Crossing the Valley Migrant Interview

Why Migrate?

            Marsilia is a good friend of mine who I met last semester in my Biology 100 class. We both had no idea what was going on and therefore, made a great team. While we may not have understood the material, we had a great time and ended up passing together.  I haven’t talked to Marsilia in awhile, but remembered her talking about moving to the United States back when we had class together. So I texted her to see if she would be able to help me out with an interview.  Since I do not know French or Arabic like Marsilia, we conducted the interview in English in front of the Fletcher Library at Arizona State University on the west campus.  Her story started, and I was amazed at how far she has come.

            I was born in Iraq in 1989 and left in 1991 when I was three years old. We moved to Jordan for 8 months before we traveled by plane to Beirut, Lebanon where we would spend 8 years before moving to the United States.

Back in my country we all live in apartments. You don’t see anyone living in a nice home unless they are really rich. We didn’t own a car. Only my dad worked and most men work and woman stay home and take care of home and kids. You barely see any moms working; only teenagers work in clothing stores and easy jobs. We have college, high school, and elementary schools, the same as here. They speak Arabic and they have to learn to speak French in class. We walk from school to home, there is no buses to take us home. Food and clothing is kind of expensive in Lebanon.  The food is delicious and my mom still cooks here the same food. The language is different. We wrote from right to left in Arabic, but since I learned French too, it wasn’t quite as hard to learn to write in English, left to right. Living there is harder and the electricity is off everyday at least for an hour. Water stops some days, so you have to take shower one day and the next day you can’t because you need water to drink. Many people living there are Christian. We also have loud personalities and a specific type of music and dance.

            The worst day of my life was when I left my family and friends in Lebanon to come to America. At the airport, I could not stop crying because I knew I would not be returning since Lebanon was always going through war.  Leaving Lebanon made me realize how hard it would be in America since I would have to learn a new language and get used to a new culture.  All my thoughts were negative about going to a new country. I kept asking my dad why he was making us leave the place we love, the place we call home.  His answer was “It is for your own future.”  It just did not make sense to me what he meant by future, but I would soon find out that leaving Lebanon would open my eyes to new realizations.

            By July, 21, 2001, I was in America.  Everything was so different than back home.  The first time being at my aunt’s house I heard them talking to my parents about how America works. The things that I heard them say were if you do not go to school than you will be working by cleaning bathrooms, or at a fast food place.  Also, that some kids in school smoke and use drugs so make sure you teach your kids not to take anything from her classmates. In addition, America has a lot of good opportunities compared to Lebanon.  Hearing all these things made me fear going to school.

             My first day of school was horrible. I had to talk using signs and nobody understood me. I was speaking Arabic with my classmates, but all they did was stare at me and laugh. I went home with tears in my eyes and told my family that I wanted to go back to Lebanon. My dad's answer was "Try your best and never give up." I thought how can I not give up when I'm going through so much? I started taking English classes to help me learn English better.  After a couple of years, I was speaking English, but with an accent. By the time I reached high school everything was so much easier, but I still needed to work on my grammar. I was really good at talking in English but still needed to work on reading and writing. Furthermore I learned the culture very well too. Later on I visited my elementary school, the teachers did not believe how well I spoke English and they were very happy for me. They asked me how I learned English so fast. I told them that all it took was effort.

After graduating high school, I got accepted to Arizona State University. I questioned myself on how I got to where I am and I looked back to when my dad said to try my best and never give up because it was for my future. Just by saying these words, my dad encourage me to go for the best even during the hardest times. He made me think about the future and nothing but the future. I realized that everything he said was right. That is how I got to where I am today, by trying my best and not giving up on my goals.

By moving to the United States, I learned that no matter what I go through in life, I will always try to do my best. I went through a lot of difficulties in America, and I had hard time learning the language but I still did not give up.  Now I am where I deserve to be: at a University pursuing a bachelor’s degree. I work at retirement home community as an office assistant. A lot of my family still lives in Lebanon and we send them money every month. Many of them want to move to the U.S. too. My parents and siblings and I just gained citizenship this year, January of 2009. We did have our visa and green card, so never came here illegally. I do want to go back to Lebanon to visit, but I don’t think I’ll ever want to go back to stay. My dream is here and the opportunity is here.