The Group Project: Iraqi Profile

The Conflict

The nation of Iraq has experienced decades of continual violence and anarchy. After the carnage and wreckage of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran War, the 1991 Gulf War, and uprisings following the wars, 2.7 million Iraqis have been internally displaced and more than 2 million have sought refuge in neighboring countries, making Iraqis the third largest refugee population in the world. The rise of Sadaam Hussein lead to a massive cultural purge against the Kurdish population to the north and the Shi’ite population to the south. Through the horrors of civil war, sexual violence, and abandonment of vital social programs, Hussein’s dictatorship created unbearable living conditions, forcing millions to flee from their homes in the name of survival.

Resettlement Process

The resettlement process of Iraqis begins when the refugee registers with the UNHCR; the UNHCR then refers the case, if criteria are met, to U.S embassy for resettlement.  There is then a long process of paperwork, interviews, and waiting.  If approved, they are then flown to the United States, thrown into debt, and are resettled with financial assistance below that of the U.S. poverty line.  The refugees are given an apartment, household items, food, and a one-time payment of cash.  They are provided eighty days of health insurance and given three months to find a job, enroll in school, and schedule medical appointments as necessary.  Finding a job is the hardest part for the Iraqi refugees no matter the background, and their success is usually based on their English proficiency and their early employment.  The types of refugees that are relocated to a third country (defined as a country not bordering or sharing cultural tendencies to the home country) are usually:  “victims of severe trauma or violence, members of oppressed religious or ethnic minorities, unaccompanied children, special medical cases, stateless persons, refugees associated with governmental or international organizations, and refugees at immediate risk of refoulement” (Masterson 1).

Limitations of the Resettlement Process

As of 2012 about 64,000 Iraqi refugees have been resettled in the United States. While a refugee's long journey of awaiting resettlement in refugee camps or elsewhere has ended once they arrive in the United States, another journey has just begun.  The language barrier is by far the most difficult aspect in securing employment, but at the same time searching for a job and working a job cuts into time that can be spent on language instruction, especially when family constraints are considered. The recent economic downturn is not helping either to secure Iraqi refugees jobs. Above all empowerment of refugees is key to introducing refugees to American culture and finding them employment.

Cultural Transition in America

Iraqi refugees face unique challenges both before and after resettling in America.  Iraq has been ravaged by war since 1980 and many of the refugees coming to America have to deal with the psychological repercussions of the conflict in Iraq while at the same time facing cultural, ethnic, and religious persecution in America.  Some Iraqi refugees also face a particular discrimination by the United States government for previous militaristic affiliations.  Many people in the United States are insensitive to the differences of the Iraqi refugees and usually harbor a bias against them due to their affiliation with the United States’ conflict with Iraq.

Gender Roles

The Iraqi people adhere to rich traditional values. Arranged marriage is still widely popular, and it is expected that a woman marry into the husband’s family. In Iraqi culture, all actions of a woman are interpreted as a direct reflection of the man of the household. The Iraqi people adhere to a strict commitment to formality when communicating with members of the opposite sex. Therefore, in the United States, friendly, informal gestures such as a touch on the shoulder may be perceived as an expression of sexual interest. It is important that formal boundaries are maintained during communication with Iraqi refugees.

Education

In Iraq, 6 years of compulsory education has been in place since 1978. However, only around 9 percent of the country's total population has completed secondary school and overall, 74.1 percent of their population is literate. 20 years ago, Iraq used to have one of the best education systems in the region, but after multiple wars and now very little funding it has been very hard for the education system to recover. Refugees that are being resettled in the United States come from all different educational backgrounds, with some having completed university level education and others having never attended school.

Works Cited

Ghareeb, Edmund, Donald Ranard, and Jenab Tutunji. "The Refugees from Iraq: Their Histories, Culture, and Background Information." COR Center - Cultural Orientation Resource (COR) Center. N.p., 1 Oct. 2008. Web. 13 May 2013. <http://www.culturalorientation.net/library/publications/refugees-from- iraq-refugee-backgrounder>.

