every year on my birthday my father
never fails to remind me that the day of
my birth was whoa the worst day ever you
see I was born on September 12 1996 an
edible Hawk the capital of the
autonomous region of Kurdistan in the
weeks that preceded my birth fighting
had broken out between two rival Kurdish
political factions and with an
opportunity to regain territory in
northern Iraq then dictator Saddam
Hussein had allied himself with one
faction and sent thousands of troops to
attack at a bead my birth city putting
all of our lives in grave danger this
August 31st attack on a bead stoked
American fears that Saddam would be
launching yet another genocide ‘el
campaign against the Kurds one similar
to his n-fab campaign of 1988 where
upwards of 5,000 Kurds were killed and
as many as 10,000 were injured in a
five-hour chemical attack now to make
matters worse on the morning of my birth
a decree was released that declared that
all internationals must leave the city
and stated that any Kurd caught working
with an American or any other
international organization would be
killed my father describes the morning
of my birth as one of total and complete
darkness the city was on curfew there
was no electricity and that very same
morning his co-workers had informed him
that their organization was one of those
that would be leaving so with the last
job and an increased risk for death you
could say things were pretty bad and as
my mother’s water broke later on that
evening things quickly progressed from
bad to worse but from that nightmarish
day did emerge a brighter tomorrow one
in which promises were kept and American
Dreams were in reach your operation
Pacific Haven my family was one of over
6,000 Kurds who were evacuated from Iraq
processed in Turkey
airlifted to Guam to await approval for
asylum into the United States of America
when we entered the country we were
greeted by numbers of Americans who came
and welcomed us into the community we
survived and thrived with assistance
from nonprofits like Catholic Charities
who helped us in the resettlement
process and World Relief who paid for my
medical exam licensing fees and the
Alliance for African assistance who
provided us with secondhand furniture
and toys even though we weren’t Catholic
or African and with all their assistance
we were able to firmly plant our seats
as u.s. green card holders and later US
citizens my family’s story is not a
unique one it’s a template for the
American dream whether it was my father
or your father or his father or his
father’s father and most of our family
histories someone had immigrated to this
country someone had built a bridge to
the unknown and I wish that I could end
on this positive note but there is so
much more left to the story on the day
before my fifth birthday in 2001
thousands of innocent American lives
were taken by the atrocious actions of
terrorists who not only hijacked
airplanes but also hijacked the dominant
narrative of a faith peacefully
practiced by 1.8 billion across the
globe I never got a chance to get to
know the world before 9/11 but I’ve
become intimately familiar with the post
9/11 world that we all now reside in we
started labeling quickly us versus them
and suddenly them became anyone who
looked different talk different dress
different or practice faith differently
it wasn’t restricted to only those who
were responsible for the atrocities
committed and it wasn’t long before I
had my first encounter with hatred I was
seven years old my parents had enrolled
my sister and I in a Muslim summer camp
and for the first half of summer things
were awesome camp was like 90
five percent fun outdoor activities five
percent classroom theology and that was
a balance I could get behind because my
parents had to be at the hospital early
in the morning my sister and I were
always the first ones dropped off at
camp and typically the drive to the
school which housed our camp was a quiet
one but on that July 2003 morning the
Silence of the early hour was punctuated
by sirens police cars and news crews had
lined the streets up to the school which
housed our camp and squarely on the lawn
before our entrance building stood a
tall wooden cross drenched after having
been set ablaze some hours before in an
attempt at hate crime when we return to
camp weeks later we have to talk about
hatred we need to understand where it
came from what it meant we had to have
these difficult conversations as
children and for me at least those
conversations still haven’t ended in my
high school government class my teacher
decided to share his insights regarding
the conflict in the Middle East the
title of his presentation why do they
hate us it was this us-versus-them
narrative again I put up with the not so
funny jokes of my classmates why do your
people hate us Sarah jeez if you don’t
like it here why don’t you just leave as
a high schooler I wanted so badly to be
a part of an us to fit in and not feel
like an outsider any more than I already
felt like one but as I came into college
I became comfortable with my differences
and I actually began to embrace them
when I first took on the role of
president of my University’s Muslim
Student Association I anticipated
working on bake sales and international
festivals and the occasional
informational booth or two but what I
had not anticipated was the sheer amount
of emotional baggage that would come
