Going to college can be a shock to most: Leaving the comfort of friends and family for a leap into the unknown, a fresh start. But what is the university experience like as a refugee?
The journalist Maddy Crowell met some of the 148 Afghan women who have been enrolled in U.S. colleges to complete their degrees, and relates how they have adapted to American and collegiate life a year on from the fall of Kabul.
It has, she finds, been far from easy. Ms. Crowell wrote that one student said “she spent her days pinballing among exhaustion, despair and a sort of cautious optimism.”
This story was written by Maddy Crowell and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
I'm Linda you host of energy, try lemme a new podcast,
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miss an episode.
Hi. My name is mattie crawl, I'm a contributor
your times magazine and the writer of this week's sunday read. This is a story.
Now, immigration or assimilation and dramatic society. But I think it's also about what it's like to lose. Every
and start over again
so. How does Jimmy was twenty three years old when we first met, but we almost didn't she was so shy. I thought she might cancer first interview. It was february and providence, rhode, island brown, you
where's the campus was covered in about a foot of snow.
I must highlight the student center. We talks for so long, but she invited me to dinner. It was around seven thirty in the dining hall when jammed with students standing in long lines
since she got to brown sahel
had been struggling to find things she could eat so she's.
To her usual, which was cheese, beaten, salad. She
that at least the dining hall offer an ice cream.
Tell me how much she missed her mothers cooking,
specially her mothers cobbling pullao esteemed rice, the cat
it's the reasons and me and just how
that about a foot on campus, spoke to her.
sue. Hella is an afghan refugees who fight kabul. Last summer she got to brown around christmas right before the next semester started and decided to take mostly philosophy classes, thinking they
help her process. This whole transition into a sudden new life as a university students in america,
I remember she told me she was feeling numb
having a hard time connecting with many of the other students
She said she was basically just serve.
Having. Meanwhile,
so hellas family was so trapped in afghanistan.
her mother, had health issues and trouble walking and so hillock
and soon they stressed about their safety. I heard about it:
to rescue a group of a hundred and fifty young afghan women out of the country after it fell to the taliban. They were asked
Hence our alumni of the asian university for women. Sailor was
one of them the day they fled,
Ghana scan the women were told,
be going to bangladesh to continue their studies, but instead they ended up
an army base in wisconsin
and then three months later they were dispersed around the. U s: two ten different schools places like
brown and cornell the university.
Of delaware and north texas and arizona state Sahel
a spot as a non degree. Student at brown for the twentieth
Any one. Twenty twenty two year, which meant that her few,
beyond the academic year,
Totally unknown
Women have cell Hell his group under a fairly liberal afghanistan
they are the ones I met told me they'd, never even seen a member of the taliban until last august and
before then had known it.
The Bonn only through stories, their mothers, told them on august,
He ain't Sahel. I was in her room in kabul scrolling through facebook on her phone watching videos. At the time.
Bonds, encroachment on the capital
and then her mother came into her room and broke the news. It was official,
The taliban had just entered the city
sue I remember she was so frightened. She couldn t she
like something was wrong with her
and her mother was just like that taiwan can kill you. If you call yourself first eat something
they hugged for a long time now,
since the vietnam war has there been an evacuation of civilians,
large is, but we saw last year and Afghanistan, starting last summer
An emergency action called operational
Malcolm batman,
Seventy thousand afghan refugees to the? U s in situ,
in that sir hail and many other afghan women like her found themselves, we see what it looks like.
to be the collateral damage of major foreign powers decisions in the day
gave long war in afghanistan. The country
twenty million or so women have always had the most to lose. This sale said to me
was just history repeating itself
So here my article she's at brown for hard
so in kabul
senora, uncanny
This was recorded by autumn tools
into more stories from the new york times the new year,
Wicker vanity, fair, the atlantic and other
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it was late February. When so, hayleigh hush emmy slid into one of the last available seats in the front row.
