Uprooted

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© Copyright 2014 Khetam Dahi.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN:

978-1-4907-4044-7 (sc)

ISBN:

978-1-4907-4066-9 (e)

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Contents

Note to the Reader

Acknowledgements

Tamara’s Family Chart

Introduction and Background

Chapter 1   Anticipation: The News

Chapter 2   Family Issues: Preparing for the Trip

Chapter 3   Tough Goodbyes: Leaving Syria

Chapter 4   Arriving In Paris: The Language Barrier

Chapter 5   Complete Culture Shock: Arriving to California

Chapter 6   Tough Transitions: Junior High

Chapter 7   New Opportunities: High School

Chapter 8   Difficult Lessons

Chapter 9   Working for Independence

Chapter 10   Following My Dream

Chapter 11   Reuniting: My Sister Comes to Visit

Appendix

Dedication

To my husband, Ayham Dahi

Note to the Reader

This book was originally published with the title, The Journey of an Immigrant: From Farm to Freedom, which was designed for an ESL writing course. This version is more like an ESL reader with activities. The stories in this book are mostly based on situations that my family and I experienced as immigrants in the USA. I hope to entertain, inspire, and motivate you, as well as share my positive and negative experiences, and bring awareness of many social and cultural issues, mistreatment and unacceptable work conditions that immigrants often endure.

Over the years, I have read hundreds of journal entries written by my ESL (English as a Second Language) students, and they have often touched and inspired me, so they are a huge part of the reason why I am sharing my own stories.

The stories are useful not only to ESL students, but also to anyone, especially new comers who are trying to overcome struggles and obstacles in their lives. In terms of the level of language, these stories are at a high intermediate to advanced level.

Please contact me for any questions or helpful feedback on this work. For an intermediate level reader, refer to my previous book, The Mulberry Tree, which covers Tamara’s life from the age of five to thirteen.

Visit my website at: khetamdahi.com

E-mail me at: dahik@elac.edu

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for supporting me in doing this project: My husband Ayham Dahi, my biggest critic and supporter, Novia Elvina, for completing all illustrations, my daughter, Reem Atallah for designing the book cover and organizing all the illustrations, editing and assisting in the writing of the questions for each chapter, my colleagues and friends, Dr. Linda Elias, Associate Professor Nancy Ramirez, Associate Professor Nathan Warner, and Arleta Roberts for their invaluable comments, suggestions, ideas and corrections. I am also grateful to my brother-in-law, Dr. Omar Dahi for doing much of the initial editing, my brothers Sam Atalla and Alex Atalla for proofreading and filling in some memory gaps, my four children, Kinda, Reem, Jamal and Joel for being patient and supportive in every way, and my nine wonderful brothers and sisters for their constant support. Most of all, I want to thank my students who encouraged me to write and collect these stories that I had briefly mentioned to them in class in the past.

Tamara’s Family Chart

Introduction and Background

Part I

I spent my childhood living in a very small village called, Alfuheila, which is located about twelve miles southeast of the city of Homs in the center of Syria. The climate was very similar to that of Southern California, with a nice warm weather in the summer and often, pleasant winter. Sometimes though, when the weather in the winter was cold and harsh, everything related to our daily lives became a hundred times more difficult, especially when we had snow. This was because we did not have any paved roads other than the main road that lead to the connecting cities. Therefore, it was either dusty in the summer, or muddy in the winter, which made it very difficult for students who had to walk to school, for farmers who had to accomplish many tasks, for venders who had to travel to the cities to buy their supplies, and for women who had to spend many hours cleaning their homes from the mud and dirt.

Demographically, everyone in our village was of Christian descent, but we were surrounded with five Muslim towns. Each village had its own elementary school, but only our village, being the largest, had a junior high school where we all converged: Alfuheila Junior High School. We all had to follow the same curriculum except for religion classes. The students from our town had Christian religious studies and the rest had Islamic studies. During recess, lunchtime, before or after school though, we never spoke about any religious issues and we got along beautifully, but one thing was very clear. We knew we could not have gender relations with each other and we could not intermarry. It was an unwritten rule, which everyone in town respected and followed.

When it came to dress code in junior high and high school, students wore grayish navy blue uniforms that looked more like military gear with white shirts and matching caps. In elementary school, we wore beige tops and navy blue bottoms.

Most students in town walked to school, but many from the surrounding villages came by bus, or on motorcycles behind their fathers or other family members. Some rode their own bicycles or motorcycles. Our daily schedule was from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM, six days a week. Our day off was Sunday and most of us (who lived in our village) had to go to church, which was located in the center of the village. My friends, cousins, siblings and I were all involved in church activities, including singing in the church choir.

Part II

I did not like going to church much because I could not understand anything the priest used to say. He spoke in Syriac, a Middle Aramaic language, which was used by Syriac Christians and was spoken between the eighth to the eighteenth century. But, beginning in the eighth century, the Arabic language started developing, thereby replacing Syriac.

The Syriac language has not completely disappeared. There are still some people in Syria and other parts of the world who speak it, and many clergymen still use it in Church sermons. Our priest was one of them. This made absolutely no sense to me. Why doesn’t he speak Arabic, which we all understand? I would ask my friends and family members. They would tell me that Syriac was the language that Jesus spoke and I should not ask about it anymore.

We knew how to recite all the religious hymns, but none of us really knew the meaning of any of them. We made for a great choir, though. In fact, it is in the choir where I was discovered as a potential singer. I even became one of the main singers in school festivals and big patriotic events. I must say that this gave me a boost in self-esteem and a little bit of popularity among my peers.

I grew up in Syria between 1964 and 1978. At that time, most people in our town worked in farming. They depended on the harvest of crops as their main source of income, but some also had dairy and chicken farms to bring in additional financial support while waiting for the harvest. Everyone in town had a piece of land enough to build a house and plant some fruit trees, and extra land for their other crops like wheat, barley and other types of grains.

Some people had more land than others, and their land size depended on how the land was originally divided. Some families inherited it from their ancestors, and some did not because the inheritance was divided among the males in the family. In some cases, people received the title for the land from the government because they had worked in it for generations. In our situation, my father was an only son, so he inherited all the land from his father who wanted him to get married as soon as possible.

Getting married at a young age was very common back then for men and women, but in my father’s case, he was only sixteen when he married my mother who was nineteen years old. This was not common in our culture. Men usually married girls-up to fifteen years younger than they were. My grandmother had developed a rare disease at a young age, which left her paralyzed from the waist down, so the family needed more help on the farm and in the house.

My mother was, according to many, a very smart, wise, and healthy woman. She did very well in school and had many talents in way of vocational work where there was potential for more income. She was also beautiful and came from an important family. Her grandfather had been the mayor of the town, then her father, and then my uncle took over and remained mayor until 2013 when he died. All this made up for the fact that my mother was three years older than my father. The family also knew they could depend on her to take on the responsibility of not only helping my father grow up faster, but to take care of the farm and bear many children who may help them in the future.

My parents were formally engaged when my father was only fifteen and had planned to marry in a year when he was more mature. On his wedding day, according to the story my mother had told us many years ago, my father had been playing marbles outside with his friends and my parents had to call him in to get ready for the day’s events, which included his getting bathed and dressed by all his friends and the best man.

Even though my parents had an arranged marriage at a very young age, they grew to love and respect each other tremendously. They had ten children together-four boys and six girls. I was the sixth daughter and the eighth child.

Part III

Growing up in a small town on a farm, we all had to share the