with the position attacks on foreign
soil in places like Paris and Brussels
Belleville even for us living in parts
of rural Appalachia
with each incident
cause for concern was growing the
concern for safety was unanimous Muslim
are non Muslim we were all worried were
we safe but that responsive hatred that
was brewing overseas led to another
amount of hatred here at home the Pew
Research Center reports that between the
years of 2015 and 2016 assaults against
Muslim identifying individuals surpassed
the modern peak of 2001 in 2016 alone
there were 127 reports of aggravated or
simple assault against Muslims compared
to 91 the year prior and 93 in 2001
these statistics are alarming a worse
even is that these incidents are
happening in our backyards in our own
home community in a campus climate
survey conducted by WVU’s Research
Center on violence 28% of respondents
reported an atmosphere of unfriendliness
for its Muslims on campus and 30 percent
of respondents reported that they had
experienced a verbal hate or
bias-motivated assault and for those of
you who prefer story over statistic on a
brisk Sunday in the fall of 2016 my
junior year I received a phone call from
an unknown number and let it go to
voicemail
recorded at my phone to this very day is
a frantic voice describing a gut
wrenching experience of physical
harassment that had taken place on
campus property the night before when I
sat down across from this Muslim student
as she describes what had occurred the
night before she looked at me and told
me that she had come here seeking an
education and now she was afraid to ever
step foot back on our campus and as we
finished up the conversation she looked
at me pain welling up in her eyes and
she asked that same damn question why do
they hate us and all the work that I’ve
completed on campus and in my community
I’ve come to learn that the thing about
hatred is it’s almost never about hate
and almost always about fear
and our fears tend to stem from this
underlying fear of the unknown because
when we don’t know each other it becomes
very easy to hate one another to label
each other as us or them and forget that
we are both human beings right now our
news media will tell you that we are
living in a divisive America and when I
hear this language
I always start to remember a song that I
was taught in grade school they’re
afraid of the song goes something like
this
building bridges between our divisions I
reach out to you won’t you reach out to
me with all of our voices and all of our
visions friends we could make such sweet
harmony this song reinforced everything
I had known to be true about bridge
building because I knew the power of one
conversation and I knew how much it
meant to have every voice at the table
but perhaps we need a more culturally
relevant example how many of you caught
that phenom of a film Black Panther when
it debuted just a few weeks ago did you
catch that revolutionary mid-credits
scene the one in which two chala boldly
steps before the UN assembly and states
that more connects us than separates us
and that in times of crisis the Y’s
build bridges while the foolish build
barriers when I heard this line I was
like oh my gosh bridge building because
I had known it to be true right there is
power and wisdom in linking ourselves
together in times of crisis and at any
time really because if we were able to
go about our differences and to
acknowledge and accept them not just
tolerate each other because I don’t want
us to tolerate that’s lazy let’s get to
know one another so that we can get past
those problems and really work onto the
issues that are actually facing our
country together in order to do so I
believe in the power of bridge building
now some of you may have noticed in your
programs that this spring I’ll be
getting degrees and
biology and English and not in
engineering but to make sure my analogy
made sense I got some friends at the
Statler College of Engineering
to look it over and instr that it made
structural sense so with their stamp of
approval I give you bridge building 101
step 1 survey and calculate you’re
standing at the edge of a riverbank and
across from you stands another how far
are you willing to go
how long does your bridge need to
stretch what do you know and I mean
really know about the person who stands
across from you and here’s the harder
question what do you know about yourself
because you engage with others in
conversation you must know who you are
and what you stand for and to begin the
bridge building process you have to be
prepared to meet others where they are
and when you’ve done so you’re ready for
step 2 breaking ground in 2018 when you
walk into a room full of people you’ve
never met I bet you have one single
knee-jerk reaction you pull out your
phone you pretend to text maybe fake a
phone call but eventually you’ve reached
that point of saturation where you have
to break ground with someone because if
you don’t have a conversation things are
gonna get really awkward and so what do
we do we look for the first thing that
catches our eye and then the
conversation starts itself oh my god
that scarf I love the color so pretty
or those shoes are awesome
where’d you get up the groundbreaking
statement am i right
but there it is you’ve done the thing
you started the conversation but now you
have to sustain it you’ve planted the
