Season 2, episode 7: what we can become // Thursday, November 5, 2020

This is Shelter in Place, a podcast about coming together in a world that pulls us apart. From Oakland, California to Hamilton, Massachusetts, I’m Laura Joyce Davis.

Amira: I come from a country where we had a dictatorship for 23 years. So when I got my American citizenship back in 2006, it was the most important event for me.

Every time I go vote here, I wake up in the morning very excited to exercise the right that I have not been able to exercise back home. And I get surprised that people would not want to use that right. I'm still hoping things would change, and people will realize the importance of voting and go vote--even if they haven't done it in the past. I really hope that people understand the importance of election and know that it's one of the ways to be able to voice their opinion, and their opinion can matter.

Laura: Here in the United States, it’s been a big week. We’ve been biting our nails, compulsively refreshing the live election map, wondering who the next president will be.

I record these episodes in advance, and this time around, I waited as long as I possibly could for those results to come in. But nearly 24 hours after the polls have closed, we still don’t have an answer. It could still go either way.

As the hours tick by and the votes trickle in, it’s beginning to sink in that
no matter who wins, we’ll be just as divided tomorrow as we were yesterday.

If you’re just joining us, you’re welcome to listen to these episodes out of order--but especially this week, if you need something to distract you or to pull you out of the pit, I recommend going back to the beginning of season 2, starting with the prologue to this Pandemic Odyssey. It might give you some encouragement--and maybe even some laughter-- in a time when we all really need it.

The original Odyssey begins with a house divided that looks like it might break out into riots at any moment. King Odysseus has been gone for so long that everyone assumes he’s dead, and in his absence his leaderless home has been overrun by a greedy, selfish mob--which can sometimes feel like our country today. It’s a picture of anarchy with no obvious resolution.

All of that changes when the goddess Athena visits Odysseus’s son Telemachus. She reminds him that no matter how bad things look, the story isn’t over. She launches Telemachus on a journey to find his father. She restores his hope.

I don’t have divine powers or the ability to fix our divided country, but today I’m here to remind you that the story isn’t over. This past week I’ve been bringing you stories of people who have refused to let fear get the best of them, who responded to seemingly hopeless situations with courage. Like Odysseus, some of them have come from distant lands. Like our family, some of them have ended up in surprising places.

Amira: My name is Amira Karaoud. I am currently in Louisville, Kentucky. I am originally from Tunisia. I am a photojournalist, anthropologist, and educator. I've been in the U.S. for about 12 years. I lived half of that time in the Northeast and half of it here in Kentucky.

Laura: Amira and I got connected through a women’s podcasting network that I’m a part of. I first learned about her work because she reached out to tell me she was listening to Shelter in Place. Hers is a story about following your dreams, about understanding your identity and learning to live for more than yourself. It’s a story about what we as a nation could become.

But I also wanted you to hear from Amira because if you want a fair picture of this country, talk to a naturalized citizen like Amira. They understand patriotism; most of them have had to fight to get here, and they’ve taken some pretty weighty oaths to become citizens. At the same time they’re realistic about the challenges and problems of living here, because they’ve experienced them firsthand.

I asked Amira to tell me about her life in Tunisia, and what brought her the U.S.

Amira: So Tunisia, it's in North Africa. It's (on the) border of Libya and Algeria and it’s on the Mediterranean. It's a beautiful country, south of Italy. And on very clear days, you can see some of the Italian islands. That's how close it is to Italy. Geographically, I would not want to live anywhere else.

Tunisia is a great country, but it's a country with an old history. There were rules for women. I was not living in a war. I wasn't running away from, you know, political, issues personally. But I was definitely running away and trying to find a place that I could be me.

Laura: If you’ve been following this Pandemic Odyssey, you know that a couple of months ago the California wildfires and the combined challenges of pandemic living pushed our family to make a very sudden decision to leave our home in Oakland. We don’t know when we’ll be back, and we’re still hoping that this migration is temporary.

