Born in Afghanistan
Age: 20, 18
October 26, 2021
Fatima: Life in Afghanistan is really indescribable, it was really hard for me especially being a girl. I always felt that my life had no meaning, that I had no future there. I knew that I might finish high school, get married, have children, and then just be a woman at home. That's all. That's how I felt there, like I was in a box. I couldn't dream further. I felt like my wishes and everything had a limit. It was very difficult. You were under a lot of people's control. Your father, brothers, uncle, mom, aunts. All of them were controlling you because you were a girl. Even the neighbors. Everyone just had control over you. It felt really hopeless and useless. My dreams were small and limited.
Zarmina: Even though I was young I felt like I didn't have power. I couldn't do anything without asking someone older. They never listened to our ideas. They were just saying, oh, we're older. You're younger. You can’t do anything. Even though maybe I am younger, I had something good in my mind. Our ideas were not important. I felt like a person without a voice. Everyone always had power over you. Girls couldn't even think. That's what I remember, but I came really young.
Fatima: I had just turned 15 when we left.
Zarmina: I was almost nine.
Fatima: My dad was working with the American people which put our lives at risk so we had to leave Afghanistan. The terrorist groups gave us warnings to my dad that if he didn’t stop working that we would be their target. My dad was worried about our life, so that's why we had to move. He worked with a company that was demining bombs that were planted by the Soviets. He worked with that company for 26 years. He went to all the provinces of Afghanistan to help remove the bombs that they planted in the ground. That job was dangerous. The company he worked for had contracts with outsiders, like the Americans and the British. All of his friends, some of them, died. Some of them lost their hands, their feet, their eyes - but God saved my dad. Then he worked with the American army for almost three and a half years. That was when things got worse and we had to leave.
Zarmina: The security was really bad for us living there. People would threaten us that they would kill us. We also came here to get a better education because my dad, he's a very open-minded person. He wants girls to study, so he was like, we have to take you somewhere that will be good for you to get an education. All my uncles were getting mad at my dad because he was letting us go to school there. He didn’t think that was fair because education is a good thing, it’s not a bad thing. He wanted us to get an education. My sister and I were the first children in our whole entire family to go to school. Our oldest sister was the first one out of all of our cousins on both sides. She was the first child and the first girl that graduated from high school. A lot of other people in our family wanted us to just stay at home, but our dad kept telling us to go. My dad was fighting for it, my mom was as well. Even though they never had the taste of education, they still wanted us to get to very high positions and be successful in our life. They tried so hard to make our future easier even though it was really hard for them.
Fatima: Even though my parents were not educated they wanted to be educated. They only went to school for two years and then after that, the Russians came, there was war in my country and that's why they couldn't continue to go to school anymore. The Russians were there for almost approximately 30 years.
Zarmina: I hated school there because I was getting bullied a lot, really badly. Even though I loved education. It was my dream to study, but people didn't love me. They would keep bullying me. I was trying to be a good student. And they were just not letting me.
Fatima: I didn’t get bullied, I was a fighter. I had to be, that was the environment. I had to be mean to fight for my rights. I knew I was not happy in that environment. I always felt and dreamed of going somewhere where I could continue my education. My dad's work history provided us the opportunity to be able to come to the US because of the dangers posed to us. That was the process, we went through the US embassy and it took around a year and a half.
Zarmina: While our case was ongoing my dad wasn't working. He couldn't because he had to stay home. We weren't going anywhere that had a lot of people. We were hiding in the house, we had to stay in the house. At that time, we even went through a lot of financial problems. It was really hard for us. I have three sisters and three brothers. Seven children, mom, and dad. My oldest sister is married and lives in Afghanistan, so we couldn’t bring her. She has kids, a family. When we left, it was our parents, the two of us, and our little brother. Our second older sister was already here with our brother-in-law. They got here seven months before us because he had a completely different case. He was working as a translator with the American embassy. They were in Virginia.
