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| What happens when the country you called home is suddenly off-limits | What happens when the country you called home is suddenly off-limits |
| (about 9 hours later) | |
| The banner hanging from Lama Al Damad’s apartment building off 16th Street promises luxury apartments. But inside the cavernous art-deco halls, up the cramped elevator, in Damad’s one-bedroom on the seventh floor, high-class amenities aren’t readily apparent. | The banner hanging from Lama Al Damad’s apartment building off 16th Street promises luxury apartments. But inside the cavernous art-deco halls, up the cramped elevator, in Damad’s one-bedroom on the seventh floor, high-class amenities aren’t readily apparent. |
| Yet Damad and her daughters, 21-year-old Yara Oudat and 24-year-old Lana Oudat, are grateful for some luxuries — including the plush sofas Damad, 47, picked out when she and her daughters moved to Washington. | Yet Damad and her daughters, 21-year-old Yara Oudat and 24-year-old Lana Oudat, are grateful for some luxuries — including the plush sofas Damad, 47, picked out when she and her daughters moved to Washington. |
| Settled on those sofas, Damad and her daughters recently recounted how they landed in this apartment building 6,000 miles from the world they once knew. | |
| When they arrived at Dulles International Airport from Syria in 2012, they were tourists, toting two small bags apiece for a brief visit with Damad’s mother and sister, who live in Northern Virginia. But her relatives, Damad says, soon pleaded with her to stay, as did friends back in Syria. The country had been in the throes of violence since the year before, and the situation was becoming increasingly grave. | When they arrived at Dulles International Airport from Syria in 2012, they were tourists, toting two small bags apiece for a brief visit with Damad’s mother and sister, who live in Northern Virginia. But her relatives, Damad says, soon pleaded with her to stay, as did friends back in Syria. The country had been in the throes of violence since the year before, and the situation was becoming increasingly grave. |
| With their family’s help, the women secured temporary protected status in the United States, which delivers exactly what it promises: respite with an end date. Technically, it requires them to return to Syria at some point in the future and offers no hope of obtaining a green card. | With their family’s help, the women secured temporary protected status in the United States, which delivers exactly what it promises: respite with an end date. Technically, it requires them to return to Syria at some point in the future and offers no hope of obtaining a green card. |
| Until that day arrives, if it ever does, they’ve exchanged their four-bedroom Damascus flat for this small apartment where Damad lives with Lana. Yara lives in a dorm at the University of the District of Columbia, where she is studying computer science. | Until that day arrives, if it ever does, they’ve exchanged their four-bedroom Damascus flat for this small apartment where Damad lives with Lana. Yara lives in a dorm at the University of the District of Columbia, where she is studying computer science. |
| They chose to live in the District, Damad says, because it was “like our home” — thick with monuments and with a skyline that seems to bow to history. The canal in Georgetown, where Yara and Lana have worked in a waterfront restaurant, reminds them of the Barada River, which slices through Old Damascus. | |
| For now, something like home will have to do. For recent transplants such as Damad and her daughters, as well as for long-settled Syrian Americans, the entrenchment of the Islamic State, Syria’s civil war and the ensuing refugee crisis have bluntly severed the connection to their motherland. No more do second-generation Syrian Americans settled in Washington book joyous summer trips to visit grandmothers and tour their history-rich nation’s treasures. | For now, something like home will have to do. For recent transplants such as Damad and her daughters, as well as for long-settled Syrian Americans, the entrenchment of the Islamic State, Syria’s civil war and the ensuing refugee crisis have bluntly severed the connection to their motherland. No more do second-generation Syrian Americans settled in Washington book joyous summer trips to visit grandmothers and tour their history-rich nation’s treasures. |
| Now, they can only guess when they might be able to go home again. | Now, they can only guess when they might be able to go home again. |
| “I try to find a way to keep living and not thinking about that,” Damad says. “I told my daughters, we will stay to finish your studies in the U.S.A. This is just a temporary period, and we will go back.” | “I try to find a way to keep living and not thinking about that,” Damad says. “I told my daughters, we will stay to finish your studies in the U.S.A. This is just a temporary period, and we will go back.” |
