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Manija's Biography |
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I am currently a Sophomore student at Arizona State University West majoring in Bio-chemistry. My family is originally from Afghanistan, my mother’s family is from Kabul and my father’s family is from Ghazni. My family has traveled and lived in many different places and I feel very fortunate that I had so many opportunities to know diverse cultures and ethnicities. We migrated from Afghanistan, to Iran, to Pakistan, to the Netherlands and finally, settled in America eight years ago. My family migrated to Iran because of the Russian invasion in Afghanistan and because my grandfather would have been killed because he was a person who never kept quiet about injustices. I was born in Mashad, Iran in 1983, but Afghans were not treated very well in Iran. For example, when my uncles would go to school, the other children would make them sit in the back of the classroom on the floor because they were supposedly, "not good enough." When my grandmother and my aunts would go shopping in the markets, the vendors would give them the worst vegetables and grains and charge them nearly three times as much as the Iranian shoppers. After two years of living like second-class citizens, we realized that we had to move if we wanted a better future. We moved to Peshawar, Pakistan. We stayed in Pakistan for five years. In Pakistan, I had to go to school although I would rather have been playing with my friends. I always managed to forget finishing my homework and since my parents were at work, I thought I’d get away with it. I spent most afternoons playing with friends and the next morning, I’d go to school and a few of the more malicious teachers would give me a couple of whacks with a ruler or a stick. However, we had a decent life in Pakistan compared to other poverty stricken families in the neighborhood. We owned our own house and courtyard and several families lived under the same roof but in different rooms. I remember the close proximity of everything and the absence of privacy. In 1990, we were granted refugee status in the Netherlands. We packed only clothes and important documents and left Pakistan. I remember the morning when we left. I nearly cried; I had become accustomed to our life and didn’t want anything to change. Another part of me was scared because I had never been on an airplane before and I didn’t know what lay in that distant and foreign country of the Netherlands. When I arrived in the Netherlands, I looked out of the airplane and I first thought that all of the cars were ants. As we stepped out of the airport, I was overwhelmed with all the extravagance and the lush scenery. We were moved to an apartment complex full with refugees from many different nations. I managed to become good friends with several families from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Tai-wan, China, Japan, Bosnia and several Dutch children from the neighborhood. When I first arrived in the Netherlands, I didn’t know a word of Dutch, and had to learn how to speak, read and write a new language and a new culture. We were soon moved to our own house in Groningen, Groningen, a small Northern town where I spent a wonderful and rich childhood. I have so many vivid memories from this awesome country. My siblings and I soon enrolled in school and I loved it! The staff was so friendly (and they didn’t beat you when you forgot about your homework!) and the other children were so open to new ideas and always willing to learn new things. After spending six years in this amazing country, my parents informed me that we would to America because my grandparents had requested us to come to America. I had thought that the whole idea of moving to America had been a rumor and I had been so quick to dismiss any idea of leaving my home. I was so excited in the beginning but as time drew nearer to actually packing up and moving, I became frenzied, almost obsessed, to familiarize and remember everything so would never forget. I first arrived in America and we had to switch planes in Chicago. We went outside to catch a glimpse of this so called “American dream.” I was shocked. There was so much pollution and absolutely no plants or trees anywhere. I almost burst into tears but I got one of asthma attacks instead. We soon got on a plane to Los Angeles because one of my uncles lived there. He picked us up at the airport and took us to his home. There were a ton of Afghan people at his house and all I wanted to do was sleep! But I stayed up until almost 3:00 in the morning when I involuntarily fell into an exhausted sleep. The next day, I was awakened at 7:00 and they took us sightseeing in LA. My other uncle came after a couple of days to bring us to Phoenix, Arizona. I hated all this dry heat and the desert! When we were enrolled in school, I felt like such an outsider. Again, I knew no English and on the first day of school, when the teacher asked me something, I replied in Dutch. Some of the children snickered, and at that moment, I knew that I wouldn’t like America at all. But as the months and then, years passed, I became more familiar with America and although I wish that we still lived in Europe, I have come to accept my life as it is. by Manija Sherzada |
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