But as we’ve traveled and settled into life on the opposite coast, we’ve tried to at least be open to the idea that home could be somewhere else. And we keep asking ourselves what makes a good home. Geography and weather and even job opportunities aren’t the anchors they used to be.

We still don’t have an answer. But wherever we end up, we’re longing for the same thing Amira was: we want to live in a place where we’re embraced by those around us. A place where we can belong.

Amira: I always had this dream of being able to go to a place that it didn't matter what's my last name. It didn't matter which neighborhood I lived in.

There is this fantasy about coming to the West to find freedom, to be able to be who you are, and as a woman to find freedom.

That's the illusion created by Hollywood, about how women are free and they can wear whatever they want and they can go out at night without being harassed

Laura: Amira said that she thinks that it’s not all illusion, that part of it is true.

Amira: When I was 19, I remember an experience that shifted everything for me. My oldest brother moved here in the U.S. to Gethsemane, Florida, like the tiniest small town in America.

I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and I stepped out of the house and I walked to Walmart. No cars stopped. Nobody harassed me or told me anything. By the time I got to Walmart, I was looking around and I stopped at the jewelry section, and there was this old lady who greeted me and asked me if I needed help, if I wanted to try anything. And the whole experience still today, it's so vivid. It's so vivid, as simple as it is.

For once, I felt like I can be a woman in my own body without having to worry about it.

My own experience of those few days that I spent Florida made it clear for me that I wanted to come to the U.S. And since that day, it was like an obsession. I came back home and I went to an American school to take English classes. I started corresponding with universities, even if I knew I wouldn't be able to go to a private school.

Being one of seven, I knew that my parents would not send me to the West to go to college when I was able to get my education for free there. We don't have to pay for education in Tunisia. I was going to business school and there was political oppression, but it was the standard and everybody accepted it. So even for my parents, they were like, why would you want to go?

Laura: Amira told me that while her parents didn’t want her to leave Tunisia, her mom understood why she’d want to go and that ultimately she was supportive of Amira going to the U.S. But in the beginning, the idea of moving there was barely more than a pipe dream. She needed more than her parents’ support or her own determination. She needed a miracle.

Amira: My best friend's boyfriend at that time he's a lawyer. I was looking at his office and it had all this immigration paper to go to France, Belgium, the West, and all different places.

I was laughing at him. I was like, “Okay, I did not realize that the green card lottery actually exists. I thought that it was a joke.”

And he's like, “No, no, no, it's a real thing!”

And I was asking him, “You're a lawyer, and you're a man. Like, why would you even want to leave?” You know, for me, it was just like everything that I don't have, he has.

And he's like, “Yeah, I still want to go somewhere else. You know, it's too oppressive here and I want to leave for a better opportunity.”

Laura: The Green Card lottery--officially called the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program--was signed into law back in 1990 by President Bush (the first one). It was designed to broaden the range of admitted immigrants--and help the Irish in particular, who had been experiencing political unrest and violence for decades.

These days we associate immigrant advocacy with progressives; but I think it’s worth pausing here to acknowledge that it was a Republican, not a Democrat, who made the green card lottery possible. In the 1980’s, Ronald Reagan passed legislation that gave amnesty to a whole generation of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

Also, it’s important to state up front that our immigration system is endlessly complicated--often needlessly so.

The gist of the Diversity Immigrant Visa program is this: applicants from approved countries can apply for free, winners are selected at random, and then screened through an interview process, where among other things the applicants need to show that they have support in the U.S. that would make life there feasible. If they pass, they get visas, and then when they arrive in the U.S., they get a Green Card, which means they can legally live and work in the U.S., and eventually apply for U.S. citizenship. The whole process took about two years start to finish.

Amira: We filled out a paper and at that time, in the late nineties, it's just an A4 page. You write your name, last name, date of birth, your education level, put an ID picture, and sign at the bottom. That's all you do. Like a really pure lottery, like either you're lucky or you're not.

We went out to have a coffee at this place and forgot about it. And I remember one day it was a period where we take exams. I usually liked to stay at my friend's house, and all of us liked studying together. And my brother calls me and he's like, “Look, you got this big envelope. It has the American government stamped. You’ve got to come home. I don't understand English.”

