Author Spotlight
Michael Yi
Asadul “Asad” Gul Mohammad was 13 years old when his dad called with the news. Asad was hanging out in his family’s yard among the apple trees with the friends he had known since he was 7 — the friends he’d gone to school with until 4th grade, when he dropped out. But he never liked school anyway. The teachers used to hit him with sticks.
His dad said to his mom in Pashto, “Hey, get ready! We’re going to America!”
“Why?”
Asad’s dad had been working for the US military since they occupied Afghanistan when he was 16 — first as a soldier, then repairing guns after losing the sight in his left eye and his left leg from the knee down in combat. With the war ending, the US informed him that he had to move his family or they would be killed by the Taliban.
Asad spent his days going to mosque and playing soccer and cricket with his friends. He hadn’t studied English in four years, and what he did study he didn’t remember. What would life be like in America?
***
Asad’s 14-year-old sister Hanifa cried and cried. It never occurred to her she would ever leave Urgun — as a girl, she barely left the house. Now she was leaving the home she’d known for a decade and the cows, goats and chickens she had raised her whole life. She used to wake up at 3 a.m. to feed them vegetables.
“I said to my dad, ‘I’m not going to the United States,’” Hanifa said. “I’m going to stay with my cow and with my cats, and with my sheep. They’re so sweet. How can I leave them?”
A lifetime of belongings fit into three suitcases. Hanifa left her cousins 21 brand new dresses and years of jewelry her father had bought for her. More than 50 pillows and blankets she handmade with her mother and siblings were left at home — to this day, even from America, her mother still refuses to officially give them away.
Asad took the gold ring his mother gave him and Hanifa brought her grandmother’s bracelets. At 3:30 a.m. on Aug. 15, 2021, their uncle drove Hanifa, Asad, their four younger siblings and parents out to the Kabul airport in his Toyota Camry, leaving their 16-room house and 500 apple trees behind.
Hanifa saw her cow crying.
***
Everyone threw up at some point in the six-hour ride. They finally arrived at the airport, where they saw families without military ties packed like cement. Blankets and food and babies were discarded all around. Soldiers pushed them away and fired gunshots to contain crowds.
“Everyone was so sad,” Hanifa said. “[Afghans] left their brothers and sisters.”
The family boarded a U.S. Air Force plane. Their mother, nine months pregnant, was feeling nauseous, and children that had never been on planes screamed and cried all four hours to Dubai.
In the Afghan refugee camp in Dubai, officials interviewed them about their identities and the family checked into two rooms and received vaccinations. In Asad and Hanifa’s two months in the camp, their mom gave birth to a daughter, Alia, less than a week before the family were transported to a military camp in Virginia.
“[There was] No work, no cars to drive, no things to do,” Asad said. “[We just] ate, slept and hung out with friends. And prayed.”
***
After a month in the camp in Virginia, the family was free to go anywhere in the US. A friend of their dad had said Kansas City, KS was nice, so they moved to a house on Delevan Avenue, and Asad and Hanifa started attending Central Middle School.
Asad was shaking the whole first day of school. His English was “zero.” As soon as the bell rang, he ran for the school bus.
“People came up to me and they said, ‘What’s your name?’” Asad said. “I said in my language, ‘What are they saying?’ I [didn’t] understand nothing at that time. And I was really scared.”
Eventually, he made a friend: a South African boy named Michael who helped him with his school work. Asad learned the phrase “Can you help me?” and he would show Michael his computer so he could help him with the assignments.
“I saw the students, they were talking with each other,” Asad said. “I said to myself in my language, ‘It’s too hard to learn English.‘“
***
After Hanifa spent three months in Central Middle School, she moved up to Washington High School in Kansas City, KS. She was placed in the Intensive Language Center program, where she spent the year learning history, biology, math and English from her teacher Alicia Fullman.
“I didn’t have to argue with her or say ‘Please do your work,’” Fullman said. “She just wanted to learn, and so she progressed really quickly through the program because education was a priority to her.”
Hanifa used to have her dreams of becoming a soldier or a lawyer with her mom when she was younger. Her mom dismissed her. Afghan women got married at 18 and then could never work. And besides, how could Hanifa work a job if she had never even been to school?
“I said, ‘Mom, it’s not about school,’” Hanifa said. “You have to believe in yourself. You have to have strong feelings. That’s all. That’s everything.”
At Washington, Hanifa joined the school’s NJROTC program, traveling on school-sponsored transportation. She dreamt of becoming a soldier, going back and fighting for her people’s freedom.
She translated assignments from English to Pashto to English. She never wore her uniform sloppily, and though she likes to wear bright colored hijabs, she’d wear dark ones with her uniform to match.
“She would take pride in how she put it on, how she wore it, keeping it tidy all day,” ROTC instructor Patrick McCormack said. “I would say that it gets a little sloppy during the day for some people, but not for Hanifa. She was always wearing it right.”
But Hanifa got sick during Ramadan — the Muslim month of fasting with no water or food from sunup to sundown. The exercise was tough on her, so her parents forced her to quit. Dropping NJROTC meant Hanifa no longer had a ride to Washington High School, so she joined her brother at Wyandotte High School.
***
At Wyandotte, students didn’t pay attention to teachers. They got in fights in the hallways. After a semester at Wyandotte High, the family moved to Fairway and enrolled at Shawnee Mission East this January.
English as a Second Language teacher Lao Hao-In helped from class-to-class at first to help them get used to their schedules. Lao has been teaching ELL to them since the second semester of last year.
“[Hanifa and Assad] are very pleasant and welcoming,” Hao-In said. “When we have new students, they want to help because they understand that being new to a new culture is difficult.”
Asad’s biology teacher Meghan Regehr says his English has grown from strings of words to full conversations. Asad himself feels like his English is somewhere at 80%, and it’s become his favorite class.
“I want to keep studying my English to get better,” Asad said. “Because, I don’t really know some of the words. I want to be really good, like #1 in English.”
For the first time in his life, Asad enjoys school. He likes how friendly strangers are in the hallways, and how no one looks at him twice if he’s wearing his cultural clothes. But his favorite thing about East is the teachers. They care.
“They’re the best teachers ever,” Asad said. “They’re really good, they’re helpful. They’re teaching us the best they can.”
Hanifa said she plans to attend JCCC for a year after she graduates, and then she wants to go to KU to learn to be a social worker or a lawyer, even if her grandma wants her to be a doctor. She wants to help people overcome life changes the same way social workers at East have helped her.
The Gul Mohammad family moved from their home in Fairway to a house right on 75th Street in October, where Asad and Hanifa can easily walk to and from school. Her parents considered other homes in the Shawnee Mission South or North area, but Hanifa refused. She wants to graduate from East.
“I can say that this is the most greatest school, and I am so grateful for the US government to bring us here for school,” Hanifa said. “We will have [a] great future here.”
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