polls but now it’s time for step 3
assemble the beams of the bridge in
pieces you’ve began to compliment the
shoes but now you have to ask where have
they walked what stories do they carry
and
I want to be very clear that this is not
a call to ask people where they are from
at least not aggressively because when
you are asking where someone’s from
aggressively what you are essentially
saying is I look like I’m from here you
look like you’re from there and now I
want us to talk about it it’s an
illusion of division already and we’re
building bridges of unity so it’s
counterproductive instead of asking
where you are from we are asking what is
your story and we’re getting to know
each other in pieces and when all that’s
said and done you are ready for step 4
test the strength of what you’ve built
this is the most critical step in the
bridge building analogy everything that
you’ve done up until this point is so
that you are comfortable enough to have
the difficult dialogues that we need
because it’s ok to admit when you don’t
know and that’s what we have to get
comfortable comfortable with the
uncomfortableness of those conversations
and I’ll give you a great example of
bridge building not too long ago a
non-muslim student had approached me in
our Mountain there our University
Student Union she was bold she
complimented the lace term of my scarf
and we had a conversation about color
and fabric and shopping malls and
essentially nothing it was a
conversation about nothing but that
conversation meant everything because it
had allowed us to reach a point of
comfort where we were laughing and
joking and suddenly we had transitioned
to step 4 quickly because I saw this
turn in her she had leaned in closely
and she was ready to ask the question so
why do you wear it on your head it was a
great question because she didn’t know
and I did and we were ready to have that
conversation from this example I want
you guys to remember that it’s always
okay to
you don’t know cuz that’s how we’re
forging this bridge okay now no but no
engineer comes to a path and says yep I
know exactly where this is gonna go and
how far it needs to be built right they
have to spend time surveying and
calculating and breaking ground and
assembling before they are ready to test
the strength of their bridge in the
America that we live in today if we want
to revitalize the dream that has brought
people from all over to our shores if we
want to uphold the promise that is
ingrained in our nation and we have to
make an America that we are proud of and
it’s difficult to do that and get
involved nationally but it’s very easy
to start with in your own community with
one conversation with one bridge thank you
never fails to remind me that the day of
my birth was whoa the worst day ever you
see I was born on September 12 1996 an
edible Hawk the capital of the
autonomous region of Kurdistan in the
weeks that preceded my birth fighting
had broken out between two rival Kurdish
political factions and with an
opportunity to regain territory in
northern Iraq then dictator Saddam
Hussein had allied himself with one
faction and sent thousands of troops to
attack at a bead my birth city putting
all of our lives in grave danger this
August 31st attack on a bead stoked
American fears that Saddam would be
launching yet another genocide ‘el
campaign against the Kurds one similar
to his n-fab campaign of 1988 where
upwards of 5,000 Kurds were killed and
as many as 10,000 were injured in a
five-hour chemical attack now to make
matters worse on the morning of my birth
a decree was released that declared that
all internationals must leave the city
and stated that any Kurd caught working
with an American or any other
international organization would be
killed my father describes the morning
of my birth as one of total and complete
darkness the city was on curfew there
was no electricity and that very same
morning his co-workers had informed him
that their organization was one of those
that would be leaving so with the last
job and an increased risk for death you
could say things were pretty bad and as
my mother’s water broke later on that
evening things quickly progressed from
bad to worse but from that nightmarish
day did emerge a brighter tomorrow one
in which promises were kept and American
Dreams were in reach your operation
Pacific Haven my family was one of over
6,000 Kurds who were evacuated from Iraq
processed in Turkey
airlifted to Guam to await approval for
asylum into the United States of America
when we entered the country we were
greeted by numbers of Americans who came
and welcomed us into the community we
survived and thrived with assistance
from nonprofits like Catholic Charities
who helped us in the resettlement
process and World Relief who paid for my
medical exam licensing fees and the
Alliance for African assistance who
provided us with secondhand furniture
and toys even though we weren’t Catholic
or African and with all their assistance
we were able to firmly plant our seats
as u.s. green card holders and later US
citizens my family’s story is not a
unique one it’s a template for the
American dream whether it was my father
or your father or his father or his
father’s father and most of our family
histories someone had immigrated to this
country someone had built a bridge to
the unknown and I wish that I could end
on this positive note but there is so