For our philosophy class, the place of persons, an interest
of course, at brown university
the moral and metaphysical status of person hood
even though she was twenty three, and this was a class,
mostly for students who were several years younger, hush amy
you fit in with them her dark brown.
Air pulled into a messy ponytail
eyeliner or darkening, her lower lids and oversized hoodie
with browns emblem on the front black genes doctor
Black combat boots
and causation. She wrote me
articles in her no book trying to capture what
Professor sighed ass, he lectured.
Sometimes she struggled to understand certain english words. She would look them
later
sure was about free will and determinism are. We.
as free agents. In
role of our actions,
professor, was asking
all our actions determined by a previous chain of events and
for not in our control,
hush Emmi crossed her legs and shook her foot
up and down ass, she listened intently and if we are not,
responsible for our actions, how can we,
I live in a just and moral society. The professor asked whether it was
Settle to blame and punish people when their acts
his word determined by events beyond their control. Yes,
some in the class said because punished
could serve as a social deterrent. The professor as pie,
a discussion about an article by the british philosopher, pf straw, sin
turn with an example showing why that might be problematic.
hold that a sheriff and a crime ridden town frames and in
the man for some crimes and punishes him
publicly. So as to date,
others from committing crimes. This would seem to me
most social utility, but at sea
It is unjust, right.
hush hermes face felt. When was this exists?
Bull about the taliban, sometimes
It seemed ass if her professors were speaking to her directly, but
Allah Bonn, she believed, were the sheriffs now brewing by an arbitrary and a moral set of principles and in
your country's population at their mercy. Almost seven months earlier on august, fifteenth twenty twenty one hush Emmi was sitting on her bed in her family small apartment in Kabul, too afraid to go outside instead scrolling through facebook and watching videos of the taliban advances when her mother and turned her room to confirm her worst fears. The city had just fallen at the time
She had two semesters left to complete her undergraduate degree. Instead,
she would soon be smuggled out of the country with one hundred forty seven other young afghan women. They had been told they were
able to continue their studies at the asian university for women.
experimental liberal arts college in category bangladesh, whose support
errors have included Hillary Clinton,
three blair laura bush and
former prime minister Paul near rasmussen of denmark
some of the women were alarmed of a u w, while others.
Are still enrolled there, but I,
Studying remotely in kabul
the women, never made it to, but
a dash after
circuitous and difficult journey. They ended up at an.
Army base in the american MID west. There
They joined thousands of other afghan refugees, desperately awaiting updates from families back home. While at this
time preparing to continue, or in some cases, restart from scratch, their studies on american campuses and once they found places at schools on
and he remained about both their immigration status. They would be.
humanitarian parole
two years from the time they entered the united states to apply
for asylum and
they would be able to stay through graduation.
the women knew how much they were leaving behind their country, their families, their hopes for their future.
They also knew
so many afghans were not being allowed into the united states or other countries that they
Or the lucky ones
but Hashemi did not feel exalted to be here in amerika. She spent her days, pin bawling among exhaustion, despair and a sort of
cautious optimism. She knew that other afghan girls dreamed of getting an opportunity to study at an ivy league college, but I was scared to start all over again. She says
her experience like those of most of the one hundred forty eight women was
going to resemble that of their stereotypical college. Freshmen, no drinking games fraternity,
parties or class schedules that revolved around going somewhere for spring break. I wish I could freely walk with my family here or somewhere. We could all be safe, hush, emmy
hold me during my visit to the brown campus in february
her family was haze, our ay a persecuted,
nick minority in Afghanistan. Some of her
siblings had managed to escape the country, but her
and we're still stuck in kabul,
all the moms and dads drop their kids from school hug them wish them off.
But between me and my mom is a ten our difference
and when I need or the most I want to
all her, but she is asleep when the philosophy class and
students, toting backpacks, spilled onto the narrow, concrete pots winding around the red brick buildings. Had
to lunch shore, the library
hi semi, had one more meeting with a professor to discuss an essay before she was done for the day and
return to our dorm and call her parents before they went to bed. She
reed about their safety all the time
and told her that she was free now let her life
was her own mind.