I was like, “I don't have time for that. I have an exam. When I get back home, I will look at it.”

{Laughs}

There it is. I got my green card. It's just mind blowing,

Laura: Only about 5% of the people who receive green cards do so through the lottery. To give you some sense of the odds of winning the lottery, up until Trump suspended the program in April, about 22 million people applied annually for the 50,000 visas were issued through the lottery each year. Amira was one of only 175 people in Tunisia to be granted a green card through the lottery that year.

Amira was 23 when she came and she knows how lucky she was--not just because she won the lottery, but because she had a brother living in New York at the time. Living with him allowed her to find a job and get on her feet without the stress of paying rent or trying to navigate a new culture alone.

Amira: I think as immigrants, we come here and we don't know the obstacles and we are not aware of the culture, and we have the solution of this country being the land of opportunity, so we'd go for it.

I was working in Union Square at the Virgin Megastore putting CDs in the World Music section, enjoying learning about other music, talking with people about music.

Back home, unless you're privileged from a family that can get you a job, you finish your undergrad and you just continue studying and doing your Masters. And it was kind of straight forward for me to go to school so I would have more chances and opportunities to get the job that I wanted, which is a financial analyst in the stock market.

People would ask me, “What are you going to do?” And I'm like, “Well, I'm going to apply for an MBA.” And they're like, “Well, good for you!” Very encouraging, which I really appreciated. It's something that we don't have in my culture. When the dream is very big, people will laugh at you when you say it out loud. You know, here people are very polite and very considerate and very politically correct--which has a downside to it. But the upside of it is that it really, at the beginning, made me continue believing in my dream. It was great.

And I finished my MBA, and the illusion continued.

Laura: Amira knows now that her experience was far from typical. But still, it’s encouraging to hear a story of someone coming here and being treated well. It’s a picture of what we could be--of what we sometimes are: a place where people still believe in following their dreams. A place that embraces its blend of people, cultures, and traditions. A place where freedom is the highest value.

But as Amira soon found out, the reality of our national identity is far more complicated.

Amira: I got an offer in Boston. And the journey began of what America is right there.

I moved to Boston in the winter. It was a storm. The whole city was shut down and I couldn't go out, but I didn't care. I was too excited. I would go to the gym, and I was taking photography classes, and trying to meet people, but people are super cold. I was surprised and shocked because in New York, as much as people think of it as a place that people don't care about each other, at the end of the day in New York, everyone is lonely. So when people are out, when you were in a coffee shop or in a bar or in the gym, people actually have a conversation.

I'm 27. I have this great career. I have all this money and I can't have a social life. That was the discovery for me of what America is. I don't know if it was because I'm a person of color or not. But I definitely did not feel like I fit.

Laura: I want to stop here and acknowledge that while Boston has a reputation of being chilly to outsiders, Amira’s experience could have happened anywhere.

Just as being welcomed in New York was a picture of our country at its best, her experience in Boston is a reminder of how isolated we can make others feel when we don’t acknowledge them.

The dream that Amira had chased here began to fade, until finally she couldn’t see it anymore. Eventually her company transferred her to an office in Paris.

Amira: And I found within a month that I have a normal life where I have a job in a social life.

And I remember when they wanted me to go back to Boston, I was like, “No way. Even if it means losing my job.” My friends were like, “Are you sure? This is a big decision.” And I'm like, “I don't care.” I could not see myself going back to the U.S. And that was when I actually left the U.S. for five years. I just didn't want to come back here. I did not feel I belonged.

I moved back home and started applying for jobs in Europe, but quickly, I got an offer in Tunisia at a bank. My parents were getting older, so I was like, well, it's a great opportunity to come back and be able to spend time with my parents and with my family.

I thought that I was gonna stay there forever. But especially if you immigrate early, it becomes very difficult to belong again. There are a lot of ways of thinking that were in me before I went to the U.S., and when I came, they got stronger--like my belief of I'm as equal as a man . . . I'm as equal as someone from a different class than me, and refusing to accept any injustice.