much more left to the story on the day
before my fifth birthday in 2001
thousands of innocent American lives
were taken by the atrocious actions of
terrorists who not only hijacked
airplanes but also hijacked the dominant
narrative of a faith peacefully
practiced by 1.8 billion across the
globe I never got a chance to get to
know the world before 9/11 but I’ve
become intimately familiar with the post
9/11 world that we all now reside in we
started labeling quickly us versus them
and suddenly them became anyone who
looked different talk different dress
different or practice faith differently
it wasn’t restricted to only those who
were responsible for the atrocities
committed and it wasn’t long before I
had my first encounter with hatred I was
seven years old my parents had enrolled
my sister and I in a Muslim summer camp
and for the first half of summer things
were awesome camp was like 90
five percent fun outdoor activities five
percent classroom theology and that was
a balance I could get behind because my
parents had to be at the hospital early
in the morning my sister and I were
always the first ones dropped off at
camp and typically the drive to the
school which housed our camp was a quiet
one but on that July 2003 morning the
Silence of the early hour was punctuated
by sirens police cars and news crews had
lined the streets up to the school which
housed our camp and squarely on the lawn
before our entrance building stood a
tall wooden cross drenched after having
been set ablaze some hours before in an
attempt at hate crime when we return to
camp weeks later we have to talk about
hatred we need to understand where it
came from what it meant we had to have
these difficult conversations as
children and for me at least those
conversations still haven’t ended in my
high school government class my teacher
decided to share his insights regarding
the conflict in the Middle East the
title of his presentation why do they
hate us it was this us-versus-them
narrative again I put up with the not so
funny jokes of my classmates why do your
people hate us Sarah jeez if you don’t
like it here why don’t you just leave as
a high schooler I wanted so badly to be
a part of an us to fit in and not feel
like an outsider any more than I already
felt like one but as I came into college
I became comfortable with my differences
and I actually began to embrace them
when I first took on the role of
president of my University’s Muslim
Student Association I anticipated
working on bake sales and international
festivals and the occasional
informational booth or two but what I
had not anticipated was the sheer amount
of emotional baggage that would come
with the position attacks on foreign
soil in places like Paris and Brussels
Belleville even for us living in parts
of rural Appalachia
with each incident
cause for concern was growing the
concern for safety was unanimous Muslim
are non Muslim we were all worried were
we safe but that responsive hatred that
was brewing overseas led to another
amount of hatred here at home the Pew
Research Center reports that between the
years of 2015 and 2016 assaults against
Muslim identifying individuals surpassed
the modern peak of 2001 in 2016 alone
there were 127 reports of aggravated or
simple assault against Muslims compared
to 91 the year prior and 93 in 2001
these statistics are alarming a worse
even is that these incidents are
happening in our backyards in our own
home community in a campus climate
survey conducted by WVU’s Research
Center on violence 28% of respondents
reported an atmosphere of unfriendliness
for its Muslims on campus and 30 percent
of respondents reported that they had
experienced a verbal hate or
bias-motivated assault and for those of
you who prefer story over statistic on a
brisk Sunday in the fall of 2016 my
junior year I received a phone call from
an unknown number and let it go to
voicemail
recorded at my phone to this very day is
a frantic voice describing a gut
wrenching experience of physical
harassment that had taken place on
campus property the night before when I
sat down across from this Muslim student
as she describes what had occurred the
night before she looked at me and told
me that she had come here seeking an
education and now she was afraid to ever
step foot back on our campus and as we
finished up the conversation she looked
at me pain welling up in her eyes and
she asked that same damn question why do
they hate us and all the work that I’ve
completed on campus and in my community
I’ve come to learn that the thing about
hatred is it’s almost never about hate
and almost always about fear
and our fears tend to stem from this
underlying fear of the unknown because
when we don’t know each other it becomes
very easy to hate one another to label
each other as us or them and forget that
we are both human beings right now our
news media will tell you that we are
living in a divisive America and when I
hear this language
I always start to remember a song that I
was taught in grade school they’re
afraid of the song goes something like
this
building bridges between our divisions I
reach out to you won’t you reach out to
me with all of our voices and all of our
visions friends we could make such sweet
harmony this song reinforced everything
I had known to be true about bridge
building because I knew the power of one
conversation and I knew how much it