She told me ass. We walked through campus right now
Oh I'm struggling like how does
revive here, she said
I'm too tired. I guess
freedom and free will is something humans create for themselves. Even if
inside a cage is day.
the desire to fly, they can create
their own freedom.
She paused. I guess I'm creating freedom for myself.
come all ass mad, the founder of
asian university for women was
his home in boston when, after
I stand, fell a friendly
ok man whose smile seems to express and inexhausted
all optimism. I've medway
for once, feeling
If he did, he had been
having four months to travel to afghanistan to over
the evacuation of a? U w students there,
that was no longer possible by august fifteenth he spent them
its leading up to that day, sleeping little.
instantly, reaching out to his afghan students and alumnae trapped in the country. He felt
personally responsible for their safety here
and a u w in chittagong his home town in two thousand
and eight,
for young women from asia and the Middle east who were ass, he put it to me typically bypassed
the education system.
himself moved to the united states when he was fifteen to attend phillips, exeter academy after
and she went on to harvard he did not
want a? U w to be socially elite. He says the approach was a lot of flexibility at entrance, no flexibility.
Exit. We wanted to find these young women and prepare
for the world.
Can't stand was a major locus of a. U double use recruiting efforts
Ten days after the taliban entered couple
Mad had managed to secure seven rusty buses to transport
The one hundred and forty eight
calls them to the cities airport. It took three separate attack.
to get them out. The
is worse, stopped and shot at by the taliban multiple times and at one point
a suicide bombing occurred only a few hundred meters away, killing
more than one hundred eighty people
The women were dehydrated and hungry and had no access,
to a toilet. One was pregnant.
I'm dying. I dont want to live anymore, another message to mad from the bus over. What's up, why,
You put us through this man's attempts to secure a private jet had failed so
women's only way out of the country was on a: u s: military jet, which took them not
bangladesh, but to you,
spaces for
in saudi arabia, then
spain
the unknown
to them ass, mad. Faced a difficult
while they were in spain, either request that they be
again to bangladesh, his
regional plan or
Let them be transferred to a refugee camp in the united states and hope that they would be able
study there. Instead, in the end
decision came down to simple arithmetic
and told me if I'm
I moved one hundred fifty to the u s than I
I have one hundred fifty beds open and bangladesh and the offer
unity to get more out of afghanistan.
Seventeen days after the taliban took over Kabul. The way
began arriving at the fort mccoy. U s. Army base in south
western wisconsin. Nearly thirteen thousand
and other afghan refugees were already living their part of
emergency evacuation by the. U s government
scale not seen since the vietnam war of
seven hundred thousand or so afghans who were forcibly displaced from their homes by the two.
the last year more than eleven,
sent of them ended up in america. The effort called
duration allies welcome, resulted from an emerging
action ordered by the Biden, administration and
seen by the department of homeland security to support vote
a bull afghans.
closing those who worked alongside the americans during the past two decades and now faced
taliban reprisals rather than power,
through the usual drawn out refugee process always
backlogged, with applications of
majority of incoming afghans were granted humanitarian parole, a temporary
author authorization that allowed them
to stay in the united states for two years. This sort
of parole is given only rarely for groups are mass.
in nineteen. Seventy five, for example, when the united states about
waited more than one hundred twenty thousand vietnamese just before the fall.
saigon gone
nineteen ninety six, when six
thousand six hundred kurds were evacuate,
from Iraq. The fact that the women
I'm a! U w had been university students working on
or undergraduate or masters degrees back home in afghanistan afforded them no special
data is at fort Mccoy. There are very few clear: practical
durable pathways for refugee.
and displaced students to come.
The u s to study and stay Miriam
I'll glum executive
actor of the president's alliance on higher education and immigration, told me we can
and should do much more, whilst
Sense of afghan children were entitled to unroll in K through twelve classes, at u s public schools
a nineteen eighty two supreme court ruling play
the dough holds that states cannot deny students.
free public education on account of
immigration status, the status
The EU w students was different main classic.