Fatima: I knew we were coming to the US because of the process that we were going through but I didn't know the exact day of when it would happen. They told us two days before. I was living my normal life, going to school. I was shocked. I couldn't even say goodbye to all of my friends, I couldn't get their contact information. It was super hard to suddenly leave everything behind and go somewhere I did not know a lot about. I expected it to take longer than that.
Zarmina: I was really young and I wasn't really thinking about many things. When my mom came and told me we were going to America I was like, oh hell no. We weren't going to school for almost a week before we left because people found out that we were leaving in a few days and they were literally trying to kidnap us. We just stayed in the house. When I came on the airplane for the first time it was terrifying but it was fun. When I came to America, it just felt like it was a completely different world. It wasn't even the same planet. I just felt so happy. I felt like my dreams would come true and I would have freedom. I wasn’t going to have anyone have power over me. I would have a voice now. It was very amazing. It was just a crazy experience. Unbelievable.
Fatima: When I was on the plane I could imagine finally getting out of this box. I was upset about leaving my other families and my friends, the country, but still, I was like, this is it. Now you're going to the United States and you will finish your education, you will become someone that you never imagined. You will dream further. Your wishes will become bigger. You will be able to help a lot of people and become the person that you wanted since you were little. I was so happy. It wasn't really strange for me, the new culture, the people. I felt like I was made to be in an environment where I could become successful. I was born for this, to be a fighter.
Zarmina: We were going to go to Virginia but then my brother-in-law recommended we come to Austin Texas. Our sister and our brother-in-law moved here after we came here. I think that's the best decision we've ever made, to choose Texas, because I love Austin. We got here on November 6, 2015. Almost six years ago. The first few months were very difficult, to be honest. I know America is a very great place for education, I was so happy, but especially when I started school in January the people and everything was just different. I started in seventh grade and I didn't speak English at all. I was struggling really badly. I didn't know how to spell my name. The teachers, I didn’t know what they were doing. They're asking me how to write my name and I was so lost. No one was helping me, I was getting bullied. I went to the principal and they didn't help me, they were kind of racist, to be honest. I went and was crying to them because these girls were mean to me because I didn’t speak English and they didn't do anything. In class, the teacher saw me getting bullied and he blamed me, which was upsetting because I didn’t know how to voice myself and I couldn't stand up for myself. When all of those things happened, I kind of lost my hope again. I felt like I couldn’t achieve my dreams, that it was too hard and I couldn’t do it. After that, I met some amazing people and I worked really hard. That bullying kind of helped me work harder.
Fatima: I started high school in the second semester of freshman year. It was really hard. I didn't speak any English at all. The only few words I knew were umbrella and hello. I couldn't even ask someone how are you. Just umbrella, that was the first word, but I couldn't even say it the right way.
Zarmina: The first word I learned was shut up.
Fatima: It was so hard and I was so mad for the first few months. I finished ninth grade with really bad grades. I started my sophomore year. That was also very difficult, learning was hard and there weren't any people in my school that spoke my language to help translate. The dictionary wasn't helping enough. I didn't even know how to check my grades, I didn’t know what a GPA was, what a grade was, and what passing and failing meant. I was going to school and coming back home crying. At the end of my sophomore year, someone came to talk about a summer camp program meant to help us learn English. It's called GirlForward which helps all refugee girls learn English and get used to living in the US. At first, I was like, hell no, I'm not going to another six weeks of not learning anything, but my friends encouraged me to go with them. That program actually helped me a lot. It made me stronger, helped my confidence a lot, it made me ready for all the things that I wanted to do. It made me braver and stronger. I got the best grades in my junior year because of that. I started speaking English, and I knew how to check my grades. I started learning about college. Pretty much I studied only two years of high school, junior and senior year. Those are the two years that I worked so hard to get all my grades. I didn't have documents that showed I finished school grades from Afghanistan to get credits here, I had nothing.