| “Home is D.C.,” insists Hiba Hakki, 61, a business manager who has lived in the Washington area since leaving Syria in 1978. Both her children, now in their 30s, were born in the United States. But the Hakkis have never forgotten their other home, making frequent summertime trips to steep in Syria’s culture and to visit friends and Hakki’s mother, now 91. “It was crucial that we go every summer,” she says. “Syria became more beautiful every year. Syria had become a beautiful place to be.” | “Home is D.C.,” insists Hiba Hakki, 61, a business manager who has lived in the Washington area since leaving Syria in 1978. Both her children, now in their 30s, were born in the United States. But the Hakkis have never forgotten their other home, making frequent summertime trips to steep in Syria’s culture and to visit friends and Hakki’s mother, now 91. “It was crucial that we go every summer,” she says. “Syria became more beautiful every year. Syria had become a beautiful place to be.” |
| It was for her mother that Hakki found herself making the complicated and fraught journey back to Damascus earlier this winter. Although friends and family have poured out of the country in recent years, her elderly mother has stayed behind. | It was for her mother that Hakki found herself making the complicated and fraught journey back to Damascus earlier this winter. Although friends and family have poured out of the country in recent years, her elderly mother has stayed behind. |
| “There’s nobody I know that didn’t try to dissuade me,” she says. She was prepared for that. What she wasn’t expecting was to find her home town so unrecognizable. | “There’s nobody I know that didn’t try to dissuade me,” she says. She was prepared for that. What she wasn’t expecting was to find her home town so unrecognizable. |
| “It was like a Damascus that I never knew,” she says of her weeks-long trip, which required her to land in Lebanon and pass through innumerable checkpoints to reach her mother’s house. What she found when she arrived, she says, “was this fake calm. You get in bed and all is quiet. Then you hear the bombing. If you drive 20 minutes out of Damascus, you are in war.” | “It was like a Damascus that I never knew,” she says of her weeks-long trip, which required her to land in Lebanon and pass through innumerable checkpoints to reach her mother’s house. What she found when she arrived, she says, “was this fake calm. You get in bed and all is quiet. Then you hear the bombing. If you drive 20 minutes out of Damascus, you are in war.” |
| “You see people,” she says, “who don’t say anything anymore because they want to live.” | “You see people,” she says, “who don’t say anything anymore because they want to live.” |
| Hakki and her family, including her daughter, Dannia, a Washington publicist, say that it could be years before they’ll be able to go back. But they can’t agree on what “years” means, exactly. Could it be five? Or could it be 20? | Hakki and her family, including her daughter, Dannia, a Washington publicist, say that it could be years before they’ll be able to go back. But they can’t agree on what “years” means, exactly. Could it be five? Or could it be 20? |
| Imagine leaving your house, closing the door and never looking back. Countless waves of migrants have done this, propelled by violence, famine or political upheaval: Jews under Nazi occupation. Vietnamese fleeing the communists. Hindus and Muslims during the bloody partition of India and Pakistan. Ethiopians escaping drought and famine. Syrians are only the latest. | |
| [A visual guide to 75 years of major refugee crises around the world] | [A visual guide to 75 years of major refugee crises around the world] |
| Previous waves of migrants, such as Italian and Irish settlers, were quick to unplug from their homelands, perhaps because they were leaving behind lives of poverty for better opportunities, says Richard F. Mollica, a physician and director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, a clinic specializing in the mental health of refugees. More-recent arrivals tend to cling to memories of better days and to their overseas connections. | Previous waves of migrants, such as Italian and Irish settlers, were quick to unplug from their homelands, perhaps because they were leaving behind lives of poverty for better opportunities, says Richard F. Mollica, a physician and director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, a clinic specializing in the mental health of refugees. More-recent arrivals tend to cling to memories of better days and to their overseas connections. |
| In her halting English — she is studying the language at Northern Virginia Community College — Damad says she has not lost hope that she will go back to Syria. In Damascus, she worked as a general manager of a tourism magazine. (She has yet to find work here.) | In her halting English — she is studying the language at Northern Virginia Community College — Damad says she has not lost hope that she will go back to Syria. In Damascus, she worked as a general manager of a tourism magazine. (She has yet to find work here.) |