As a refugee student at a university doesn't, let you cut
the visa line basically says
are they lenin. Nunez Wong code,
actor of client advocacy, add to hurry justice centre in washington, one of
several organisations that is involved in helping the eu w women file for asylum. This meant
these women, for whom
Education had been a lifelong priority. Faced a difficult question,
Would they be able to continue their studies and unexpectedly,
whole presented itself.
university as temporary refuge in twenty eighteen area and mac, then
professor of psychology, at the new school for social research in new york,
founded the new university in exile consortium, a group of nearly sixty universities around the world. That again,
Two hosts displace scholars from countries where their lives or endanger the goal. Mac explained to me was
create a sense of community for persecuted academics, so that
exile didn't become a sec
exile on campus itself after the taliban. Return to power mac was
contacted by someone from a member university who had heard about the
afghan women from mad and one
to know whether the consortium could help place them
in schools,
the weighting of the a? U w. Women exposed a gap,
The system the women were too old to be placed in public schools
but they were too young to be considered scholars or professors, the sorts of figure,
is that the new university in exile consortium focused on this was the first time
We got into the business so to speak, of rescuing mac, says
so we expanded our mission.
Not long after the women arrived at fort mccoy look consortia
Contacted to associate provo said brown university
J rowan and saw bay paloma
Word brown be able to take some of the women. This fall.
We didn't know all that much at the time about the asian university for women. Paloma browns
Souci provost for a global engagement, told me, but the fellow?
sophie behind the liberal arts, curriculum really resin.
did for us.
Will conversations were underway elsewhere. We ve different schools, interested indifferent, aptitudes cornell, for example,
for students who could work in various labs there in both the hard sciences and
other disciplines and become adapted
life in the. U s prior to see
admission to cornell
initiate dubai coronel
associate vice provost for international affairs. Put it the unit,
the city of north texas,
Specialized english training programme for the younger women, who were still becoming fluent in english brown,
interested in students who demonstrated a strong academic record and intellectual
Oh curiosity, man asked is three
person administrative staff at a you
w to put together a portfolios for each of the women that included brief biography.
he's, an their transcripts. Whenever a school
it verbally to admit one of the women Charles who lab
a lawyer and founder of the washington advisory firm, bearing
tim global. Who was,
providing help. Pro bono
don memorandums of understanding stating
the women would be hosted as a degree earning student for
duration of an undergraduate degree or in some
cases a graduate degree.
A condition to which some of the schools would end up. Agreeing.
A few universities, like arizona state, signed right away, other
there's like brown, we're reluctant to commit
You anything binding the
I already was to make sure these girls had the best shot humanly possible to succeed,
lab told me.
At the very least the ammo. You created a moral obligation to commit to them at fort Mccoy.
hush me had heard the rumours that she and her a cohort would be true.
Foreign into american universities, but she was
sceptical it would happen. I was
The schools wouldn't trust afghan girls. She says
a few of the women declined to continue their studies. Opting to
jobs instead, but in fact, ten university
were interested in taking them in arizona state brown.
Now, delaware de georgia, state north texas, suffolk
wisconsin, Milwaukee and west
virginia.
Some of them offered immediate acceptance, while other
required, more extensive applications in november hush
to her surprise, received an e
from brown requesting that she write separate essays about her personal story. Her academic enter
and our goals and dreams. She
No computer, so she drafted
essays on her cell phone after
She says she's.
to enable every second league.
Happens is for the EU. W women arrived by december.
fourteen women ended up at brown nine
Coronel, sixty
Heaven and arizona. State fifteen
at the university of delaware.
All of them would be on full scholarships. Cut.
By donations, raised by the universities,
a u w estimated. The total need would be
two million dollars
Each school had a different arrangement,
arizona state university. The women were invited to unroll for up to eight semesters
some who already had credits from a? U w got to enter as juniors or seniors.