And I have to say that I was also in an industry that is male-dominated. There are things that fly by me when they are said in English, I have no background about this word, especially at the beginning. But in Tunisia, it got accentuated more. When I went back home and I was still working in that industry, I could not stand it. I was frustrated all the time, always in confrontation with men working around me that don't think I deserve where I am or the salary that I have. It was just constant stress and battle. I worked hard to get there and I'm as capable as any man who works in that industry. But if I have to justify it all the time, or refuse any advances from men because they believe I got there because I'm a woman and I'm using my body--it was very tiring. Very, very tiring. And that's what led me actually to quit my career. I couldn't take it.

Laura: Amira worked as a Global Financial Analyst on Wall Street for ten years. She was good at her job. But in the end, it wasn’t worth the cost. So she decided to do something big, something that was maybe a little crazy. Instead of barrelling down the same path she’d been on--first in the U.S., and then in Tunisia--she got off the path completely.

Amira: When I left finance, it was clear for me that I had to heal myself and shed all the ugliness that I experienced and the trauma that I held down for too long.

I decided to pack my stuff and go and travel to the farthest places I could be, that would teach me other ways of living, and forget about the capitalist world, the world that is attached to everything material. And it was a great journey.

When I started the trip, I had no idea what I would do with my life. I was expecting to go back to the finance industry. That's what I knew. But I wanted to give myself space to rethink my life and think, what matters to me in life?

When I left on the trip, part of me was trying to find (out), where does that gap of women and men and that inequality come from? I believe that as humans, we probably at the beginning of our life million years ago--we were not in that place. We probably would have seen each other as equal and complementarity rather than fighting each other.

I was trying to be with people who held onto their culture and to their communities and resisted the influence of materialism. I went to New Caledonia, Fiji, Papa New Guinea. And while I was traveling, I was taking pictures. Sometimes I would write. I had the blog, a way of connecting with family and friends, like they know if they posted a picture on Facebook, I'm alive. They know I'm safe. And a lot of people started following me.

I grew up believing that I would not be able to choose a career in art. I always wanted to do journalism, but coming from the middle class, it was clear that that's not a carrier that would allow me to have my independence as a woman. And that's how I chose business school. I'm good at math. I'm good with numbers. I said, art will still be in my life in one way or another, but to be who I am and to be able to be independent and free, I have to take that career.

Once you're successful--I mean, it's great--and you forget about the childhood dreams. You can make it work--and I did. But when I left, there was so much relief and so much a joy. I was so free for the first time in my life. I felt that here I am, I'm born again.

Laura: Amira ended up spending a year traveling around the world, and she observed tribal cultures in 15 different countries. She came to each place as a student of the culture, and as she began to repair some of the brokenness and inequalities in her own life, she began to think about how she could play a role in challenging the systems that perpetuated those inequalities.

Amira: Traveling really taught me to be open, to allow myself to experience things and understand (that) we have these differences. And what can we do to build the bridges and be able to communicate better with each other? And that's what I felt that I can do with my photography. I found that I can have people question cultures and question the places and question the media itself.

I started looking at refugees--particularly the older refugee camps that have been a refugee camp for 40 and 60 years that people don't know about--trying also to question, why are we not able to solve those issues? And why does the system hold onto those issues? How can we be so blinded just because we are in a comfortable place and we're paid well, and the system is working well for us?

I would love to fight that ignorance of, if you make it everybody is supposed to make it. It is not true. It is the biggest mistake a human being can do, judging someone that was not able to come out of their misery.

Laura: Amira brings up an uncomfortable reality, one that is easier to ignore: all people are created equal, but we’re not born with equal advantages.

The idea behind the American Dream--that we can all achieve our dreams if we just work hard enough--sounds good enough on the surface. It makes us feel exceptional.

We tend to overcredit our abilities and undercredit our circumstances. We don’t get to choose what family or country or body we’re born into, if we have one parent or two, or if our family has the money or connections to get us into a good school, or if we are physically able to pursue everything we’d like to.

