Iraqi student seeks peace and a new beginning

By Christine Woodrich

Ali Aljanabi left Baghdad, Iraq, last summer in hope of finding peace and a new beginning in the United States.

Growing up in Baghdad, Aljanabi had a happy childhood despite the constant war. He had a loving and supportive family, but with the country’s latest war, everything changed.

The peace and stability he knew as a child were gone. Instead of looking toward a bright future, Aljanabi’s family was simply looking for safety.

At this point, Aljanabi decided it was time to leave his home country for the United States in order to start life anew.

“United States was my goal because of the freedom and country of opportunity,” Aljanabi said.

In Baghdad, Aljanabi worked in information technology for an American company named BearingPoint. As a student at Pima Community College, he hopes to further his knowledge of computers and develop more IT skills.

But first, he says, he needs to better his English.

“Everyone thinks I’m Mexican!” Aljanabi said, as he described the typical greetings he receives from Latinos. “I cannot speak Spanish.”

However, Aljanabi did graduate with a bachelor’s degree in French studies from Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. In his English as a Second Language class, he is working on becoming trilingual.

Aljanabi said he is enjoying his first semester at Pima and that Tucson reminds him of home.

“I like it, it’s like Baghdad,” he said, in reference to the broad cultural backgrounds of both cities.

But the cultural differences between Baghdad and Tucson are indeed vast.

“Thinking in Iraq is different,” Aljanabi said, as are social relations. He explained that in Iraq’s family-oriented culture, people do not date. They only get married, and they generally live with the husband’s parents well into adulthood.

“I want to change my life, try something new,” Aljanabi said of moving to the United States.

“We have a very bad regime,” he said. “Always there is war.”

Aljanabi encourages the U.S. Army’s involvement in the reconstruction of the Iraqi government. He said that Iraq’s army lacks the soldiers, weapons and experience necessary to control the country’s fundamentalists.

He anticipates that the Iraqi army and police force should be able to manage the country in about a year, and hopes to move back home once everything has calmed down.

“I came here to find peace,” Aljanabi said.

Ali Aljanabi - Aztec Press photo by Gabi Pina