We Are Displaced

Zaynab describes her journey from Egypt to the United States. Though she was happy to be accepted into the US as an 18-year-old refugee, she had to leave her 16-year-old sister, Sabreen, behind. Zaynab recalls leaving Yemen, which had become a dangerous place to live, and staying with distant relatives in Egypt for several years. In the US she was reunited with her mother, who she had not seen for 14 years, since her mother had been given a visa to the US years earlier but was unable to take her children with her. Though her father abandoned the family when she was two, his mother raised Zaynab and Sabreen and doted on them. Zaynab recalls her grandmother’s passing when she was a teenager as a particularly traumatic event.

Yemen became unstable and dangerous for Zaynab and her family due to the civil war there. She writes that during the “Arab Spring”, many people in North African and Middle Eastern countries, including Yemen, began to protest for democratic reforms. When protesters and activists called on the president to resign, the government reacted with brutality and strictly limited people’s mobility. This prompted revolutionaries to respond with force, and the country became increasingly dangerous. Zaynab’s uncle was shot on his evening commute, and bombings became regular occurrences. She explains that this violence was chaotic and confusing as it could have been caused by revolutionaries, the government and police, or terrorist groups vying for control. After witnessing a bomb strike her neighbor’s home, Zaynab decided to contact her mother in the United States.

Zaynab took her mother’s money and advice and flew to Cairo with her sister and aunt. Once there, she learned she had tuberculosis and her second uncle kicked her out of the house since he was worried about getting sick. She relocated and rented a room in another neighborhood in Cairo that was close to the embassy, where she had to go for daily pills and injections to recover and get her visa to the US. After several months Zaynab was healthy again and her visa application was approved, however she was heartbroken to learn that her sister’s visa was denied. Zaynab shares that due to her sister staying behind in Cairo, she could not look forward to going to the US. She explains, “Boarding that plane should have felt like freedom. Like hope. Like a dream come true. Instead, my heart felt like lead, heavy in my chest” (Location 560). Once she arrived in the US, she stayed in close contact with her sister, expectantly waiting to hear that Sabreen would be able to join her. After two years of waiting, Sabreen told Zaynab that she wanted to pay to get a boat to Italy with other refugees, which would cost $2,000. Though Zaynab and her mother did not think this was a safe idea, they relented and sent Sabreen the money for the journey.

Sabreen felt depressed by her sister’s departure and was disappointed to not receive her own visa to the US despite waiting for two years. Now 17 years old, Sabreen and her cousin and friend arranged to take an illegal boat across the Mediterranean from the Egyptian port city Alexandria to Italy. Sabreen was shocked when she arrived in Alexandria and found that their $100 per night accommodation was a concrete warehouse with no furniture or blankets. The next day, she and her friends joined other refugees on a bus with black plastic covering the windows, which they rode for 12 hours without stopping.

Once in Alexandria, Sabreen expected to find a large yacht-like boat which the smugglers had promised, but instead she found only small fishing boats. Thinking of the danger of crossing the Mediterranean in those vessels, she told the men in charge that she wanted to leave. They smugglers said she couldn’t turn around and put her in the boat with her cousin and friend. The bus driver then robbed the refugees at knife point, taking their jewelry and money. Sabreen reports that when she asked the boat’s captain about the large comfortable boat they were promised, he assured them they would be transferred to it eventually. However, after six days at sea moving from boat to boat, Sabreen realized that his claims were a lie. Finally, an Italian Coast Guard ship found Sabreen’s boat, which had since run out of fuel and was languishing about three hours from land. The Red Cross came and rescued her and the other refugees. Sabreen shares that she had “never been so thankful in my life” (Location 647).

Zaynab shares Sabreen’s journey from her perspective. After not hearing from her sister for a month, Zaynab and her mother were very worried. When Sabreen reached out again, Zaynab learned that she survived the nine-day crossing from Egypt to Italy, from which she had been transported to a refugee camp in Holland. Zaynab was relieved to learn that her sister was in good health at a comfortable facility. When Sabreen told her sister that she had met a young man at the camp and planned to marry him, Zaynab felt shocked and expressed that she wanted her sister to finish her education, which Sabreen assured her she would.

Zaynab also shares that 2016 was a difficult year for her in Minnesota, as the presidential election had triggered an outpouring of hatred towards Muslim people like herself. She recalls an incident in which she hid from a man at a shopping center who yelled “Jihad” at her (Location 675). Meanwhile at school, she was excelling academically and skipped the 10th and 11th grades because she was doing so well. Zaynab recounts that she was thrilled to join the student council, where she asked for the school to establish a girls’ soccer team, since she felt that soccer was “pure happiness” (Location 698). She explains that in Yemen she dressed like a boy to be able to play and was happy to be the captain of her school’s first girls’ team in Minnesota. While her team frequently lost to other schools, Zaynab remembers how hard they worked and how much they improved. When a recruiter from the Homeless World Cup asked her to play for the team, Zaynab was thrilled; it would give her a chance to go to Europe for the tournament, where she could visit her sister. However, President Trump’s travel ban on citizens from certain African and Asian countries then took effect and so Zaynab, who did not yet have a green card, could not travel outside the country.

Zaynab recounts going to the screening of “He Named Me Malala” with friends from her school and meeting Malala Yousafzai. Her meeting with Yousafzai caused her to reflect on her experiences and her dreams for the future. Zaynab admits that her biggest dream would be to live with her family in Yemen again and to have her grandmother back, which she knows is impossible. She shares that she wants to attend college in the US and pursue happiness in America with the hopes of someday returning home to help rebuild Yemen. She concludes her passage by encouraging other young displaced people to “dream big” (Location 727).