“One day, my brother received a letter with a bullet inside, and the words, “You work with our enemy, the United States. If you don’t leave in twenty-four hours, we will kill you and your whole family. My father did get shot, but he survived and we left Iraq.”
These are the words Mahmood began our conversation with when I sat down to speak with him before the Outcasts United Refugee Symposium in October.
Mahmood, 18, is a refugee from Iraq. Before he and his family were approved to come to the United States, he and his family fled to the neighboring country of Jordan. As a refugee there, no one in his family was allowed to work, no one could go to school. However, Mahmood decided to work in an agency to help the refugees in the camp. Whenever the agency received any donations, he worked to help transfer the goods throughout the camp.
“Although I was a refugee and I didn’t get paid for doing all these works, I still tried to help other people who were desperate in the camp,” Mahmood said.
After a year and a half living in the camp in Jordan, and going through the exhaustive vetting process refugees are put through by U.S. authorities, Mahmood and his family received approval to come to America. When he arrived, he was fourteen years old and could not speak a word of English. He was nervous, afraid, and wondered what his new life would be like, and how could he communicate with others in this strange place called “Connecticut.”
He arrived in Hamden, CT in May, the end of the school year. He was placed immediately into Wilbur Cross High School, but with the school year ending, he had no chance to study. However, he volunteered to work in IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services) in New Haven during the summer vacation, helping other refugees to settle in, as a way to learn English. During that summer, his English improved dramatically and he began to feel at home in his new country. He was amazed by the people around him and their enthusiasm, kindness and passion to work with him and help him to learn English. Last June, he graduated high school with honors, and has been accepted to several schools to study photography.
Now, his biggest future wish is to get citizenship. Also, he is hoping to help his family more, especially his parents, who still have an issue with language. In Iraq, his father was an accountant, and his mother a dressmaker. His father now is a driver, and his mother is trying to establish a new dressmaking business. His older brother – the one who worked as a translator with the U.S. Military in Iraq – is now working with Google Translation in New York City. Mahmood continues to work at IRIS to save money for college.
“I’m so happy I am in a new life now. It gives me hope. We left everything behind us. We had to start a new beginning. Everything is good,” Mahmood said with a smile.
As far as his feeling towards Iraq, Mahmood expressed some bitterness mixed with sadness.
“This was a country that threatened to kill my family and kicked us out,” he said.
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