The Cultural Orientation Resource Center's backgrounder on Iraqi refugees is an informative yet brief account of the conflict in Iraq and the cultural distinctions of the nation. This source is particularly useful because it provides direct information about many aspects of the Iraqi culture, giving readers a clear insight into the intricacies of Iraqi refugees lives.

Gore, Paul A., Jr., Jonathan D. Codell, Robert D. Hill, and Dan J. Woltz. "Predicting Meaningful Employment for Refugees: The Influence of Personal Characteristics and Developmental Factors on Employment Status and Hourly Wages." Springer Science, 1 July 2011. Web. 01 May 2013.

This article is a study done on refugees from different areas, Iraq included, in a medium sized city in the western US.  They conclude that the possibility of acquiring a meaningful job decreases for each year being a refugee.  I can use this source to discuss the hardships faced when being labeled a refugee in the United States.

Harper, Andrew. "iraqi's Refugees: Ignored and Unwanted." International review of the Red Cross 90.869 (2008): 169-190. International Review of the Red Cross. Web. 5 May 2013.

"Iraqi's Refugees: Ignored and Displaced" begins with a general overview of demographics of the Iraqi refugee population, including estimates of the total population and the different ethnic groups that attribute to this population. The article continues to assess the impact of the mass exile of Iraqi refugees on neighboring nations while evaluating the future sustainability of the Iraqi refugee crisis in the Middle East. This source will be particularly useful because it provides concrete data and places a special emphasis on the context of the crisis in the Middle East.

Husarska, Anna. “Exile Off Main Street: Refugees and America’s Ingratitude.” World Affairs 171.1 (2008): 89-97. Proquest. Web. 1 May 2013.

People who helped the United States in the war in Iraq are being targeted for their disloyalty to their country.  They are given special visas to enter the United States for their service.  They come to America as refugees and are harassed because of they are refugees from Iraq.  I will use this article to show how refugees from Iraq are seen in America.

Jabar, Faleh A., and Hosham Dawod. The Kurds: Nationalism and Politics. San Francisco: Saqi, 2006. Print.

This book is about the culture, language, and history of the people of Kurdistan from early history to the modern day conflict in Iraq. I can use this source to provide initial informative information on Kurdistan and place refugees in the context of the history of their own culture.

Mamgain, V. "Off the Boat, Now Off to Work: Refugees in the Labour Market in Portland, Maine." Journal of Refugee Studies 16.2 (2003): 113-46. Web. 1 May 2013.

This article deals with the differences in employment of men and women refugees.  The pay based on ethnic group, language proficiency, age, and gender are analyzed.  I think I can use this article to discuss the benefits of having a refugee work a job based on the merits discussed in the article.  If I can find out why certain refugees are paid more than others or get jobs faster, I can use that information to inform employers of the benefits of hiring refugees.

Masterson, Daniel. "An American Dream: The Broken Iraqi Refugee Resettlement Program and How to Fix It." Kennedy School Review 10 (2009): 4-7. Proquest. Web. 1 May 2013.

In this article, the resettlement program for refugees from Iraq is analyzed.  The refugees who come to America are thrown into the culture without orientation and fall into trouble that way.  I can use this article to show the ill preparation that refugees from Iraq receive and how they can be assisted when applying for a job.

Sassoon, Joseph. "Internal Displacement, Iraqi refugees in the rest of the world, The        role of humanitarian organizations ." The Iraqi Refugees. London: I.D. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2009. 9-27, 87-114, 115-140. Print. 

The Iraqi Refugee provides immense context about the evolution of the Iraq from a nation filled with vast populations of internally displaced people to the nation of origin for millions of international refugees. It also provides a case study for the neighboring nations that witnessed massive influxes of Iraqi refugees following the invasion in 2003, including reports on Jordan and Syria. This source is especially relevant because it introduces the failed role of the United States and the UNHCR during the refugee crisis, linking both failures to intimate political reasons. 