Amira: I'm hoping that the work that I do will be able to participate in solving the differences that divide us today, and hopefully inspire the next generation.

Laura: Amira never did go back to the finance industry. Instead she returned to the U.S. and got a masters degree in anthropology at the University of Louisville.

In 2006 she became a U.S. citizen. For years she’s been working to make others feel at home. Her photography has focused on displaced people in the United States and the Middle East, and in August her work highlighting local immigrant stories was featured in a PBS American Portrait special.

Amira also teaches multimedia journalism to teenaged girls of color through Girl Z Report, an education program she started with a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. The Facebook page where Amira once chronicled her travels is now the page for Girl Z Report.

The first thing they studied was the history behind women’s right to vote. One of Amira’s proudest achievements is that one of her students made a video called Voter Girl, and it was selected for a National Collaborative for Women’s History documentary. Amira is still recruiting more teenage girls to be a part of Girl Z Report. I’ll include links to her site in the show notes for today.

Even with everything she’s accomplished, Amira says she still feels like she has a lot of work to do. She knows that facing fear isn’t something you do once, and then put behind you. It’s a decision you make every day.

Amira: I do love where I live, but there are moments living in Kentucky, taking part of the Black Lives Matter movement, there are moments that a lot of trauma came back from living in an oppressive system. And I would not want to see that happen to this country.

It's a scary time. I have no idea what America will become. I know the fear that I lived after Trump made his first executive order of blocking immigrants from seven countries. Even though my country Tunisia was not on that list, I was still hurt as much as my brothers and sister from Iran. Being Muslim is something that is demonized today. And I hate to be treated that way. We're not demons. Not all Arab countries are the same. There are 22 countries and all of them have a completely different background and they are completely different from each other. These Wars or these issues should bring more curiosity to learn about other countries. And it did for a few people, but not many.

As much as I critique America, the U.S. brought me the hope that I can live free, and I would love it to still be that country. It's still the country that gives hope to people to live with dignity. And there are a lot of people that do a lot of work to keep that going. And I hope that that hope would still be there.

Laura: I’ve been ending each episode with an invitation, and so today I’m extending Amira’s words to you: When you see wars, or conflicts, or conversations that divide us, ask yourself what it would look like to approach that conflict with curiosity.

Maybe it’s learning about another country and culture. Maybe it’s looking around in your own life and reaching out to others who might be feeling out of place. Maybe it’s looking not only to our leaders, but to our communities, to define what this country will be.

Before I go, I want to send out a special thank you to Emily and Donovan Chandler, who in addition to being monthly supporters of Shelter in Place, are somehow managing to care well for us from 3,000 miles away. This week after they heard that our coffee grinder was broken, they sent Nate a new one for his birthday. Shelter in Place would not be possible without the many cups of coffee every day that are keeping us going, and we are so grateful for friends who make us feel at home no matter where we are.

I started this an education program for BIPOC teen girls which I got grant from Kentucky foundation for women to initiate. It’s called Girl Z Report, I am teaching multimedia journalism our first theme was election and women’s right in election. One of my student’s video participation for a competition called Voter Girl (initiative of National Collaborative for Women’s History https://ncwhs.org/) got selected to be included in the final documentary.

Here is the link and please feel free to share, I am still trying to recruit more BIPOC teen girls for the program. Here is also Facebook page for it, it used to be my traveling page but I switched to the program so the girls can benefit from an existing online presence: https://www.facebook.com/GirlZReport/

https://youtu.be/wo2VZvEScIM

Ronald Reagon gave amnesty:

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article220609805.html

https://learn.simplecitizen.com/immigration-support/green-card-lottery-guide/

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/021116/how-green-card-lottery-really-works.asp

https://artsbureau.substack.com/p/louisville-photographers-work-tells

https://www.pbs.org/video/family-us-pbs-american-portrait-story-preview-7iv2dr/

https://louisville.edu/anthropology/graduate/amira-karaoud

https://1997-2001.state.gov/briefings/statements/1999/ps990524c.html