Word: khattab
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...Amman. It took another two years before the U.N. granted her refugee status, and her case was referred to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which handles country placement for refugees. She told IOM that she wanted to go to the U.S.; it had been Omar's dream that Khattab would be able to grow up there. Many refugees ask to be sent to places like Detroit and Dearborn, Mich., where they can find support among large communities of immigrants from Iraq and other Arab countries. Faeza, having never lived in a cold climate, asked only to be placed "somewhere...
...Faeza and Khattab landed at Phoenix International Airport. It was 111°F (44°C) outside--hotter than in Baghdad that day. "Is this America?" she asked the IRC guide who picked her up, a fellow Iraqi named Hazem Olwan. "We all know the Americans have high technology," Olwan told her, "but they can't do anything about the weather." The heat was just the first in a series of disappointments. "Many refugees have an idea of America without any negatives," says Robin Dunn Marcos, head of the Phoenix office of the IRC. "Their expectations are not exactly met." Faeza noticed...
...Health and Human Services for three months. In Faeza's case, that got her through only until December. She now pays the rent out of her savings, and the monthly allocations of food stamps have stopped. In late January, she starts work as a part-time teaching assistant at Khattab's elementary school, earning $700 a month after deductions. Her monthly rent in the new apartment is $750. Eventually, she hopes she'll be hired to do data entry or computer programming in an office, as she did in Iraq. She's taking classes in English speech and grammar...
Though the war is no longer at the forefront of the U.S. political debate, it has upended the lives of a generation of Iraqis, in ways both hopeful and tragic. In Phoenix, Khattab brings home new English phrases he learns every day in second grade at Sahuaro Elementary School. "Khattab is showing great progress and learning the language very quickly," his teacher wrote on his midterm report last month. After his first week of school, he figured out that to fit in, he would need an Arizona Cardinals hat. When I saw him recently, he was asking "What...
Recently, Faeza spoke with her sister, who is still in Baghdad. Samira said her teenage son had narrowly escaped being kidnapped from a street in their neighborhood. Faeza immediately grabbed her son and hugged him tightly. "When I see Khattab, this let me to stay here," she says in her broken English. "O.K., this is for Khattab. This is the future for Khattab...