Calls. Ten students were invited to stay until they completed their undergraduate degrees, so long,
They didn't interrupt their studies and company
did their degrees. In five years. Other schools offered a more precarious arrangement, add cornell
the women were led him as visiting
in terms for the school year at brown
the fourteen women were considered non
degrees, special students for that
twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two academic year, nobody there was sure what would happen after may hm
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when fro to Harry I tweet
three year old, a? U w graduate found out that she would
going to arizona state university. She spent her last few weeks at fort mccoy
obsessively looking up arizona on Google, the resulting pictures of red desert,
cactuses and scorpions made,
It seemed like the end of the earth
but when she landed in the state she was surprised by
labyrinth of highways and glassy buildings.
she wondered, did I
up here
that summer she
showing her ten year old brother, a map of afghanistan pointing to the
Evans is that had fallen.
Dominoes to the taliban, her father
Ran and ngo dedicated to women's empowerment had been threat
by the taliban in the past
and he was almost certainly considered one of their targets.
The morning they took over ten years
his father rushed home, shaken
thing has failed heat.
this family they ve taken off
the city center
here, he had never seen him look so broken. It just felt like
the last days are freedom of being able
to choose your lifestyle. She told me.
Soon after they got to the arizona, stayed campus. The way
from a u w were ushered into an orientation session, organised
by the international rescue committee, which was closed,
answering the group and helping
oversea their resettlement in
off the air conditioned lecture hall, Shanna bow and arrow
nation specialist. What the irish sea gave them a three day called:
Rural orientation, her powerpoint present
She began with a single long to woody, got
land is your land.
Then bell began explaining.
goal. American behaviour smile be polite beyond time
be self reliant alive
on a graph that evoked in e case g, showed them
that their adjustment period as they occur,
did to american life, could take to
five years and go through four
phases of integration.
A honeymoon period of relief, then
culture shock which include
anger and grieve then,
covering and finally
somewhat ambiguously. The adjustment does
I've does the time when you feel like the: u s is your home and feel confident.
Solving your own problems
get your own decisions and future for yourself
I assured the women that their rights were equal to those of the man in america. She told
They enjoyed freedom of speech and the right of
Is their opinion just
Everyone else does, including the present
and of the united states?
some of the women stood up to clap the rhetoric.
Was familiar from the western influences in afghanistan. During the last
two decades.
Time. It was hard to believe
They could have a right equal to that
of any american president
or their own lives had been abandoned by the whims of american president's for decades.
In some ways they
been less in control of their
future. Is the women spent there
First days in arizona, drawing
Find their way around the maze of buildings and manicured green lawns, they often needed the gps
their phones, to find them
way back to their housing
a modern hotel, a jason
to the areas you campus. They had never seen
such a sprawling campus
A u w and bangladesh consists ed.
single dorm cafeteria and
building for their classes.
Along with a handful of other buildings surrounding a small lawn
when arizona state filled again after winter break below
pulsing base of music spilled from the windows of dorm rooms, especially on weekends, from parties that the afghan women were not invited to in class
Messrs spoke, vast, complicated english. The amount
Then students always seemed busy. They show
Little interest in Afghanistan or its politics, I think the whole,
afghan cohort, they're kind of excluded
to hear, he told me one evening ass, we sat on the terrace of the hotel, serving as they are dorm. She
or genes tucked into brown boots and a cable net pink sweater.
U S, life is so busy. She said:
it so hard to catch up
I'm following ukraine, they are talking
senators.
If I'm following senators they're talking about
grace.
clearly not at a point of like mutual
a conversation
to hear he had always been ambitious about her future and she was excited by the
fact of being able to learn more about computer engineering, a field she had heard in which the job prospects were good, but at times she
They found it difficult to focus on the future. When the past
was constantly on her mind on one wall of her room. She had written memory, wall and taped dozens of prey
did grainy photos of her parents, her six,
doubling her friends
her home.
some mornings when she woke up feeling
so demotivated. She would look
the photos and think I have to keep going.
decided to sign up for classes in computer science,
A mining English
and swimming on the first day of her computer science clause. She panicked when she saw that her text
would cost one hundred twenty dollars. I thought either I have to drop the class or talk to the professor. She told me when she gathered
courage to tell the professor that she was one of the sea
from Afghanistan he extended a fist for her to bump.