| For a long time after arriving, she says, whenever she bought something new, “I kept thinking, ‘I can put it in the bag when I go back.’ ” | For a long time after arriving, she says, whenever she bought something new, “I kept thinking, ‘I can put it in the bag when I go back.’ ” |
| You know what you’re supposed to miss: family, friends. But distance magnifies the seemingly insignificant things, too. Lana became emotional seeing a photo of her athletic trophies, which filled her bedroom in her father’s flat. (The parents are divorced.) Damad, her daughters joke, gets wistful about the high heels that filled her closet back home. | You know what you’re supposed to miss: family, friends. But distance magnifies the seemingly insignificant things, too. Lana became emotional seeing a photo of her athletic trophies, which filled her bedroom in her father’s flat. (The parents are divorced.) Damad, her daughters joke, gets wistful about the high heels that filled her closet back home. |
| “She has a lot of shoes,” says Yara, whose accent has faded to a hardly noticeable lilt. “She always tells me, ‘I wish I can bring them all,’ ” Yara adds. “I’m pretty sure it’s not just about shoes for her.” | “She has a lot of shoes,” says Yara, whose accent has faded to a hardly noticeable lilt. “She always tells me, ‘I wish I can bring them all,’ ” Yara adds. “I’m pretty sure it’s not just about shoes for her.” |
| While families with deep U.S. ties, such as Hakki’s, are hopeful that they will see Syria again, those with asylum or protected status, such as Damad’s, face a particularly tricky negotiation if they want to return home to see relatives or to collect belongings, says Dave Cleveland, an immigration lawyer with Archdiocese of Washington’s Catholic Charities. | While families with deep U.S. ties, such as Hakki’s, are hopeful that they will see Syria again, those with asylum or protected status, such as Damad’s, face a particularly tricky negotiation if they want to return home to see relatives or to collect belongings, says Dave Cleveland, an immigration lawyer with Archdiocese of Washington’s Catholic Charities. |
| “It’s easy to return to your country,” Cleveland says. “ ‘Can you get back to the U.S.A.’ is the harder question.” | |
| For instance, to apply for asylum, which grants more-permanent residency, “you say, ‘I fear great harm in my country,’ and then if you go back to your country voluntarily, that suggests there isn’t very much harm there,” he says. “That’s inconsistent.” | For instance, to apply for asylum, which grants more-permanent residency, “you say, ‘I fear great harm in my country,’ and then if you go back to your country voluntarily, that suggests there isn’t very much harm there,” he says. “That’s inconsistent.” |
| And yet the elements that make up home — the foods, friends and languages that immigrants are familiar with — have an incredible pull. “I think the average immigrant is conflicted,” Cleveland says. | And yet the elements that make up home — the foods, friends and languages that immigrants are familiar with — have an incredible pull. “I think the average immigrant is conflicted,” Cleveland says. |
| Many of the estimated 12,000 refugees Mollica has worked with — from Cambodia, Central and South America, and parts of Africa — have visited their homelands when violence subsided. “But they don’t want to stay there,” he says. “There are a couple of realities. The first reality is that America is safe.” And for those who come from nations in upheaval, “everything you believed in is destroyed,” he says. | Many of the estimated 12,000 refugees Mollica has worked with — from Cambodia, Central and South America, and parts of Africa — have visited their homelands when violence subsided. “But they don’t want to stay there,” he says. “There are a couple of realities. The first reality is that America is safe.” And for those who come from nations in upheaval, “everything you believed in is destroyed,” he says. |
| But what he has found is that after acceptance comes a new worldview — a testament to human resilience. For women in particular, he says, “there’s a kind of liberation that occurs.” | But what he has found is that after acceptance comes a new worldview — a testament to human resilience. For women in particular, he says, “there’s a kind of liberation that occurs.” |
| For Damad, it struck her when she unpacked her bags. When she purchased the sofas. When she no longer feared getting lost in the city. “She knows places,” Lana says. “She drives without GPS.” | |
| For Lana, the moment came when she went to Paris to visit her father. “I was like, I cannot wait to get home,” she says. | For Lana, the moment came when she went to Paris to visit her father. “I was like, I cannot wait to get home,” she says. |
| And home was this apartment, full of luxuries, on 16th Street. | And home was this apartment, full of luxuries, on 16th Street. |
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