In the classroom we are finishing up our Immigrant Experience unit and I have learned a lot about the experiences of my students’ families and backgrounds. As part of the unit, they had to interview a family member about what brought them to Saudi Arabia. I learned that they have moved so that their fathers could have lucrative employment to provide better opportunities for their family. I learned that when you are from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Sudan, Pakistan and India, Saudi Arabia is the land of opportunity, or at least until recently. It has begun to change as the government makes it more and more expensive for expatriates and their dependents to live here. Depending on your employment agreement, either you or your employer are required to pay a monthly expatriate fee for yourself and also for each of your family members. These fees have become increasingly costly and are scheduled to continue to increase in the upcoming years. This hits families particularly hard.
I learned that family histories are complex and often impacted by political strife and conflict. I learned of families with an Egyptian travel document provided to Palestinians after 1948 or the impact of the partition of India and Pakistan and the violence associated with that. Some families hold two to three passports all in the same family. We talked about this idea of being asked where you’re from because you “look” like you’re not from wherever “here” is. We talked about the assumptions people make if you are Arab and how, even in Saudi, people are surprised when an Arab is actually a Christian.
The American passport is a “strong” passport while the Arab countries have “weak” passports because there is a VISA required to travel anywhere and often it is very difficult to get these documents to be able to travel where you’d like. This is where the headlines we read from our couch in Aitkin actually impacts real people. Some students have an American passport even though they’ve never lived there yet claim it as where they are “from.” Students commented on the ridiculousness of this. That led into a talk of respecting where your family is from, while still taking advantages of opportunities that are available to you. One student has an American passport because he was born in California but has never lived there. His father has an Egyptian travel document but is Palestinian and his mother has a Jordanian passport. They have lived in Saudi Arabia for nearly all of his eighteen years.
Occasionally a student will have trouble at passport control (as happened on our MUN trip to the UK) outside the gulf because some stamp or declaration on the passport (in this case Syrian) refers to the Islamic calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar and so the authorized dates become confused. Passports and VISAs are a matter of necessity and topics for conversation. The thing that almost all students have in common is that they do not have a Saudi passport. Only a few students are actually Saudi nationals but even they often have a passport from another country like Canada or the U.S.
I told my students the story of my own family’s immigration history in America--at least the parts I’m aware of. The Jaskowiaks came to the U.S. from Poland in the 1860s; the Rasmussens came to America from Denmark in the early 1900s. Both sets of grandparents spoke their native language but it did not continue with their children or their children’s children (me). Once upon a time we would have been Polish or Danish or Polish American, etc, but even that idea faded and just becomes history. In our case, losing touch with where we came from is a feature of assimilation and time.
The kids talked about holding onto their culture. Some students speak English at home, while others speak Arabic of varying dialects or Urdu, Pashto, Afrikaans. One girl spoke of her mother’s connection to the Circassian language but has since lost the ability to speak it. They mention that while they may speak Arabic in the home, it is often laced with English words as well.
I’ve definitely been schooled at school.
Now, as these kids graduate, they will move from here and go off to college in Egypt, Pakistan, Canada, U.K., America (NDSU and Bemidji state, among others!), Czech Republic and more, but as their families leave Saudi because of the changing economic conditions, they will never be able to return to the place they’ve grown up.
Saudi does not have a tourist VISA. You have to have a reason to come here. The only “tourism” is that associated with religious pilgrimage to the two holy places, Mecca and Medina and that is for the Hajj, which involves millions of people per year. This pilgrimage is required (if you can afford it) once in your lifetime and is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Ramadan begins on May 27th this year and lasts until June 24th. Our last day of school is June 15th but our school day is going to be shortened by an hour and a half when Ramadan begins. This is an extremely important holiday in the muslim world and particularly here in Saudi, where the religion is the government. The King has decreed that schools will close early because of Ramadan--although so far ours is exempt from this decree. On a side note, it’s a real mind trip to live in a place where a king makes a decree that people are bound to comply with.
Growing up Catholic there were some religious holidays or occasions where we were supposed to follow rules like not eating an hour before communion (to avoid spiritual cramps?) Or during lent when we did not eat meat on Fridays and had to make a sacrifice by giving something up for the 40 days like sweets, popcorn, or television, etc. Ramadan entails fasting, too. From 3:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. one is not to eat or drink anything, including water for the entire month. Once 6:00 p.m. arrives you break the fast and eat and drink all you want and then begin again at 3:30 a.m. This makes people very tired and sluggish--and it is a very real sacrifice that becomes more and more at the forefront of conversation as we approach this time. This, too, is one of the five pillars of Islam. From what I’ve been told, everything shuts down during Ramadan. Tamimi, where we go shopping, is overflowing with extra groceries leading up to Ramadan so people can stock up, as no one will be going out once it starts.
In case you were wondering, the remaining three pillars are: the declaration of faith, which states there is only one God and Muhammed is God’s messenger; daily prayers (consisting of five throughout the day); and giving to charity (depending on your means--money or deeds). We learned about the five pillars from Eslam, our guide in Egypt during spring break last month. The terrorist bombs had gone off in the Coptic churches of Tanta and Alexandria two days before, so we chose to visit Islamic Cairo and saved the Coptic area for another time. He sat us down on the enormous carpeted floor of the Muhammed Ali Pasha Mosque in inside the Citadel and told us about everything we were seeing and answered all of our questions.
We’ve come along way since August and now, with only a few more weeks to go, before we leave for the summer, I will say goodbye to my students and hope they understand how grateful I am for everything they have taught me.
