Is there anything that you think that we missed that you want to talk about?
Luna: “I think the most important thing at least to remember with your project is like, there’s so much underneath the surface that people don’t know…. [When we tell] our story, it’s hard to really capture everything that happened because it is—I mean, we’ve been in the States for 11 years. I was seven years old, and I’m 18 years old now. So that’s a long time. And so, there’s so much that you learned and experience, and it doesn’t really show a lot of the trauma that you’ve experienced in your life…
“If you see me walking on campus at Davidson, you would never have known what we’ve been through and you probably, like I probably wouldn’t have told you… I think people need [to…] consider the fact that not everyone’s journey is written on their face. It’s more of a personal thing and, like, we have—we’re quite open about our story, but some people find it very hard to talk about. But we’ve been lucky and blessed to be able to talk about it in a po—in a positive manner, and really, like, put the word out there for people to also see that other people are experiencing something similar to them or that there are people out here that do experience that.”
I think people need [to…] consider the fact that not everyone’s journey is written on their face.
Mrs. J: “As Luna said, we are very positive about it, but don’t think it was easy for us… especially the—the first year, two years, it wasn’t easy at all. Like, wherever we want to go, we have to go look at the buses and the buses take us like three hours to go to that area.”
Luna: “I don’t know if you’ve ever been on Charlotte public transport but it is terrible.”
Mrs. J: It’s terrible in Charlotte. Like, one time I remember Anmar was graduating from… the middle school, and we don’t have a car to go to his graduation because he usually go by the bus. So when we looked at the buses the—the school is literally 11 to—not more than 15 mile away from my home, but to go with the public buses it take us four hours. So… it wasn’t easy, but it’s a story now, and I feel blessed. I mean, yeah, it was hard a little bit, but we get through it. I think a lot of refugee[s can say the same].”
…it wasn’t easy, but it’s a story now, and I feel blessed.
Luna: “I think also like one thing that I always consider and think about is that had we still been in Iraq at this point, I would not be where I am. I probably would not be going to a great university pursuing Computer Science as a major, the most I probably would have been is maybe an engineer or a doctor, which is not bad by any means, but it’s also not a US education. And so we’re very lucky and very blessed to be here and be able to do the things that we’re doing or have done that we probably would never have been able to do before.”
