Impoverished Iraqi refugees must rebuild lives 'from scratch'

Editor's note: This story was originally published Jan. 5, 2009.

 

Faiz Al Berqdar's blood pressure is going up. At age 60, the Iraqi periodontist with a doctorate still hasn't found a job since arriving in Utah in June. He has begun to wonder if he should return to the Middle East.

"I don't know how to get out from the neck in the bottle," Al Berqdar said.

In Iraq, he was a wealthy man at the "top of the pyramid," dressing in suits provided by the government because he taught at Baghdad University's dental college.

Then the war began. One day, he received a letter saying he was no longer welcome in Iraq and had to leave. If he did not, the letter advised, he should pray more and ask

God for forgiveness or he and his daughter would die.

So he and his family are now refugees in America, a place he calls "the land of chances."

But opportunities elude him.

"Do you know what I've become?" Al Berqdar said. "Weak, poor, diseased."

Poverty shock

Al Berqdar is among thousands of academics and doctors who fled Iraq during the war. Threats, attacks and attempted kidnappings forced educated, middle class professionals to abandon their homes. Their departure has drained the country, observers say, of citizens critical to Iraq's stability.

Those who moved to Jordan or other countries typically discovered they weren't allowed to work. So they joined the thousands looking for a new homeland, many of whom are coming to the United States.

Iraqis are the "ideal" refugee, some officials in Utah say, with backgrounds far different than the thousands of uneducated refugees who arrive after years and even generations spent waiting in camps.

But once here, Iraqis' college degrees and licenses usually are not recognized. A dentist can't assume his new job will involve teeth. An expert pilot will probably have to prove he can fly a plane.

Employed at low-paying jobs, their standard of living plunges. Some women begin to work outside the home for the first time, a major cultural shift, in order to pay the rent.

"It's a kind of shame," explained Khalid Al Hachami, an Iraqi who works as an interpreter for the International Rescue Committee, a refugee resettlement agency. Some husbands may not want their wives to work with unfamiliar men and believe women shouldn't have to earn money.

Who the refugees once were is not necessarily who they will become.

"They don't accept they're coming to this country and everything has to be from scratch, from the beginning," said Zeze Rwasama, an employment counselor at the Department of Workforce Services.

Then there are those like Faeza Tawfeeq, who is willing to try something new and whose husband is open to change.

Although she did not work in Iraq, where her husband owned a liquor store blown up by religious militants, she understood she would need a job to help the family survive in the United States -- even if she would prefer to stay home. She pondered her employment options a few days before Christmas, focusing on respectability and safety.

"Wal-Mart is a very nice place," she said through an interpreter.

'I am not a beggar'

Al Berqdar, the unemployed periodontist, held up a thin green blanket. Given to his family by resettlement officials when they first arrived, it is too short for his adult son to use. They could never wash out the stains.

Like victims of a house fire, they have had to rebuild their lives one coffee cup and sweater at a time, sometimes spending their precious savings at used clothing stores.

Al Berqdar brought with him an extensive collection of degrees, research articles and academic writing, evidence of his past life. "I would love to help people here," he said.

But laws intended to protect the public mean the grandfather will probably have to go back to school to complete classes in any areas where his education is considered "deficient." There is no dental college in Utah.

The monthly cash payments he receives as a refugee will end in January, placing him at a crossroads. Department of Workforce Services officials say that financial setback is often what finally lowers a refugee's expectations.

"I am not a beggar," he said. "I want to find a job in order to build myself and to continue in my life with my family."

His 21-year-old daughter had been studying in Baghdad and Jordan to be a pharmacist, but it will cost the family too much for her to complete the program in Utah --- and they've been told she'd have to start over. Now she stays home, depressed.

If they went back to Jordan she could finish school there. Al Berqdar continues to wonder whether they should go.

'Accept a basic life'

Living by the side of the highway in a barely furnished apartment, where the lights flicker as traffic roars by, Helen Al Zubaidy compared her surroundings to a cemetery.

"When you put somebody in a grave, you don't see them anymore," the 35-year-old mother said through an interpreter.

Before coming to the United States, Al Zubaidy asked what her future would be like as a refugee. "You're going to have a magic life," an interpreter in Jordan told her.

Now Al Zubaidy, who says she pulled out one of her own teeth with a knife due to poor insurance coverage through Utah's Medicaid, feels lied to. She and other Iraqi refugees struggle to find the significant medical care they need, some grappling with the recent trauma of war.

She has a message for incoming President Barack Obama. "I have the feeling he'll change life for Americans," she said. "We refugees need help too from him."

But she repeatedly says she wants to leave the U.S.

A large number of Iraqi refugees have asked Catholic Community Services, a refugee resettlement agency in Utah, what kind of assistance there would be if they wanted to go home.

"We keep advising them not to go back," said Aden Batar, the CCS resettlement director, citing potential safety issues and the loss of their refugee status.

"It will take time before they come to the level where they accept a basic life or basic jobs," he said. "That's our job."

An artist reborn

Not everyone is looking backward. Abbas Mathlum is happy in Utah, a contentment reflected in his art. Lately, he's turned toward a cubist style, blocks of bright colors melting into Madonna-like figures.

One of the most beautiful pieces hanging in his South Salt Lake apartment is a portrait of a woman. Mathlum's wife was his model, but the serenity Fatima Ali exudes in the painting reveals nothing about what sent the family running.

Mathlum had just returned home from his construction job in 2005 when masked men came to his house with an impossible question: Was he Shia or Sunni?

"I am an Iraqi," Mathlum told them.

They responded with their fists, holding Mathlum's hands behind him as they punched and stomped on his wife. He doesn't know who they were.

The attack -- which Mathlum calls "the accident" -- left Ali's body permanently damaged. Mathlum cooks and the children help him clean. When they first came to Utah, she couldn't sleep at night. But counseling has helped her be sometimes at peace.

The couple and their three children lived in Syria for three years before coming to the U.S. in April. There Mathlum painted classic still life works and scenes at a bazaar, which he sold to help support his family.

Here, the 38-year-old works for $8.50 an hour at PetSmart while painting in a more abstract style. Some galleries have already shown his work.

His "joyful" colors are different from what many Utah artists use, said Ruth Lubbers, the executive director of Art Access, a nonprofit. The group will provide Mathlum with a mentor this spring.

"I told him he's going to have to work harder on his English," said Lubbers.

But his struggle to provide for his family may make regular English classes an impossible goal. In December, he applied for a second job at Wal-Mart, bemoaning how his pay, his wife's Social Security disability payments and food stamps still didn't provide enough income to survive.

These days it's his PetSmart boss, Angela Spence, who helps him work on vocabulary. He's willing to do anything at work, she said, an attitude some Americans lack.

When she asked him to mop out the shopping cart corral, Mathlum asked her what mopping was. She explained the word and told him, "It's like you're dancing."

"OK," he said. "I dance."

On a recent afternoon, he was quick to laugh as his son, a Mike Tyson and Rocky fan, playfully pretended to clip his dad's cheek with a pair of red boxing gloves -- the one thing the 10-year-old brought with him from Iraq.

Mathlum never wants to go back.

"Now I am born in the United States," he said.

jlyon@sltrib.com