I'm so proud of you, he said his department,
gave her a scholarship for the book when
started to hear
He found herself struggling to connect with the other students. They came from different worlds. She said.
It was a complaint. I heard from many of the afghan women at several
applause.
Some told me that american students took no interest in them. Others said that
American students took too much interest in them and they were tired
explaining what was happening back in afghanistan, its
like a movie for them?
one woman who ended up ad cornell, who asked
to be named for privacy reasons, told me people
there are always watching dramas in everything she added. But for me
it's my real life.
to Harry marveled at the discipline with which our new classmates limited themselves, too. Small
healthy meals. There are trying
Do you know, boil broccoli
worked out. I was
in kind of guilty, because I was not going to the gym. She said everyone,
every day there like waking,
then going to the gym.
Dining holes which had been served.
afghan food for the women when the campus was deserted, were suddenly filled with
to hear he had never tried before food from mexico, Spain. China
decided to try something labelled vague in she. Had
we'll swallowing what she took to be a soggy. Looking piece of meat, vague in
said to her friend joking I dont know what
country, that is
on the first day of swim, lessons one of her extra,
a regular courses. The instructor asked,
here already knows how to swim.
There were about twenty five students and all
of them raise their hands except to hearing one of her
afghan friends and a woman,
from sudan
she was shocked, why would so many students sign up for lessons when they
Will he knew how to swim?
Here. He found herself relegated to a shallow kitty, pool feeling shy and exposed, as the other students plunged into the deeper pool
She had a severe water phobia. She told me and
To the edge of the pool
stayed where she could stand clinging
we're float while they instruct.
I tried to teach her how to tread water
every day, I felt,
Like I was drowning she's
I.
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During my visit to brown
show me, was facing a deadline for an upcoming philosophy paper for her claws.
Knowledge and reality
She was writing about descartes meditations and she had quest.
It is about it. I went
with her to meet her instructor, a graduate student
whose office was in a corner of the philosophy department, a small boy,
building with carpeted floors and narrow,
were it oars. I need help
with meditations one in two. She told
teacher. Her voice
barely above a whisper from his point of view,
thing is certain and everything is doubtful. So, what's his argument,
was hard for hashemi to always stay focused on her studies, even though the
Buildings and the campus, which is partly employ
caused by a wrought iron fence made. Brow
I feel like the safest place in the world for her.
Her reading was regularly interrupted by disturbing calls from her family about a new
person missing or about the country
impending famine
or about another explosion. There,
Seems to be no end in sight for them
news from Afghanistan.
Sometimes my mind is saying
only you have our problems, only problems
show me told me one evening mode,
of her family was still trapped in kabul and
mother had health issues that made it difficult for her to walk her.
Helplessness here, eight at her constantly in her full us
The classes she could be in conspicuous
listening to lectures on quietly taking notes, unlike most
other eu w women. She spent much of our time,
Studying in her room or in the library keeping a low profile,
but so many people on campus seemed so eager to talk. I just
waiting like please
he's. Don't ask me where I'm from she said it was a bit hard
for me to tell them I'm from Afghanistan, stew,
often had misconceptions about what afghan women were capable of. She felt they frequently
seem shocked to find out that afghan women could travel abroad, ores,
english,
go to universities. She does
I to me one incident when she was
having her regular breakfast of bagel and butter. Her
non. She joked with
few other afghan women at a brown cafeteria, a group of boys, sat at their table and asked where they were from
Afghanistan, harsher me said the boy
got up and moved to another table.