meant to have every voice at the table
but perhaps we need a more culturally
relevant example how many of you caught
that phenom of a film Black Panther when
it debuted just a few weeks ago did you
catch that revolutionary mid-credits
scene the one in which two chala boldly
steps before the UN assembly and states
that more connects us than separates us
and that in times of crisis the Y’s
build bridges while the foolish build
barriers when I heard this line I was
like oh my gosh bridge building because
I had known it to be true right there is
power and wisdom in linking ourselves
together in times of crisis and at any
time really because if we were able to
go about our differences and to
acknowledge and accept them not just
tolerate each other because I don’t want
us to tolerate that’s lazy let’s get to
know one another so that we can get past
those problems and really work onto the
issues that are actually facing our
country together in order to do so I
believe in the power of bridge building
now some of you may have noticed in your
programs that this spring I’ll be
getting degrees and
biology and English and not in
engineering but to make sure my analogy
made sense I got some friends at the
Statler College of Engineering
to look it over and instr that it made
structural sense so with their stamp of
approval I give you bridge building 101
step 1 survey and calculate you’re
standing at the edge of a riverbank and
across from you stands another how far
are you willing to go
how long does your bridge need to
stretch what do you know and I mean
really know about the person who stands
across from you and here’s the harder
question what do you know about yourself
because you engage with others in
conversation you must know who you are
and what you stand for and to begin the
bridge building process you have to be
prepared to meet others where they are
and when you’ve done so you’re ready for
step 2 breaking ground in 2018 when you
walk into a room full of people you’ve
never met I bet you have one single
knee-jerk reaction you pull out your
phone you pretend to text maybe fake a
phone call but eventually you’ve reached
that point of saturation where you have
to break ground with someone because if
you don’t have a conversation things are
gonna get really awkward and so what do
we do we look for the first thing that
catches our eye and then the
conversation starts itself oh my god
that scarf I love the color so pretty
or those shoes are awesome
where’d you get up the groundbreaking
statement am i right
but there it is you’ve done the thing
you started the conversation but now you
have to sustain it you’ve planted the
polls but now it’s time for step 3
assemble the beams of the bridge in
pieces you’ve began to compliment the
shoes but now you have to ask where have
they walked what stories do they carry
and
I want to be very clear that this is not
a call to ask people where they are from
at least not aggressively because when
you are asking where someone’s from
aggressively what you are essentially
saying is I look like I’m from here you
look like you’re from there and now I
want us to talk about it it’s an
illusion of division already and we’re
building bridges of unity so it’s
counterproductive instead of asking
where you are from we are asking what is
your story and we’re getting to know
each other in pieces and when all that’s
said and done you are ready for step 4
test the strength of what you’ve built
this is the most critical step in the
bridge building analogy everything that
you’ve done up until this point is so
that you are comfortable enough to have
the difficult dialogues that we need
because it’s ok to admit when you don’t
know and that’s what we have to get
comfortable comfortable with the
uncomfortableness of those conversations
and I’ll give you a great example of
bridge building not too long ago a
non-muslim student had approached me in
our Mountain there our University
Student Union she was bold she
complimented the lace term of my scarf
and we had a conversation about color
and fabric and shopping malls and
essentially nothing it was a
conversation about nothing but that
conversation meant everything because it
had allowed us to reach a point of
comfort where we were laughing and
joking and suddenly we had transitioned
to step 4 quickly because I saw this
turn in her she had leaned in closely
and she was ready to ask the question so
why do you wear it on your head it was a
great question because she didn’t know
and I did and we were ready to have that
conversation from this example I want
you guys to remember that it’s always
okay to
you don’t know cuz that’s how we’re
forging this bridge okay now no but no
engineer comes to a path and says yep I
know exactly where this is gonna go and
how far it needs to be built right they
have to spend time surveying and
calculating and breaking ground and
assembling before they are ready to test
the strength of their bridge in the
America that we live in today if we want
to revitalize the dream that has brought
people from all over to our shores if we
want to uphold the promise that is
ingrained in our nation and we have to
make an America that we are proud of and
it’s difficult to do that and get
involved nationally but it’s very easy
to start with in your own community with
one conversation with one bridge thank you
Please follow and like us: