Family struggles to put roots down in SF
Muhammad Abed once had a good life in his native Baghdad. He operated a mobile crane and won awards for his skill. He had a nice house and two cars. His family was growing as his wife, Arabiya Salah, gave birth to a daughter, Mays, in the early 1990s and a second girl, Aya, three years later.
But after war came in 2003, nothing was the same. Abed and his wife and two daughters found themselves trapped between the American forces and Iraqi militants who opposed the invasion on ideological grounds. In 2005 they had to run for their lives.
They arrived in Jordan in a flood of war refugees and would stay for nearly five years. They were safe in Jordan but could not establish a new life with any measure of dignity, because in most Middle Eastern countries refugees from the region’s many conflicts cannot easily find a job, let alone a skilled one. Abed said he would have been deported to Iraq if he had been caught working, and he could not have risked that because the militants were waiting for him.
The Abeds finally were granted visas to enter the United States as legally admitted refugees who are authorized to work and can apply for permanent residency in a year as a step to citizenship. Determined to start over, they left Jordan with all their important papers in an International Organization for Migration white plastic bag, marked “Muhammad Abed + 3.” They landed in the Bay Area on April 12, among the lucky 2 percent of Iraq’s nearly 2 million refugees – not counting the 1.6 million displaced inside Iraq – who have been able to resettle in a third country.
The Abeds are clients of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which helped them find an apartment in Daly City and line up what little government aid was available for rent and groceries. But the young migrant family, homeless for five years, is struggling as it tries to set roots in a new land.
The funds the Abeds were given in Jordan to get established in the United States, enough for a car or some furniture, were used up on rent. The Abeds are merely subsisting, on welfare and food stamps, and do not have easy access to services in their suburban neighborhood. They have no cash to take their children to a movie at the local multiplex, let alone for furniture or a car. Abed would like to work as a crane operator, but that requires a Class A license, and to qualify for one he must enroll in a training program in Oakland at a cost of $4,500.
The family’s plight has become so serious that George Wesolek, director of the archdiocesan Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns, recently issued this appeal:
“Our Gospel values teach us to welcome the stranger into our midst. Catholic Charities CYO invites you to join in providing help to this needy family. We are in desperate need of immediate housing, whether it be an apartment in San Francisco that can be leased from 6-12 months at reduced or no rent, or short-term funds provided to help the family pay their rent, until they can learn enough English, get trained, and find meaningful employment in their new homeland.
“We can help them with all of these services at Catholic Charities CYO, but we do not have the housing for them. That is why we need your help. The apartment should be in San Francisco because that is where the best services exist for newcomers.
“Please, if you have or know of an apartment for rent in San Francisco, have donations of furniture, clothes, can volunteer to escort the family members to appointments and job interviews, can provide short-term funds to assist the family in paying their rent, or have any other ways that you would like to help this family of newcomers, please contact the Director of Refugee Resettlement, Christopher Martinez, at (415) 972-1205 or cmartinez@cccyo.org.
Martinez said he has received many emails and calls from people wanting to help with small amounts of cash, and many wanting to donate furniture.
“The most critical needs right now are an affordable apartment in San Francisco, and employment,” he said. “I have a couple of leads for jobs, but still no chance on an apartment in SF, which would help this family out tremendously.”
The most difficult part, Abed said in an interview at his apartment, is that his wife and children look to him for support but he is unable to do anything for them.
“I am trying, but I am so tired now,” said Abed, 49. “I am trying to fix my life, but it’s very difficult.”
Asked what he was feeling in his heart, he hesitated before answering.
“I can’t explain,” he said. “I came here with all my hope to find peace – the first thing that I think about it. But life here is difficult. I can’t find a job. My English is not good. My situation is difficult.”
As he spoke, Arabiya was preparing coffee and homemade baklava in the kitchen. In one of the two bedrooms, both daughters were asleep.
“You see no furniture, no money,” Abed said, looking over the empty apartment. “If they need anything from me, I can’t give it to them.”
Abed was tired the day of the interview with Catholic San Francisco. The family had been up until 4 in the morning because one of their daughters was in the emergency room with stomach pains, although it turned out to be nothing serious. But he and Arabiya seemed more than tired, and there was evident grief in their slow speech and movements.
Abed’s eyes were wet, and although Arabiya’s were dry, her face had the look of someone who had been suffering a long while. As Abed went on to explain, the story in her face was the story of their migration, one marked by a series of devastating events.
In 2005 Abed received an envelope with a threatening document and a bullet inside it. According to an officially stamped English translation he retrieved from his refugee bag, the document was signed by the Al-Fiqar Regiment. It warned that any offense to the Islamic system and Muslim scholars would be repaid a thousand-fold.
“Long story,” said Abed, who is Muslim. “The American army comes to Iraq. Her brother (his wife’s younger brother, Alaa Abed Salah, born in 1966, the father of five children) worked with the American army. When they knew that he worked with the American army, they tried to kill him. I hid him in my home. But when they knew I hid him, they sent a letter: ‘You must go out from Iraq, if you stay more than two weeks we’ll kill you and your family.”’
That night, the family ran away.
“In Iraq if you receive this,” Abed said, “that means you are finished.”
Abed led his family back to Baghdad in 2006, hoping the militants had given up looking for him. After 13 days he received a phone call repeating the threat. The family fled again, making it back to the safety of Jordan as the militants hunted.
“They looked for us a long time,” Abed said. “Then they went to my house and burned it.”
On Oct. 21, 2007, Arabiya’s brother Alaa’s wife and the siblings’ mother reported that Alaa had been taken by armed men at 7 a.m. on his way to work as a driver at a hospital. He has not been heard from since and is presumed dead.
Abed said the militants targeted Alaa because the American army had helped him find a job.
He said his wife “feels so sad” over the loss and has had health problems.
He added: “My life is destroyed with this.”
The Abeds can only wonder what life is like in Iraq for Arabiya’s mother and their other relatives.
“We tried to bring her to Jordan,” he said. “She said, ‘I don’t go out of Iraq because Alaa died here.”’
“I don’t know where they are,” Abed said. “They tried to call us. They’re not in one place. They have to run. Anyone catches them, they kill them.”
He said he will never return to Iraq, but explained that not much is left of the country he knew.
“Everything in Iraq is destroyed,” he said. “I can’t tell you but if you watch with your eyes you’ll see better. Everything destroyed, everything. Even the trees, even the roads.”
By Rick DelVecchio
From August 27, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