Hush emmi angry called her mother afterward. This is not going to be a good country for me, because people are judging me. She said
She felt depressed for almost a week, though she lay
acknowledged that she was
sure why they switched seats. She found it difficult to
late to other students who
the time of my midwinter visit were already
in plans for their spring breaks, Michael
states here. They are thinking about
to go for the next vacation or holiday or weekend, and I'm thinking how
I get a job to help my family as the sum
sir advanced. The women began getting troubling updates from back home the taliban
and we're going after perceived enemies and
using restrictions on women? Accordingly,
witnesses cited in a report from human,
its watch the taliban,
and were searching office buildings collecting
shooters and
walking down women who work for the foreigners, every
you w student, I spoke to felt a deep fear for her family.
Back home. More than once I spend hours
interviewing someone only
our withdraw access. A few days later, fearing
unknowable consequence. Many too
line to speak to me at all one student
who wish to remain anonymous, told me that her sick
had been a member of afghan intelligence. Now that simple
was in hiding changing
locations every few weeks, because that
Lebanon were hunting down any one who had worked for the afghans?
security forces, the woman's father
ring for their safety, wouldn't let her younger
the leave their house, I can't
it out of my mind. The woman
hold me fighting
tears. I can't find anyone does
what my family
situation in afghanistan is so much worse, another
student forever.
Sir worry,
ten year old student at suffolk university told me that
every night for months after she got to
asked him she
in bed grip
with loneliness listening?
the songs from Afghanistan
I feel so bad. Why did this
but to my country.
for these young women who came of age in the early two, thousands in IRAN.
Tivoli, liberalize country. This was not
a return to older ways of life. It was the right
erection of a dark era. They knew only through stories passed down from their mothers accounts of being beat
for dressing improperly,
before leaving the house without a male escort when
Kabul fell. I felt a part of me
taken shall create,
a key
studying at brown told me we thought this is not the
as we have been brought up. It's not a country,
I want to live in, according to the fifteenth doors,
sixth century ones. Do
told me that one of her fathers neighbors had married off a daughter to a taliban commander and one
father went over to the neighbor's house for dinner one night. The taliban
Husband was there and confronted her father.
about his daughters, leaving the country where are they america,
her father, lied and told that
a bond that they were married and had moved abroad for
your husband's jobs.
four hush hashemi studying
a card gave her a new language to navigate her split worlds.
The
During her meeting with her philosophy teacher to go over the reading, the teacher
a piece of paper and drew a mob of descartes's argument against sensory beliefs
I spoke as if she were working through a mathematical equation, so on the first,
age. He saying
I gosh everything
I believe, may be called into doubt everything hashemi asked yeah everything remember
he's sitting in his arm chair in his living room- and he says I'm going to use the method of scepticism to call
breathing into doubt either
his existence, hush emmi, asked
Pressing a laugh, exactly
the teacher said:
together, they went through descartes's method for approving his existence.
We can really know for certain went his
argument is that we exist
That makes sense now, as we want
back to her dorm room, afterward, hashemi, still thinking
descartes said she believed
It was silly for him to question his own existence
Sometimes she too felt as if she wasn't sure
was real here
a snowy campus improvidence. Instead
at home with her family in Kabul. If I
close my eyes, I remember the bad things she told me.
I experienced them, but still, I feel like it's better
I think it was all a bad dream and it
ever happened, beginning next august
the humanitarian parole, will expire for many,
of the afghans who fled the country a year ago, potentially
stripping them of their access to health care, employment
the legal right to live in the united states, while activists have been
pressuring congress to pass an afghan adjustment act like that
nineteen. Seventy five vietnamese refugee act that would put the act.
And on a fast track from pearl to citizenship,
It's been little legislative progress, congo,
did, however, recently mandate the fast or processing
their asylum applications and until kay
is our resolved the object
this can remain in the united states, the women
from a? U w. Have lawyers from several large firms working pro bono on their asylum applications.
