. The war didn’t officially begin until 2003 but it had been building up for decades. Provoking the intrusion of the United Staes and other countries to send their forces to fight in the war. I conducted my research accordingly to form a timeline and mark key events that happened around the time Zee and her family lived in Iraq and when they left.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Iraq War.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 15 Dec. 2011. Web. 3 Mar. 2017.
Haass, Richard N. “The Iraq War in Perspective.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 04 May 2009. Web. 5 Mar. 2017.
“An Iraqi Perspective: How America’s Destruction of Iraqi Society Led to Today’s Chaos.” BillMoyers.com. N.p., 20 June 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 2017.
2d)
(Skip the first 15 seconds because it was the intro)
DW: What was it like growing up in Iraq that you can remember?
Zee: My childhood was basically in Iraq. I was eight or nine years old which I understood a lot of things as a child because I grew up with a lot of friends and family also distance family that it was hard to part away from them. But growing up in Iraq which is basically a country where your parents have grown up, so you’ve been taught about everything your parents did and your family, friends, and neighbors. I lived in a cultural place where neighbors or family are attached. So for us to leave was hard.
DW: What was it like coming to the United States?
Zee: I didn’t have the option directly from Iraq because I moved right into Jordan. We didn’t have the option to come to the U.S. but in Jordan we did have that option which made a lot of options easier for my parents to be here than to stay back there. Because we did not have a visa for more than six months and we stayed in Jordan for three years. You have to be undercover for that certain time otherwise, the police will ask you based on your dialect of speaking they know your from Iraq and can take you over the border. So then coming to America was really nice. We had the option of having our own home, not worried about coming out(…). My parents do speak a little English but that doesn’t take them anywhere. They just said really comfortable stuff(…).
DW: So far you’re American experience has actually been pretty good. Not what you thought it would be.
Zee: NO! NO! (…)In America its really tough(…). You practice what everybody does, you do what everyone else does. We thought it was going to be difficult living here.
DW: Were there any reasons why your family decided to come to the United States?
Zee: Definitely! Back home was not safe at all. Are families are basically separated from different place. My uncle is in Texas and we’re here.(…) Its not safe to be there. If you have girls you can’t let them go to school otherwise they’ll take the girls and ask for money or you’ll never see your girls again. If you have a male child its either kidnapped, killed, or you don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m really lucky that I’m still alive. I was out to buy candles(…). I was standing in line to buy candles when two guys on motorcycles(…) were shooting on both sides. The other side had more people dead but, thank God there was an old man who pulled me over to the store and they closed it. My mom was running barefoot trying to see where I was (…). I was scared of my moms reaction. She was without a scarf and barefoot (…). She started asking, “Where’s my daughter?” She saw me and started crying but thank God she didn’t yell at me because I just wanted to buy the candles.
DW: Well I’m glad you’re okay because that’s crazy. Well I’m glad you guys made it over here so that’s good.
DW: Was it difficult adjusting to being in the United States or being in a new country?
Zee: I was young so it was pretty easy for me but, for my parents it was not. Because my dad had to work different jobs that he was not expecting.(…) My sister and I were at school. I guess we didn’t face the struggle like my parents did. Because we would have a conversation. Asking us how do we like school. (…) I didn’t face a hardship in culture. It was different from my peers.(…) I was in seventh grade and I wanted friends and wanted to do what other kids were doing. I wanted to focus on the language to make friends. So seventh through eighth grade I worked hard on my school. But in high school I also faced the challenge of being different but there were many other different people with me that supported me through this.(…) I started having different sets of idea that differentiated from the culture back home.(…). That’s when I started going from society not accepting to my parents not accepting society and I’m in between. This is a second war. Going from society not accepting me to my family not accepting what society is expecting of me. I try to be in between but I’m pleasing both and not myself. There is no way I could do this on my own without my family.(…)
(this was the first 15 minutes of the interview)
DW: Well Zee I want to thank you for this interview I’m glad we met like a year ago at Gabe’s. Thank you because now I know a little more about you and I appreciate you.
In conclusion the interview went great and I’m glad I did it. I wish I had some more questions and I wish I would’ve taken notes during the process but seeing the struggle her and her family went through to get to where they are is a true testament of love and family. I would do this interview all over again because it helped me appreciate the differences and similarities in some cultures and how we should appreciate those difference instead of judging them. This interview really opened my eyes to a culture that I never really thought about until now.