Zarmina: I felt like I had to try to fit in all the time. I wear a scarf, a hijab. I'm completely different from what people normally are in society here, so it was hard to get accepted. I felt left out all the time. People were mean to me because I looked different. There was a time I just didn't want to go out, I didn't want people to see me because I had already been through much in my country getting bullied. I was so happy that it was going to be different here, but even here it was kind of worse at the beginning. It just hurt me so badly. Even a time came that I hated my life and I just wanted to disappear. It was really painful. I still experience it sometimes, but I have become more confident. I stand up for myself, I advocate for myself. It's funny because that kind of helped me be who I am right now. It taught me people will say whatever the hell they're gonna say no matter what. You just have to not give up. No one will help you except yourself. I had to stand up and that made me stronger.
Fatima: I think communication is the biggest key for all these problems because when I first started high school I didn't speak English, so the students were bullying us because we were wearing scarves, we were Muslim and we were girls. We couldn't tell the teachers what exactly was going on. We got in fights - they were pulling our scarves off, pushing us, cursing at us, recording and posting YouTube videos without our scarves even though they knew we weren't allowed. We couldn't speak so no one understood what we were going through. I talked to the school principal a few times and sometimes he would even laugh at us, just smile, as if it was a joke. That was the most painful part of it. My friends didn’t have the confidence to fight back and I wasn't confident either, but I had to make myself stronger just because of the environment. To be ready to fight for my rights. I learned that this is a free country where each person has their own rights, I have to fight back. We didn't have any support to learn English faster, we had to learn it on our own. When we started speaking, we communicated with the teachers, we talked to all the students who were bullying us, and they understood us. We told them, the way how we are respecting y'all you guys need to share the same respect for us. It is every human being's job to respect each other, no matter what race you are, it doesn’t matter. Humanity is really important. When we were able to communicate then they started loving us, we were just too interesting for them. They wanted to learn more about Islam, about our countries, about who we are.
Zarmina: A few times people pushed me or pulled my scarf as well. I was so scared, I didn't speak English so I couldn't fight back. But now everyone is my best friend.
Fatima: Even her high school principal is her bestie.
Zarmina: I always felt like I didn't fit in this society. I love my culture, I think it's beautiful, but because there was too much pressure not fitting in, people always looking at me, I just wanted to be normal and fit in. I kinda changed because I wanted to be American so badly. It's really hard because outside I always try to wear Western clothes so I can fit in society, but then at home, it's so hard because my parents want me to remember my culture but it's really hard to wear that outside. It's really hard for me to fit in one culture or the other, so I feel in-between. It's really a struggle. My culture has beautiful clothes, good food, but I feel like I just wouldn't wear them daily. I would choose American culture because I feel like American people give more rights to women. Men and women are equal here. Afghani culture, even though of course my dad is different, but in general with Afghani culture, I don't feel comfortable because women don't have a voice. I love how hospitable the Afghani people are, how nice we are to people no matter where they're from. The thing that I just don't like is that they are thinking of women as inferior to them. And that’s a cultural thing. It's not a religious thing. The thing I love about American people is that they don't care. They don't give a damn what the hell you're doing, what you're wearing, they don't judge you. Some Afghani people are really judgmental towards women/girls. Even though they're really nice, they can find tiny mistakes in you. Which I think is because of their ignorance and unproductivity.
Fatima: Judgmental? I wouldn't say all Afghani people are judgmental but in general. Even the US has those kinds of people, they often live rural, far from the city.
Zarmina: I understand what you're saying girl, of course, no one is perfect, every culture or religion has something.
Fatima: I definitely feel in-between. When I first came I was wearing long Afghani dresses to school, and I'm not saying it's bad, I love my culture. I love and respect both cultures. But the Afghani dresses are mostly uncomfortable, so I started wearing simple American stuff. Shirts and jeans. Because I do what I want to do. I want to just be active a lot and I don't think I could do that in Afghani clothes. When I started wearing different clothes my family didn't agree. My uncles in Afghanistan found out that I was wearing jeans and they were like, you forgot your culture, you're not our daughter anymore, you're not respecting us. I was like, I don't care. I was like, I'm not doing something that would be really bad for me, my culture, or my religion. I know what I'm doing. I think I'm old enough. So I started wearing these kinds of clothes but I faced a lot of problems. I would say I'm living in two different worlds right now. When I'm at home, when I'm with my people, I have to be in a different world, which is with them. If I'm outside, I'm more comfortable with the clothes I wear.