Since last august,
w has received about ten thousand application,
and from young women in afghanistan
has already turned his focus to the women still stuck in the country,
in june he flew
Islam abide to kabul where a coup
from the taliban waited for him on the airport, tarmac as
drove to central kabul to meet with high ranking taliban leaders.
The city looked much the same to him ass, it always had the markets were busy, the traffic was chaotic, but at least one change was visible. He could see no women on the streets anywhere ass man told me he went because he wanted to be out in the open with the taliban about his next project, to enable one thousand young women to leave afghanistan in the next five years, so they could continue their studies and bangladesh. His hope was that these women could then help educate young girls in afghanistan who have been prevented from attending schools by teaching them online. When he proposed the plan to the taliban over ten sweets. The immediate response to meds relief was not now. It was about logistics. He says it was not about the central idea of girls education, the taliban.
and told him that are more hiram, a man
relative that women by mandate must travel with in public would have to occur.
Bunny every woman who wanted to attend a? U w. The cost was
It is for a u w. So now med is faced with the daunting question
and he got a thousand women out of the country- to study
abroad alone, and even
the women get out. There is no good
in tee of stability wearing
Are they land in the united states,
a majority of the ep, you w students know what their immediate futures hold
see you suffolk.
nepal and west virginia, for example, committee.
Early on to let their students
Until they complete their degrees, others face
more uncertain circumstances. At brown
women's status as non.
Agree. Students was extended through this spring
Twenty twenty three semester.
Three women who had already completed their undergraduate degrees from a? U w have been admitted as
full time. Traditional masters degree students, but there seems
confusion among some of the women still pursuing their undergraduate degrees over one,
might happen next hush
He told me that, as far
she knew she had a spot,
at brown as a degree earning students. This fall.
yet rowan and paloma the associate provosts
overseeing the women. There told me that
There were no guarantees
the women who had not yet finished their undergraduate degrees were being encouraged to it
I too brown and to apply elsewhere. Rowan said
later he added we do not get
n t admissions for any applicants and
his own estate.
situation was a little more settled the way
who already had undergraduate degrees like to hear he were given the up
in of pursuing a masters. The rest were invited
day until they completed their undergraduate degrees. Taste
three opted to get a masters. She felt ready to think
cautiously about her career and
to live like an adult, as
You put it. She had addressed
however, during the semester, a love for it,
data analytics and she got a summer.
turned ship working remotely for a bit.
Data firm based in California, not
before I left arizona to hear hosted
small gathering of friends for home, cooked up
and food and her hotel room
earlier in the week she had disk
a middle eastern grocery store that sole bags of rise from the afghan province. Her father was raised, in
She was overjoyed to find it proudly
exhibiting the sack of rice to everyone in the room
whenever a male afghan friends had come over to cook while to hearing served me black tee. If the two,
The sees this man cooking for a woman. They would not be happy
said, with a laugh, pointing
a friend ass, he swept chopped cucumbers,
from cutting board into some yogurt. The music
of our yonah, a popular after
singer played from our phone as well.
About why the younger generation in afghanistan was fleeing in droves. We grew up with the taste of freedom and we could not go back.
Harry explained, as we took
it's on the floor. Next to an array of juices fruits- and
aiming part of chicken bear Jani the afghanistan she had known
vanished the moment she got to Kabul's airport last august,
hold me. Her very last memory from Kabul continued to haunt her.
after she and the other women finally made it through to the airport, they were handed off to the? U s: military,
high ranking taliban commander, who told you
ass lieutenant in English
I surrender them- do you now and then too,
one surprise: he began to cry.
I hear you couldn't get that tab blow out of her head, the bird,
the commander and a cave
these seven slung on his back
here on his face,
the bewildered- u s, officer receiving them. What
nagged at her was that she still didn't know why he had been crying
either it's because you did something that was against his belief,
because in an ideal scenario for the taliban, we weren't supposed to travel alone. Like that she said,
or maybe it was because all the girls of Afghanistan were leaving and it
his fault
The
the.
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Transcript generated on 2022-08-29.