A Refugee From Oppression Is a Role Model For the American Dream
By Ned Barnett
America is a nation of immigrants, a
nation built by people who fled oppression – political, economic, religious,
ethnic or social – and came to America to build a new and better life … and
along the way, to help build a newer and better America.
Our nation traces its colonial roots
first to the Pilgrims who fled religious oppression to come to America, and
carve a new country out of the wilderness.
In turn, they were followed by others who came here to escape religious
or economic conditions in their homeland that kept them from creating the kind
of life they’d dreamed of. Catholics
fled from Protestant England to help create the Maryland colony. Quakers fled
the established Church of England to help found Pennsylvania. Huguenots fled Catholic France to help create
then-Dutch New Amsterdam (now New York) and New Jersey, and then a half-dozen
other colonies. Economic prisoners fled
debtors’ prison to help create the Georgia colony.
This tradition remained strong after the
Revolution, as new waves of refugee immigrants came to America, fleeing
political, religious, ethnic or economic oppression from all over Europe, and
then later from Asia. Following each of
the world wars of the 20th century, oppressed minorities migrated to
America to create a new life. Jews
fleeing pogroms of the late 19th century, and the aftermath of
Hitler’s “Final Solution” flocked to America, as did those who fled Communist
oppression beginning with White Russians and continuing until the fall of the
Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact – and they continue to flee from Cuba to this
day.
This is a tribute to a more recent
fugitive from oppression, a remarkable woman – Dr. Soheila Rostami – who, as a
teen-aged girl, risked everything she had, including her life, to flee her
country. She came to an America still suspicious of “Iranians,” seeking only the
right to pursue a higher education, and the right to build a life based on
freedom for her, and for the children she planned to have one day.
While all refugees face hardships, few
faced more difficulty than those fleeing from religious and social oppression
in the Iran of the Ayatollahs.
Those like this young woman, refugees
coming to America from Iran, took greater risks, and faced stiffer obstacles,
than other refugees. Free-thinking
Iranians – those who chose to try and escape the oppression of the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamic extremists – the strict and fanatical Islamic
fundamentalists who replaced the Shah of Iran in the late 70s – not only had to
find a way of escaping a country sunk into oppression and fighting a bloody war
to the death with neighboring Iraq, but they had to come to a country which
wasn’t always welcoming them.
America had first abandoned the Shah –
opening the door to Khomeini’s revolution – then suffered humiliation during
the 444-day embassy hostage ordeal. That
crisis created ignorance, anger, humiliation and fear among Americans that unfairly
raised our collective suspicions about all Iranians.
For that reason, many Iranian refugees
insisted on being called Persians, just to remove the “taint” of being known as
Iranians in their new adopted country.
First, getting out wasn’t easy. In the years after the fall of the Shah and
the rise of Khomeini and the Mullahs, Iran was largely surrounded by countries
that did not welcome refugees. The
Soviet Union wanted nothing to do with people seeking freedom. Pakistan and
Afghanistan were Islamic nations, largely supportive of the new Iranian
leadership. Iraq was at war with Iran,
and that border was not only closed, but the site of warfare that killed
millions on both sides. Only Turkey
seemed to offer a safe haven, but getting to that nation’s remote border, and then
safely crossing the border, were both daunting challenges.
It took a great desire for freedom, or a
great fear of oppression, to risk Turkey.
Yet that is exactly what one young Iranian woman, Soheila Rostami, did, once it
became clear that she would be denied both an education and even basic human
rights, primarily because she was a young woman, and “too politically
active.” During the reign of the Shah,
she attended private schools that mixed her education between English and
Farsi. However, the revolution occurred
while she was in middle school, and while she was in high school, and despite her
consistent top-of-her-class grades, it became clear that her desire to go to
university was to be blocked, because of her religious beliefs, her ideology
and gender – along with her belief that education should not be denied to
girls.
With the help of her supportive parents, she fled Iran for Turkey, thinking
she’d go to college in Turkey. Airports
were closed because of the war, and the road to Turkey was long, and
dangerous. Yet the danger of the trip
was less than she feared the danger of staying might be.
