After Iraq War, Minnesotan Fosters Reconciliation between Iraqis and Americans

Sarah Kanan, a twenty-four year-old Iraqi American, feels pulled between two cultures. In America, where she’s lived most of her life, Sarah feels too Iraqi. But the two times she visited Iraq — the country her family fled during the Gulf War — she felt too American. “Sometimes it feels like I don’t belong anywhere,” Sarah said recently. Nonetheless, she’s determined to bridge the gap that exists between Iraq and America — in her life and in society at large.

Sarah is an arrestingly beautiful woman with long hair, dark eyes, and an infectious smile. She holds bachelor’s degrees from the University of Minnesota — in Business Management and Marketing Education and in Design Studies and Child Psychology. She speaks Farsi, Arabic, and English. And she’s garnered private sector experience with GE Capital.

But the road there was fraught with challenges.

Sarah’s parents — Ameerah and Samir — suffered injuries in the Gulf War and resolved to take their family somewhere safer. So in 1991 they left their hometown of Basrah and trekked 160 miles northeast to a refugee camp in Ahvaz, Iran. Sarah’s life began there, on March 15, 1991.

“I spent my first months living in an environment that was filed with sorrow and sadness,” she writes in her memoir Objects for Deployment, which was published in December 2012. “Everyone [in the camp] had been forced to leave behind their home country and their families or had lost a family member or loved one in the war.”

After nine months as refugees, the Kanan family were granted Iranian immigrant status. They relocated to Qom, a city southwest of Tehran, where they lived for the next nine years.

While in Iran, Sarah’s parents struggled with the fact that Iraq was so close, less than a day’s drive away. They talked about it incessantly. Their message was clear, said Sarah: “You’re going to go back one day.”

For Sarah and her siblings, Iraqi bedtime stories were the norm. Her parents also showed them old photographs. The Iraq they depicted was clean, beautiful, full of hospitable people, and free of religious orthodoxy.

The Iraq the family discovered in 2004, when they returned, was different.

**

In 1999, the U.S. government granted the Kanan family visas and they relocated to Dallas, Texas, where Sarah began fourth grade.

She was only 10 on 9/11, and didn’t understand its significance, but afterwards some students and teachers treated her differently. It wasn’t overt, but they were “mean,” Sarah said. There was an implication of “it’s your fault.” Yet, the scrutiny and finger pointing were familiar; Sarah had experienced them as an Arab in non-Arab Iran.

Then, in 2004, the Saddam Hussein regime fell. Sarah’s parents had always expressed their desire to return to Iraq; now they begin making plans. They didn’t tell anybody they were coming, and Sarah remembers astonishment and joyful tears when they were face-to-face with relatives they hadn’t seen in 14 years.

In Iraq, Sarah grew to appreciate cultural norms — the importance of family, the way people took time out to enjoy the “little things in life.” Compared to America, people seemed less materialistic, less concerned with “climbing the ladder,” she recalls.

Yet the homecoming left her disillusioned. The Iraqi bedtime stories and photographs — a staple of Sarah’s childhood — had “lost their innocence.” There were power outages for hours at a time. The water was dirty, and sometimes the faucets ran dry. Roads and buildings with decimated. War and death were constant.

But it was more than that. “In Iraq, no matter what I did, I was seen as an American,” Sarah said. “I was a foreigner. Even my parents were at a loss.”

Six months later, the Kanan family returned to the U.S., settling in Minnesota. “Living conditions in Iraq were not safe especially because we were seen as Americanized,” Sarah said. Still, she’s grateful for the experience. “If I hadn’t gone back, I would have never discovered the Iraqi side of my identity.”

When the Kanan’s visited Iraq a second time in 2009, on vacation, Sarah saw a sign in Basrah that said, “Ask not what Iraq can do for you, but what you can do for Iraq.” The message floored her.

Back in Minnesota, Sarah heard about the Iraqi American Reconciliation Project (IARP), a Minnesota-based 501(3)(c) that supports relationship building, cultural understanding and respect between Iraqis and Americans. Founded in 2007, IARP engages in arts, education, cultural and professional exchange, water, and sanitation projects. They’re aligned with the Minnesota International NGO Network (MINN) and the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. They also partner with The Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT), a non-profit in Iraq.

IARP members are diverse: Iraqis and Americans, veterans and refugees, peace activists and artists, students and professionals, and others committed to reconciliation.

Sarah began attending IARP events. In 2013, she joined their board of directors.

IARP recently received press for its reconciliation efforts, including write-ups in the Star Tribune and a segment on Minnesota Pubic Radio for a series of short documentaries produced by Nathan Fisher, a filmmaker who has collaborated with IARP on several projects. The documentaries humanize Iraqi Americans living in Minnesota. The filims premiered at Macalester College on December 2nd.

One of the documentaries is about — and directed by — Sarah.

In the film, Sarah is shown in her car, driving around the Twin Cities. Iraqi music fills the vehicle and sometimes, when Sarah gazes out the window, the terrain she sees is Iraqi, not Minnesotan. The juxtaposition captures the pull she feels between the two cultures, her desire to foster respect and understanding between the two.

In the final scene, Sarah exits the car. In a moment of symbolism, she successfully crosses a bridge with the Iraqi flag draped across her shoulders.