Zarmina: Different mindsets. We have to have different mindsets for both cultures, we have to change it.
Fatima: I said outside I’m in my real world but both of them are my real worlds, right? The American world is where I belong and the Afghani world is also where I belong. I look at it from both ways. I'm not really changing myself, but it can be very confusing.
Zarmina: Yeah, I feel like I don't know who I am sometimes like I’m kind of lost in-between.
Fatima: I like whatever I am right now. I call myself Aghani-American.
Zarmina: There’s a lot that’s happened recently with the US leaving Afghanistan. My mom and older sister were stuck there and we couldn't do anything about it. It's painful to talk about, I felt useless. I couldn't do anything. All the people getting hurt. She just finally got back last week (this interview took place on October 26th, 2021 - nearly two months after the officially declared withdrawal date of August 30, 2021).
Fatima: I would like to tell this story on behalf of both of us because it’s really meaningful. In June, my sister, two of her sons, and my mom went to visit my country. They went for the first time after six years, they spent two months there. They were shopping, they were happy, they saw everyone. Then the Taliban attacked the whole country on August 16. I want to be sure to mention every single thing.
My second sister was staying with her in-laws and my older sister was staying with my mom in my uncle's house. So my mom had to go and bring my second sister to see my older sister. On her way to get my second sister, that was the moment when the Taliban entered Kabul. My mom said every single person there was yelling. The taxi drivers, the shopkeepers, the college students. All the people were running and screaming. When the Taliban first came 25 years ago, my mom was little. She said that at that moment she saw the same fear in her eyes again. All the cars got stuck, so my mom had to walk for six hours back to my uncle's house. Her feet were hurting for days and days. She couldn't talk, she was just screaming. She went home and just started crying. Everyone at my uncle’s house was scared because all of them were working with American people. She said that even if she died, she needed to see her brothers.
She went to the airport gates and all of them were closed, which is why there were a lot of people there and it was really, really disorganized. They didn’t have control over people because everyone had fear, everyone just wanted to run. Even though my mom had documents, she has a green card and the kids have passports, they went to the airport a few times. They spent 14 hours waiting in front of the door of the airport, and they didn't open it for them because if they opened it, a lot of other people without documents would go inside. There was a lot of stuff going on - outside there was Taliban, inside there was like the military, Afghan military was stuck there. In front of the airport, there were gunshots. The kids had to hear it, my nephews were crying, my mom was crying. There was tear gas going off and smoke bombs, they couldn't see anything. They were trying to separate and organize the crowd so they could take people inside that had documents and whoever had worked with the American people. None of them got through and they had to go six times to the airport in two weeks. Each time they were going they were getting dirty, getting scared because of the gunshots and the tear gas. They literally lost hope and thought that they would never come out of there again.
We were calling them the whole day, all night. We were asking if someone knew a secret door to the airport so they could get in because they had documents and they would let them leave, but where they were going, the Afghan soldiers and the Taliban wouldn't let them go to get to the American soldiers. If they could have gotten to the American soldiers and shown them their documents, they would have literally taken them inside. The checkpoints were the hardest thing for them to do. Here we had a friend who worked with the American army in Afghanistan, she was our first volunteer who gave us a ride from the airport when we originally came here. She speaks Pashto and some of her friends were inside the airport, so she contacted those friends. Those friends said there was a secret door in one part of the airport and they wanted our family to get there. We were in contact with them, texting, sending the location of them to the soldiers. Out of all this, only my mom got through, my sister didn’t.
Zarmina: It was the day that the bomb exploded. They were at another door, my mom and sister. They got separated because there were a lot of people, a lot of American residents that had green cards, even at the secret door. My mom got inside by pushing, but my sister and her kids had to go back. That was the last day that the US military was there.