The Guides

I really like how the ACC’s guide toward working with refugees highlighted the reliable and hard-working nature of the refugees. I think this is particularly useful because employers may be hesitant to hire refugees based on prejudices or ignorant assumptions that members of other cultures are dangerous or unhelpful. By highlighting the working nature of refugees rather than the cultural or ethnic divisions of refugees, the ACC can instill a sense of trust in the employer community. In the Congolese Backgrounder, I thought the information about the leadership style and gender roles of the Congolese people were relevant because those two concepts will be directly manifested in day-to-day work activities. It noted that the Congolese typically lead with a small council, sharing responsibilities amongst many members. This information would be helpful in the workplace because employers would know that the Congolese work with in groups and like to share tasks and responsibilities. The gender roles are also important to note because the Congolese make up a traditional culture (one in which the men do laborious activities and females do the domestic work).  These gender distinctions are important because they can serve as clues to the work experience of a refugee and the nature of work the refugee is accustomed to doing.

The least relevant aspect of the Congolese Backgrounder was the information about caretaker or child raising norms in the Congo. Child rearing is a more personal decision that may influence the refugee’s process of social assimilation rather than their integration into the workplace. I hope to replicate the level of detail present in the Congolese Backgrounder’s overview of the conflict in the Congo. It was a good balance between describing where the refugees would be coming from while not going too in depth about the complexities of the problem. The level of detail would be especially useful for employers because they can gain some cultural background and conflict sensitivity, but they will not have to devote a long period of time to learning all details about a very complex issue. 

The Annotated Bibliography

Works Cited

Harper, Andrew. "iraqi's Refugees: Ignored and Unwanted." International review of the Red Cross 90.869 (2008): 169-190. International Review of the Red Cross. Web. 5 May 2013. 

"Iraqi's Refugees: Ignored and Displaced" begins with a general overview of demographics of the Iraqi refugee population, including estimates of the total population and the different ethnic groups that attribute to this population. The article continues to assess the impact of the mass exile of Iraqi refugees on neighboring nations while evaluating the future sustainability of the Iraqi refugee crisis in the Middle East. This source will be particularly useful because it provides concrete data and places a special emphasis on the context of the crisis in the Middle East.

Israeli, Raphael. "Iraq Under Sadaam, Shi'ites in the South." The Iraq War: The Regional Impact on Shi'ites, Kurds, Sunnis and Arabs. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2004. 1-12, 42-76. Print. 

The book The Iraq War: The Regional Impact on Shi’ites, Kurds, Sunnis and Arabs by Raphael Israeli accounts the origin of the religious division between Shi’ites and Sunnis in Iraq. It also details the attack on the Shi’ite dominated South during Sadaam Hussein’s regime and the US invasion in 2003. The source is useful because it is written in extreme details and accurately combines both past and present factors that have contributed to Iraq’s refugee crisis.

Nakhash, Yitzhak. "The Shi'ites and the Future of Iraq." foreign affairs 82.4 (2003): 17. EBSCO. Web. 5 May 2013. 

"The Shi'ites and the Future of Iraq" provides the historical context, specifically noting about the role of Sadaam Hussein, of the religious political division between Shi'ite and Sunni groups in Iraq. This article is particularly useful because it address the domestic political situation in Iraq and relates key historical events to the current refugee crisis.

Sassoon, Joseph. "Internal Displacement, Iraqi refugees in the rest of the world, The role of humanitarian organizations ." The Iraqi Refugees. London: I.D. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2009. 9-27, 87-114, 115-140. Print. 

The Iraqi Refugee provides immense context about the evolution of the Iraq from a nation filled with vast populations of internally displaced people to the nation of origin for millions of international refugees. It also provides a case study for the neighboring nations that witnessed massive influxes of Iraqi refugees following the invasion in 2003, including reports on Jordan and Syria. This source is especially relevant because it introduces the failed role of the United States and the UNHCR during the refugee crisis, linking both failures to intimate political reasons.

"Welcoming Iraqi Refugees." International Herald Tribune [Paris] 21 Sept. 2007: n/a. ProQuest. Web. 5 May 2013.

