From Baghdad to Philadelphia
by Charles Hardy and Nicholas Heydeman
“I witnessed all the wars which happened in Iraq... The 1981 [war] with Iran, which was finished in 1988... Then the other war in 1990 where Iraq invaded Kuwait and thirty-six countries had a fight with Iraq and Iraq lost the war. And from that point on, things in Iraq went downhill severely. The economy, the social conditions, the medical conditions, everything went very quickly downhill.... But we insisted to stay to help the people in Iraq until the war in 2003. Everything was destroyed; the electricity, the infrastructure, everything. But all of that is not too bad to the extent of the change of the culture and the people. Their thinking, their behavior, they’ve changed completely. I don’t know where the people—those bad people came to Iraq. We were used to living in harmony.” – Dr. Malka Al Saadi, March 16, 2019
The Mudaris family loved their country. A prominent gynecologist, Dr. Al Saadi was a department head at Sadaam College of Medicine in Bagdad. An agricultural engineer, her son Mutaz, who had spent his early years in Great Britain while his parents pursued advanced medical degrees, also worked as a English-language translator for Iraq Youth Television. During high school, while attending the prestigious Bagdad College with the sons of Iraqi’s elite, Mutaz first became aware of his nation’s growing religious divisions, when a classmate asked if he was a Sunni or Shi’a.
“And I didn’t even know the meaning of the word. I did not! Because you don’t know who your friends are. Are they Christian? Are they Jewish? Nobody would deal with someone differently just because of their religion or even ethnicity. I mean especially Iraq!... In my belief, Iraq was once a great nation because it was just like the States, where every single person, every single spot of the earth you can find within the States. That’s what makes the States so great! Its diversity.... So by that time when someone told me ‘Are you Sunni or Shi’a?’ I didn’t even know what that meant. I thought Shi’a would mean ‘Are you a socialist?’ because it was close to my ear, the pronunciation. And so, I remember I went back home and I asked my late father… ‘Dad, are we Sunni or Shi’a?’ And he told me, ‘Son, you never asked that question, because we are all human beings and we have to respect each other's beliefs and in the Quran, in one of the verses, it says you should celebrate your differences. God has created us nations and peoples just to celebrate our differences.” – Mutaz Al Mudaris, March 16, 2019
Soon, however, those differences tore Iraq apart.
“In 2003, the last war, the liberation war of Iraq happened and we lived [through] that again…. I just remember that every single minute of your life, you don’t know if you’re going to make it or not.... I remember my nephew and niece were living with us by that time, and when you hear the bombs and the missiles, you say ‘That’s it.’ I remember sometimes we all gathered up in one place, we tried to make fortifications as much as possible, but from the heat of the missiles, our curtains got burnt.... Then another phase came when the war ended.... Looting happened all around.” – Dr. Malka Al Saadi, March 16, 2019
Dr. Al Saadi continued to work, despite widespread looting and the kidnappings, beatings, and murder of her colleagues and other Iraqi scientists, doctors, and professionals. Having lost his employment after the U.S. occupation, Mutaz took a job as a translator and interpreter for the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office (IRMO) and then the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, knowing that many people, even in his own neighborhood, did not appreciate people working with the multinational forces. Fearing for his life, Mutaz took a different route to work each day. And then, one day, for Dr. Al Saadi, it all became too much.
“Because I was the head of a department in the university... the newcomers, they threatened me.... One day I went to the garden in our backyard and I saw a doll.... The neck was cut. One arm and one leg was cut from the doll and it was stabbed everywhere…. So I was scared to death, but I didn’t want to tell the family because my husband had heart disease and I didn’t want to frighten him. So, I just kept it in myself and, in the same night, I had a heart attack because of the stress. and I was admitted to the intensive care unit twice in one month. So, my colleagues and my doctor advised me to go to have medical care in Jordan. So we left Iraq to Jordan and there I had medical treatment.” – Dr. Malka Al Saadi, March 16, 2019
Committed to her patients and students, Dr. Al Saadi soon returned to Iraq, but did not stay long.
“Things were worse, and I had another heart attack over there while I was at work.... From that time we left Iraq and we never go back again, leaving our house, our furniture, every belonging. We left everything in its place. Three cars in the garage, everything we left, and went to Jordan.” – Dr. Malka Al Saadi, March 16, 2019
The Mudaris family lived in Jordan for five years. Mutaz found a job in a hotel, but the Jordanians had little patience with the growing number of Iraqis in their midst. After her husband Abdul Wahab passed in 2006, Dr. Al Saadi moved to Malaysia to teach medicine, and Mutaz attempted to immigrate to the United States.
“All my friends told me, ‘Everyone is applying through the United Nations to move to the States or any other country,’ and so I applied. But, I was told—by that time, I had a ‘cold case,’ which means I might get granted refugee status or not. And this might take five, seven, ten years. ‘We don’t know because there are cases more important that your case.’ That's what I was told by the United Nations. And I was discouraged by that. To be honest, I didn’t really like the interview because… I felt like it was an interrogation more than an interview. I remember one question I was asked, ‘What was your rank in the Ba’ath party?’ And I told them, ‘I have no rank. We have never been affiliated with any political party.’ And their answer was, ‘Is that true? How are you an Iraqi and not a Ba’athist?” – Mutaz Al Mudaris, March 16, 2019
Mutaz’s sister Afaf, however, found a sponsor through the International Organization for Migration to immigrate to the United States with her two children, and Mutaz finally received permission to join them due to his work for the U.S. Embassy. Told by her children that they would not make the move without her, Dr. Al Saadi left her teaching job in Malaysia to join them. At first, the family struggled. They lived in a small, second-floor apartment in a poor neighborhood in North Philadelphia, where Afaf and Mutaz spent months struggling to find work, while Dr. Al Saadi attempted to get a medical license in the States. Trained as an electrical engineer in Iraq, Afaf found a job as a medical list inspector. Walking three hours a day because of a transit strike, Mutaz sliced fruits and packed and carried boxes at The Fresh Grocer on Broad Street. Through a chance meeting, he found a second job working as an Arabic interpreter at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“I was leaving at 4 o’clock in the morning... at The Fresh Grocer and then the university thing, and, in addition, I used to volunteer at Thomas Jefferson [Hospital] for the refugee clinic whenever I had time. And the third job, I found through Craigslist, was a receptionist at the Ritz Carlton in the Hotel Spa. So, I was working three part-time jobs on a daily basis, seven days a week. I leave early at 4 AM and comeback at midnight.” – Mutaz Al Mudaris, March 16, 2019
Encouraged by her children, Dr. Al Saadi abandoned medicine to become a writer. In 2016 she published Beyond the Sand: A Woman’s Journey From Bagdad to Philadelphia. Now with a steady income, the family moved to a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia and fell in love with the city.
“Every single nation, every single ethnicity in the world is present here! And that is what I think I loved about Philadelphia. Not to mention the large streets that remind me of home and the Delaware River, which reminds me of the Tigris. And, my goodness! As Baghdadians, for us to live in a city where there’s such an ‘immortal river’ that holds such significance that you cannot imagine…. It’s like a beast; a creature of its own. It's [chokes up] it’s just a symbol of everything beautiful and strong. [Long pause] I remember, in my mother’s book, and I apologize if I’m getting a little bit emotional, but, I think it’s a symbol of motherhood and [Long pause] if I were lucky enough to go back to Iraq, I imagine that the Tigris will smile at me and say, ‘You remember me.’ …And when I saw that [The Delaware River] I thought, ‘My goodness! This is like home! This is a big river just like the Tigris! And it’s full of abundance!’” – Mutaz Al Mudaris, March 16, 2019