Afghan Family: Success and Challenges

It is now eight years since my family has been involved with a specific Afghan family which has come as refugees to the USA. The long complicated story includes our late son David learning of the eldest female named Shamayel through Survivors of Torture, International. David provided this young woman a place to live, helped her register for school, and get her extended set of siblings all here to San Diego, etc. etc., etc.

It is a remarkable story of achievement. Shamayel learned enough English to attend and then graduate from junior college and get admitted to UCSD. She has one more year to get her degree. Her eldest brother works at Subway, drives Uber and Lyft and is a full-time student in junior college. The next, a female, works at McDonald’s, is a student in Continuing Ed. and just got her certification to be a child care provider (all of this while suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome from abuse while a refuge. The next young man helps Shamayel with family etc. and also works at a bakery and drives for Amazon. The next one just went on his own, works at a bakery and is also in pre-college classes. The younger sister will graduate from high school next month and the youngest was recently told to just skip the 7th grade and move to 8th grade and is a sought -after young soccer star. Shamayel has just received her USA citizenship and hopes next month to get her much-prized USA passport. On top of that she was named the top achiever in a major competition with Soroptimists and even went to Tokyo to receive her $25,000.00 award as the top winner of their Live Your Dream award

And I cannot tell all this wonderful news without acknowledging all my family and friends at Calvary Lutheran Church and other places who have been generous beyond words with all kinds of support including funds, furniture, automobiles etc.

Given all of the above it would seem there would be nothing but celebration and a big “let’s keep on doing it.” True - and there continue to be challenges.

America and Pakistan have lots of different ways of dealing with every-day life issues. For example: paying attention to time. We are still working on the American concept that days of the month often have strict time limits. Thus Shamayel has missed classes at school because she did not register on time. She has failed to get rentals because she applied too late. She has missed scholarship awards because she filed late (Just this morning I received a request to write a recommendation for a scholarship. Deadline for this is “ later today!”  After arriving late for doctor appointments et sim she is now also working hard to get that in America 1030 does not mean “any time after 11:00.”

We also have not solved the question, “What is your name? The name she uses for rent contracts is different from the one she uses as a student. I have no idea what name she will put on her American passport. I say her family name is Shamayel Ameri. Then I get a request for a reference and her name is Shamail Nikzad

She was almost denied the opportunity to go to Japan because the date of her birth as shown on her passport did not match her date of birth on her American green card. Of course this is partly explained by the fact that she left Pakistan in an emergency situation and brought no “official papers” with her. Also, when her sibs arrived here (also without papers as they were in “leave tonight and flee situation” the American official here gave them all an estimated year of birth and assigned them all a January 1 of that year as their official birth date.

Just yesterday I was frustrated with myself and others. I asked whether the younger sister who is a senior in high school had been granted admission to any university for next year.  I knew that she had applied at many of them. I was told, “Oh we just got the news that ALL of her college applications were denied because she had never taken and therefore never listed any SAT scores! How can that happen after 4 years in American high schools! And how could I not have asked her “Mansoora, how did you do on your PSAT and or SAT?”

The demands on Shamayel’s life are overwhelming: caring for 6 siblings, going to school, getting citizenship-and now another “cousin” family arrived from Afghanistan with no means of support and lots of health issues and they turn to Shamayel to assist her with all this. So I stress to Shamayel that for her own sense of control and priorities she really needs some regular things like a “To Do List” or a budget or some kind of filing system. To date I have gone 0 for 3 on these!

Yet do not let these take away the big lesson: America is still a land of opportunity. Migrants who come to us from places like Afghanistan work incredibly hard, faithfully, and honestly to make it on their own. Every single member of this family is determined to be a good citizen n of the USA and of the world and to pay back ten-fold and more all that has been invested in them.