The article “Welcoming Iraqi Refugees” gives real world context to the politics that affect Washington’s hesitancy to resettle Iraqi refugees. The implementation of a source from a public newspaper will give insight into the emotional effects of the upper level decisions made by the US and the UNHCR. 

The Revised Essay

Aly Higgins

Professor Leake

WRIT 1733

May 3, 2013

Expanding Truth, Pain, and Love: How to Tell a Human Story

            What is the What by Dave Eggers is a novel that accounts the story of Valentino’s refugee journey from a small village in South Sudan to a suburb of Atlanta. The story is filled with many periods of triumph and many times of suffering; however, Eggers’ commitment to a new standard of truth allows the story to come alive even when it is “difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen” (O’Brien).  The contradictions and skewed timeline in the novel allows the reader to become immersed in the emotional validity of Valentino’s story and calls for a critical assessment of how stories are received in our world. Through a unique narrative viewpoint, Eggers challenges the reader’s perceptions of truth and pain, and aims to break up the traditional opinion of how a ‘refugee’ story should be told.

Truth, a target often sought but rarely defined, is hotly debated in reference to the validity of a story. Facts, events, and locations seem to matter greatly to the public; it is if we have evolved into a mechanic lie detector, only expressing signs of interest when we feel as if we have been deceived. “Without the grounding reality, it’s just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood” (O’Brien). However, is truth truly nothing more than the legitimacy of data? Must our stories be put to a technical test? Authors de Sousa and Morton argue in their article “Emotional Truth” that “it is accuracy rather than truth itself that is valuable” (265). The distinction between the two lies within the distinction between relaying belittled pieces of information and delivering something whole that contains value. To better clarify the distinction, “truth comes in many forms, some cheap and some valuable” (de Sauso and Morton 265). For example, a cheap truth is one that has factual legitimacy but is plagued by vagueness; a cheap truth could refer to a description of a flower as colorful. While that description may be true, it conveys nothing of great value about the event.

Thus, accuracy, rather than truth, can come from malleable roots yet still contain a profound calling to the heart of the matter. In What is the What, the unique narrative structure of the novel illuminates a deeper truth. In the novel, Eggers alternates between the present-day robbery in Atlanta and Valentino’s journey from South Sudan as a child. The story is told in an illogical order, yet the connections between Valentino’s different periods of suffering allow Eggers to create a cyclical pattern that uncovers a deeper truth. If the story had been told in the factually correct order, Valentino would have existed as two distinct versions of himself: the refugee fleeing his hometown and the refugee trying to make it in the United States. The disruption of factual truth allows Valentino to share “the whole truth of [his] existence” since “the stories [can] emanate from [him] at all the time [he is] awake and breathing” (Eggers xiii, 29). He can be perceived as human rather than labeled a ‘refugee’. Demanding a higher standard of ‘truth’ that may exist in a disrupted form evokes a “rich a body of beliefs and desires, fitting the person’s situation and its possibilities” (de Sauso and Morton 272). In other words, adhering to a commitment to accuracy creates more creative space for the author to tell the story how it is remembered rather than how it happened because in reality, “happeningness is irrelevant” (O’Brien).

The effectiveness of incorporating valuable truth in a story directly influences how well pain and suffering, key elements of a many stories, are communicated. Pain is complex and originates from a primal source rather than a linguistic conscious. As a result of this difficulty, “the communicability of pain is frequently questioned; any expression of pain is considered … deficient and incomplete, … [because] it defers meaning” (Hron 35). Pain has the tendency of being swept away into a “universal ‘suffering form’” (Fadlalla 80). It is a trait that can come to define an entire mass of undistinguishable faces rather than a poignant attribute of an individual story. For example, Valentino criticizes the United States’ reaction to the stories of the Lost Boys, the group of South Sudanese refugees that walked from their home towns to the asylum of the Kakuma refugee camp. In the United States, the people avidly listen to the accounts of lions, military shootings, and unfathomable moments of suffering. They are riveted by the prospect of young boys being forced to drink their own urine when that detail is “apocryphal, absolutely not true for the vast majority of [them]” (Eggers 21).  

