What would you do if war, violence, or disaster struck your country? Fleeing becomes the only reality for millions of refugees around the world.
Multiple natural disasters strike the United States every year. Families are forced to leave their homes, sometimes without time to collect their valuables. They, more than often, come back to their properties destroyed. Belongings gone. They’re left to scour the debris of their homes, and in worse cases looking for missing people.
Everyone can understand the devastation, hopelessness, and defeat that one might feel in this situation.
Now imagine not being able to come back. Not being able to look for the remains of your home or even for your missing loved ones that might be under the rubble of your home. Having to leave your wealth, your career, your job, title, possessions, your dreams, and your home to escape the drone strikes and missiles that fill the sky waiting to claim your neighborhood. Your footsteps lead you farther and farther away from the only home you have known. You head south, west, north, or east, to any neighboring territory to seek refuge and escape the terror that is now occurring in your hometown.
This is the reality of a refugee. No matter how secure your life might seem, at any moment war or disaster can strike, leaving you with nothing to your name. We have seen this happen to many countries, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, Congo, Palestine, and many more.
Not every country welcomes refugees with open hands. Some are taken to camps near the border, others aren’t lucky and aren’t able to escape the terror and are captured by militant groups, while some might make it and become asylum seekers and others are sent back home.
Hadia Jafari, a sophomore student at Nathan Hale High School, speaks about her experience as a refugee from Afghanistan. “The hardest part of leaving Afghanistan was that it was my home. It’s hard to leave your home, your country, your friends, and everything there that you can’t take with you,” she said. This is the reality of a refugee. They never know if they will be able to come back. Their home becomes nothing but a memory.
Not being able to attend school in Afghanistan, Jafari was excited to come to America, where she could continue her education and build a future for herself. She also knew the loneliness that comes from being a refugee in a new country.
“I know that other people can’t really understand how hard it is for us to leave our country, to leave our friends or relatives,” she said. Her advice to others who had to seek refuge in another country is to “just find someone that is also a refugee and talk with them.” Finding others who have also gone through similar situations can help you feel less alone.
Senior student, Hamta Rezaie, made a life-changing journey from Afghanistan to the United States at just 18 years old. Fleeing the oppressive rule of the Taliban in April 2024, she found a new beginning in America.
The rights of women were severely restricted and with the return of the Taliban in power, life had become increasingly dangerous for women.
“It was very hard to leave my home because I can’t go there again,” Rezaie said. “So it’s hard to leave the home without knowing where I will go and I don’t know where [that is].”
Various organizations came to her family’s aid, offering help with rent and other benefits.
“I had a feel of freedom,” she said, relieved. “There was a lot of organizations that helped us. I like that supporting because it was good for us [and] when we came we didn’t have anything.”
Rezaie offered words of wisdom for women who don’t go through similar experiences as her. “Work hard and study,” she advised. “All people and all women don’t have these opportunities.”
Another Nathan Hale student who chose to remain anonymous, made the difficult decision to leave his home in Ethiopia due to the war that had torn apart his community. At just 11 years old he was left to seek safety elsewhere and made his difficult journey to America.
“Leaving behind all my friends and not knowing English was hard for me,” he said. “Coming to America was not good because I had to leave my mom.”
Looking ahead, he remains hopeful for his future. “I want to finish college here and go back to my family, because I want to live [there],” he said.
In this day and age, there is a lot of negative discourse around refugees and immigration. We’ve seen this in our own country, America, where the dislike for immigration is on the rise. With the new administration, many immigrants are scared of the repercussions of the negative discourse around immigration.
Refugees are not problems that need to be fixed, they are people with dreams, fear, and stories that matter. When we look past the borders and remove the labels we place on others, we realize how much we all have in common.
Isn’t the desire for safety and belonging something we all share? If we chose to listen to their stories and see them for who they really are, maybe we could move closer to a world where every person, no matter where they come from, is treated with dignity and compassion.