Skip to content

Syrian Refugees in the United States: One Family's Story

2016-06-21 · story · John · 3:58 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society (also: Global development) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, on location, heavy topic, civic or action cta

For World Refugee Day, John tells the story of Syrian refugees Mufak, Nada and their five children, whom he met in Jordan and visited after their resettlement in Rockford, Illinois. He argues the US is lucky to have them: refugees come to be protected by the law, and America has always contained multitudes.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Mufak, Nada and their five kids in Jordan; the long US vetting process

  • ★★ Because yesterday was World Refugee Day, John shares the story of a family he met in Jordan: Mufak, Nada and their five kids. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Mufak, a trained butcher who became a successful entrepreneur in Syria, left everything behind in 2012 to escape the fighting; after four years in Jordan the family's savings were depleted. — 00:00:08
  • ★★ John says refugees are not legally allowed to work in Jordan. — 00:00:15
  • ★★ When John met them in February, the family were excited because they were about to be resettled in Rockford, Illinois. — 00:00:21 · United States
  • ★★★ John rejects the idea that Syrian refugees are easily approved for the US: vetting has many layers of background checks, from iris scans and fingerprinting to many interviews, and this family's took more than two years. — 00:00:29 · United States
  • ★★ Mufak told John they had never been to the US and could not wait; Nada said she hoped Americans would welcome them and that they would not disappoint. — 00:00:48 · United States

00:00:57 — Visiting the family in Rockford: hard dislocation, early progress

  • ★★ John cites Life Magazine as once calling Rockford as nearly typical of the US as any city can be, a place with a downtown statue of a white guy holding fireworks and a flag. — 00:01:01 · United States
  • ★★ A couple of weeks ago John and Rosianna visited the family in Rockford; they shared a big lunch, but the move had clearly been hard, with everything from language to appliances different. — 00:01:11 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Nada told John that in Jordan they took public transport, but here they need a car or someone who has one; she cried, missing her family. — 00:01:26
  • ★ Nada's son comforted her and told John his mom also cries whenever Messi scores. (playful) — 00:01:41
  • ★★ Everyone in the family takes English classes, Mufak will soon work as a butcher, and the kids are in summer school learning to read and write English. — 00:01:45
  • ★★ John sums up the family's situation as complicated, hard and hopeful, like a lot of our lives. — 00:01:53

00:01:58 — We are lucky to have them: refugees politicized as threats, Muslim Americans, the nephew who loves the law

  • ★★★ John argues the US is lucky in every way, socially, politically and economically, to have this family. (hedged) — 00:01:58 · United States
  • ★★★ John says refugees are politicized and too often called threats for their ethnicity or religion; the claim that civilizations are incompatible imagines culture as a discrete, unchanging unit, which it isn't, and ignores the facts. — 00:02:05 · othering
  • ★★ John notes that American soldiers in the Revolutionary War included Yusuf ben Ali and Bampett Muhammad. — 00:02:22 · United States
  • ★★★ John says more than 3 million Americans today are Muslims, from Dave Chappelle to the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars to his congressman André Carson. — 00:02:28
  • ★★ Nada hoped not to disappoint us; John in turn hopes we do not disappoint her. — 00:02:37
  • ★★ Asked what he liked most about the US, Nada's nephew, there almost a year, said 'the law', which had not existed in Syria and had kept him from working in Jordan. — 00:02:42 · United States
  • ★★★ John says the nephew's family did not come to change the law but to be protected by it. — 00:03:01

00:03:06 — UNHCR's With Refugees petition

  • ★★ John reports that UNHCR launched a global campaign, With Refugees, last week (week of 13 June 2016): a petition asking governments to ensure every refugee child gets an education, every refugee family a safe home, and every refugee the chance to work or learn skills. — 00:03:06
  • ★★★ John asks viewers to join him in signing the With Refugees petition, linked in the description. — 00:03:26

00:03:30 — The Joe Marino statue: we contain multitudes; sign-off

  • ★★ The downtown Rockford statue is of Joe Marino, whose parents immigrated from Italy when many Americans believed Italian Catholics, loyal to the Pope, could never be real Americans. — 00:03:35
  • ★★★ John says Joe Marino is now a symbol of Americanness in Rockford: we contain multitudes, which has always strengthened us. — 00:03:47

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Rosianna, who joined John on both trips, filmed much of the footage, and UNHCR introduced John to the family and provided translators. — video description · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ The video's graphic of the vetting refugees go through before being accepted for US resettlement is by Mark Olsen, and the description points to a document explaining that process. — video description · United States

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Mufak · Nada · refugee · Rockford, Illinois

Also: People: André Carson · Bampett Muhammad · Dave Chappelle · Joe Marino · Lionel Messi · Rosianna Halse Rojas · Shahid Khan · Yusuf ben Ali

Works: Song of Myself

Organizations: Catholic Church · Life (magazine) · UNHCR

Concepts: Clash of civilizations · Islam · othering

Places: Italy · Jordan · Syria · United States

Events: American Revolutionary War · Syrian civil war · With Refugees · World Refugee Day

Only in the description or credits: Amman · Mark Olsen

Also centred on refugee: Volunteering (In Your Pants) · THE PROJECT FOR AWESOME 2013 IS UPON US! · Understanding the Refugee Crisis in Europe, Syria, and around the World · The Refugee Crises: Project for Awesome 2015 · Aida and Majeeda: Thoughts from the Azraq Refugee Camp · The Extraordinary Story of Hussam: Teenager, Writer, and Syrian Refugee

← Previous: Hey, Let's Change Some Things · Next → Questions (and Announcements) from VidCon