In Turkey, she was lucky – it was akin
to winning the lottery – and she obtained a student visa to come to America to
study. With that came the requirement
that, to stay in the country, she had to stay in school, which raised the issue
of Finance, and the near-impossibility of bringing funds out of Iran. However, she was offered a series of
scholarships to Howard University in Washington, based on her grades, which
were exceptional. This took her through
her undergraduate years as well as her Medical School. In 1992, scholarships for students here in
America on student visas became a political football, and – in compliance with
changing regulations – she was only able to receive a half-scholarship, which
meant she had to support herself while going to Medical School – an difficult burden,
but one she was able to overcome.
Following medical school, she received
internships at Washington Hospital and at Howard, followed by a University of
Maryland Fellowship. During her
residency, she not only scored top marks again, but during her term as Chief
Resident, she also gave birth to her son, Armon – she became a mother during
her last week of Residency, proving again that she had remarkable talents to do
what others deemed arduous.
Continuing with her work in medicine,
she first received her “green” card, allowing her to remain in the country, and
then to eventually become an American citizen.
Along the way, she discovered that, while she loves the land of her
birth (though neither its leaders, nor their intense focus on fundamentalist
Islam), she loves America far more.
“It’s a wonderful country,” she says,
“because of its freedom of speech and its freedom of ideology.”
To those who take America for granted, she says, “You don’t know what you have.
Be happy for what you have – it’s wonderful to be here, with no gun to your
head telling you what to do, or what to believe. But,” she adds, “You have to keep it that
way.”
She knows, because her birth-country once had those freedoms. “It is easy to lose those freedoms,” she
says, from experience.
While she’s proud to be an American, she has neither turned her back on her
native country, nor its people. She is
on the board of a group, “Children of Persia,” which helps children in both
America and in Iran. Despite the embargoes
against trading with Iran, those bans do not include humanitarian medical aid
to the children of Iran. Her group has a
license from the U.S. government to provide that aid, which has helped to
build, open and operate a children’s hospital in an impoverished part Iran.
“Helping children in poverty is not
‘helping the enemy,’ and the U.S. government agrees with and supports our
efforts to help children in need,” she explained.
She also works with another
organization, one dedicated to helping girls in Iran between the ages of 13 and
21, “girls who are helpless and who have been taken advantage of.”
She believes that women are the key to
transforming the Middle East into modern and open cultures. Right now, in Iran, “half the population
there is treated like animals – it’s unbelievable to Americans raised in
freedom and equality, but it’s true. You
have to wonder why the men do this – why they don’t have respect for their own
wives, their own daughters.”
The Middle Class still care about their daughters, but they’re leaving Iran, or
being forced out of the middle class.
The Working Class – who have been brainwashed by the government – don’t
have the same attitude toward their daughters, which is troubling and puzzling
to Dr. Rostami.
“We in Iran used to have the most
advanced culture in the Middle East. We had women judges, women doctors, women
in parliament. However, little by
little, women have been limited by what they’re allowed to do, and their rights
are evaporating.
For instance, under the Islamic government, it takes the testimony of two women
to “prove” facts in court, but it only takes the testimony of one man to prove
the same thing. So an assault against a
woman must be witnessed by another woman – who is brave enough to testify to
that fact – before any justice can be given.
“Women in Iran still fight for their
rights – but it’s an uphill fight against a downhill slide for the
country.” This is why Dr. Rostami works
with causes that help those helpless girls and young women in Iran.
She and her husband and her two sons are a tight family. “We are trying to create a ‘community center’
within our family, to show our children their heritage and their culture. We wanted them to learn Farsi – our oldest
son has learned to speak but not read Farsi, but not our youngest son. Our sons right now are more interested in
being Americans. They face the problems
faced by millions of first generation immigrants, such as acceptance by
society, and “being American” helps them with that.”
As an American who’s proud of his own
immigrant roots, and who is proud of a country that welcomes refugees yearning
for freedom, I am proud to know Dr. Soheila Rostami, and I offer her example to
all those who value America’s freedoms too lightly.