While pain may be universal, it cannot be generalized because it cannot be restricted to the confines of language. Pain is often reduced to a “ghostly shadow” because it is difficult to linguistically “describe their pain, convey its intensity, explain its cause, or specify its location” (Hron 39, 41). Pain, just as truth, can never be portrayed with total correctness; it can only be expressed from memory with emotional accuracy. Valentino’s story only exits within the “diary of his dreams”, and he can tell us the pain of seeing men killed before his eyes, of losing his friend Noriyaki, and of having his “voice and movements … restricted by the things [he owned]” during a robbery” (Eggers 29, 26). It is impossible to recount these sufferings with complete integrity, but factual integrity does nothing to recount pain accurately. Only maintaining the commitment to tell a story through the individual framework of one’s memory can make pain expressible and accountable. Thus, accuracy is just as vital to illuminating human pain as it is to displaying real truth.

The question I am trying to answer today is, how do I tell a refugee story? First, however, I must address the definition of a story. A story is a tool of human communication that has been molded for a variety of purposes. Throughout history “the story was used to preserve the culture of a civilization” and as time passed, stories were “used as means of instructing others” (Stein 489, 490). Thus, a story was merely a bare skeleton used to serve a functional purpose. What is the What disrupts this definition. Valentino tells his story because he believes that “to do anything else would be less than human” (Eggers 535). In other terms, the purpose of Valentino’s story, and potentially other refugee stories, is not to serve a purpose to the outside world, but rather, to serve a duty to oneself. In a refugee story, a story is not told to “instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior” (O’Brien). A refugee owes nothing to the outside world for it was that world that reduced the refugee to merely a soul controlled by outside, unfair circumstances. Stories entrenched with the horrors of mental and emotional displacement have the responsibility to adhere to a deeply personal truth- one that is contradictory and not relevant to the moral codes of the readers.

I would argue that the way to tell a refugee story is to tell it with no greater purpose at all. The truth should only consist of the emotional and mental interpretation of the situation; it is more functional to recount a blurred compilation of fragmented memories from the most remote corners of the mind. It does not have to make sense. “A true story, it truly told, makes the stomach believe” (O’Brien). In other terms, the truth of a story, rooted in the juxtaposition of horror and beauty, should evoke a primal, incommunicable reaction- the same sort of reaction that precursors pain. A real truth cannot be validated by the suffocating limitations of the written or spoken language. A story cannot be categorized in an ‘other’ category. Thus, maybe the way to tell a refugee story is to not really tell it as a refugee story at all.

In the famous literary piece How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien stated that his story “wasn’t a war story. It was a love story”. Through horrific accounts of death beneath the canopy of the Vietnamese rainforest, O’Brien reminds us that war is a conglomerated contradiction “because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love” (O’Brien). Thus, a war story, or a refugee story, or a story of suffering is never really about the suffering. In What is the What, Valentino was not telling a story of his horrors; he was telling the story of his mother, of Tabitha, of William K., and of his father. Therefore, a refugee story is really no different than a love story because it includes boundless emotions, periods of elation and depression, and a truth that is more than a set of facts. So, how do you tell a refugee story, you may ask? I’d start with a commitment to refuse to categorize it as anything other than a human story. A human story about the most humane of truths: love.          

Works Cited

De Sousa, Ronald. "Emotional Truth: Ronald de Sousa." Aristotelian Society Supplementary                      Volume. Vol. 76. No. 1. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002.

Eggers, Dave. What is the What: A Novel. San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2006. Print.

Fadlalla, Amal Hassan. "Contested Borders of (In)Humanity: Sudanese Refugees and the Mediation of Suffering and Subaltern Visibilities." Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development 38.1 (2009): 79-120.   Print.

Hron, Madelaine. "'Suffering Matters': The Translation and Politics of Pain." Translating pain: immigrant suffering in literature and culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. 33-62. Print.

O'Brien, Tim. "How to Tell a True War Story." The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction.                   Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. n/a. Print.

Stein, Nancy L. "The definition of a story." Journal of pragmatics 6.5 (1982): 487-507.