Fatima: We went through a lot. My mom, my sister, went through a lot. My mom went to Germany and was in a camp for a month and a half. She just got here last Friday. That was the hardest part for us. My sister was in a safe place there and she, hopefully, will get here soon because they are just starting more flights trying to get people out who are stuck. But my mom, when she got to Germany, at the very beginning, there were a lot of people. She called me from someone's phone and she was crying to me. She was like, my dear daughter, take me out of here. Please take me out of here. It's really cold. I'm dying from pain and it's really cold. There is not good food, they only give us food twice a day. That was the very beginning - even American soldiers didn't have a lot of resources to give them. That was the hardest thing for me as a daughter, hearing my mom needing help and I couldn't do anything, I just died alive that day.
Zarmina: That's what I meant that we were so hopeless. We felt useless. We couldn't do anything.
Fatima: Our sister is still there, staying with her in-laws, trying to get out. Waiting for flights to get out of Afghanistan. They're still hiding. Hopefully, they will come soon. We're just hoping for the best. But these last two months were like a nightmare for us.
Zarmina: We were in hell. We couldn't sleep. We couldn't stop thinking for a second. And we had to go to school! We have to continue our normal life here and it was so freaking hard because my dad was in New York. He was stuck doing business and Fatima was basically an adult. She was my mom and dad for us. We were just young, in the house, and we had to go to school every day.
Fatima: I had to go to college. I had to go to work. I had to take care of my siblings. I had to clean the home, cook, take them to school, and pick them back up. All the things that a father and mother do - at the same time. I had to pay bills, everything was on me. And then I had to help my mom and sister to get out, trying to contact different people, finding contacts inside. Staying on the phone. There were days that I didn't sleep for 24 hours. I didn't get a minute of sleep. I didn't even eat for like, I don't know, it was like, three days. All I did was just drink some water. Everything we did was cry. During the night, I would stay up contacting people and asking them how they're doing because it’s daytime there. During the day here I had to work because I had to pay bills. I had to take care of my siblings, their education, my education. My dad got back days after my mom, both got back in the last few weeks. We are really grateful for the help we got from a few close friends, we cannot thank them enough. I’m especially grateful for my friend Wajiha.
Zarmina: My current principal helped me so much at school because it was so bad, I was struggling. I’m really grateful for her. Right now I'm a senior in high school. I'm going to graduate in 2022. I’m hoping to get accepted into UT and become a journalist so I can fight for women who don’t have a voice. I want to be a voice for them so I can stand up and show the world what is happening in other places where people don't really see how it's so hard for women to get an education even though it’s 2021. There are some countries where women still struggle to have their rights, so I want to be an advocate. I want to be a very successful person, to help my parents and the people that helped me. I want to appreciate them and thank them. I want to be a fashion designer as well.
Fatima: I am taking some classes at community college studying psychology and am trying to transfer to UT. I'm working part-time to help my family financially. I just signed up to help volunteer with Afghan people coming to the US, to help with translating and stuff. Since I'm not taking a lot of classes and I feel like I have enough time to do what I like to do, I want to work more with girls. I want to be a psychologist. I want to finish this degree because a lot of people need help right now. Especially if you've been through the same things you know exactly how they feel, so you'll be able to help a lot of people just like you. After that, I’m going to study journalism. I’m going for it. I don't want to study journalism right now because I'm not ready, somehow I don't feel ready for it. Wait, I want to have a good ending - I just want to be someone that can help many people who really need it. It doesn't matter who they are. I'm not just trying to help Muslim women, I would like to even help men. That's why I would like to be a counselor. I'm willing to help anyone. This is my hobby, helping people. Actually, I'm trying to write more. I want to be a good example. I want to help - women first, of course - let the men die! (joking)
Zarmina: That’s rude!
Fatima: That’s not rude! I just would like to help women first, men second. As British people say, ladies first.
Zarmina: I want to be a voice for women. Whoever is reading this, I want them to know that you should never give up on your dreams. Never let anyone else tell you you can’t do something because you’re a certain race, or your this or this. Never let anyone - do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it.
Fatima: Okay add this, I’m giving you a good quote here - be grateful for the difficult days and things today because you're going to - yeah, it's my quote and I forgot it...wait! Be grateful for the difficulty today because it’s going to make you ready for tomorrow.