Interview with Gehan and Mohamed - Part 1, October 28, 2018

Part 1

Olivia: First, how do you prefer to be called? How do you pronounce your names?

Mohamed: [Pronounces name]

Gehan: [Pronounces name]

OR: This is Olivia Reynolds interviewing Gehan and Mohamed on October 28, 2018 for the Denison University Oral History Digital Collection project on Arab Americans in Central Ohio. Gehan is going to talk about life in the U.S. as an Arab American.

G: Okay, I like life here as an Arab American in this country. I first came here in 1985. I was a student in dental school in Egypt, and then I came here. I had a relative here, my sister. Then I met my husband, and then I went back to Egypt to finish the dental school, I was commuting back and forth, my husband was here, and I was commuting, ya know, back and forth between here and Egypt. I like a lot living here because like it's the American dream and I wanted to come to the country that I heard a lot about and the quality of life and equality and everything here I like, actually.

M: I came here in 1978. I came from Jerusalem, and when I came here, my main concern was to finish school, to go to college, educate myself; and return and when I came here I was going to find the life, it is very, there's lots of opportunities and the life is different than our countries. There's a lot of 00:02:00inequalities there, people can't work, they can't produce, but there's a lot of productivity here, and there's opportunities here, the land of opportunity. And we enjoy it, we like it a lot, we live comfortable here, and we became part of the system-, we live here for a long time, we should be part of the system, you pay your dues, you do the right things, and nothing is impossible. We achieved our goals and we got married in 1985, me and wife. We have three children, and we enjoy being here. The life is good here.

OR: لماذا غادرت مصر؟

ج: لماذا غادرت مصر؟ كنت في اجازة.. اجازة صيفية وكانت أختي عايشة هون. وحبيت أجي أشوف أمريكا. "يو نو" يعني البلد اللي سمعت عنها كتيركنت حابة أنه أجي هون أشوفها.

M: and I'm the same way. I always, when I was a young kid in school, it was my dream to come to America. It's always been a dream to me. And when I came here I find it, as I said the land of opportunity; you can produce, you can work, you can achieve your goals, and it's safe for us, it's very peaceful, the people are very nice. We enjoy it, we enjoy being here.

محمد السيد [يتحدث لجيهان]: ايه حاجة انت دلوقتي بتفتقديها من مصر؟ يعني حاجة كنت بتعمليها زمان ودلوقتي مش قادرة تعمليها او مثلا حاجة زي ritual like العيد؟

ج: هو يعني أنا الحمدلله يعني محظوظة جدا لأنه مفيش أي حاجة هنا يعني مبقدرش أعملها كنت بعملها في مصر. بس مجرد انه في يعني رمضان بفتقد رمضان في مصر. جميل جداً لان المسحراتي و الافطار الجماعي و الحجات دي كلها. بس بنحاول هنا برضو يعني نقدر نعيش بنفس الطريقة يعني نقدر نحافظ على الحاجات اللي اتعلمناها.

محمد السيد [يسأل محمد]: وأنت في حاجة انت كنت مفتقدها من فلسطين؟

M: You know, it's, life here is a little bit different because the social life is different. Back in Palestine, it's more of a social life than here; here, you work, you go to work everyday. And you know, we can meet only in gathering of some occasions. We don't feel much different like in our holidays and Ramadan because we have a very large community here and also we have large family members here. And so we feel, we practice our traditions almost the same, there is not much difference. We can adapt to it, you know.

MES: So how do you stay the same, like the same people that were in your native countries, but being a part of the system as you said? How do you keep doing what you used to do or like others close to your heart, but being a part of the system as well?

M: Palestine, it's in the heart, we will never forget our countries. Our countries, it's great. We are part of it. We feel fortunate to have two countries, we came to this country and this is also is our country. We keep in touch with the families here and we go back home, we visit the family members. I take the wife and the kids sometimes for a year or sometimes three years. So we keep in touch, we're very close with our families back home. Sometimes I travel twice a year. We'll keep our kids back and forth so they can always maintain the relationship with the motherland, with our countries, and they continue to keep our tradition; we have a lot of good values which is not found in other societies, so we have lots of good values. We try to incorporate our good values with what we learn from here, we learn a lot from here. To come up with one good value so we always try to be good people.

أ: ما هي الاختلافات بين مصر أو فلسطين وأمريكا؟

ج: نقط الاختلاف؟ يعني في بلادنا العربية عموماً، بحس انه فيه يعني شوية عدم نظام "يو نو" هون بحس فيه نظام كتير. يعني فيه كتير عدل. ya know, we all hear about, ya know, what's happening right now [laughs]. You know about that journalist [referring to Jamal Khashoggi] he said that, you know, that he expressed his opinion and we know what happened to him and this is a part of, you know, living in an Arab country you always worry about expressing your opinion and what is going to happen to you. But here, like you know, you can say whatever you want to say and you don't feel threatened, you know? I like the freedom here; freedom of speech, you know, justice and the quality of life

M: It's the same way [clears throat]. The difference between here and home countries: the accessibility of things, the availability of things, the judicial system; there's justice. You can speak your opinion, you can get your message across without being worried whether you're going to be convicted, or slain or something happening to you. And the cleanness of the country; everything is easy. And if you do the right things, you won't have much issues.

MES: What are good things that you miss? Good differences that you miss?

G: I guess like social life, I think it's really, I miss that. We try here, you know, but I think it's because of the distance between everything here and like the work hours, you don't get to see people as much as you do over there. Also family ties and stuff like that, this is what I miss about Egypt and our countries, you know the social life [laughs].

M: I miss being with the families. Being in your countries and being raised there, you always want to see your family and friends and all that, so this, we miss this. But we keep up with it, whether it's through social media or calling the phones or go visit them. But, that's the way it is.

G: ya, there's a lot of good things, I know that. And back home in our countries, you know, the culture, the food, people are really kind and stuff like that. You know, but over here too, you know, we found same values and things like that. We are able to live, you know, the way we want to, so we didn't lose anything by living here.

M: We adopt the culture here, part of the culture. I wouldn't say we adopt everything but part of it. And we have lots of good friends, we communicate with them all the time, we visit with them, and we found out, as I said, if you became an important person in the country, you should do the right things. We work, just like everybody else, we try to go by the law and not do the wrong stuff, and we keep our friends, we visit with them, we join them in their events, we also contribute to public officials and we have a great relationship with the local government even through to Washington, we have you know lots of these important people here also, like the governments, the mayors, we hold events for them all. We focus on keeping the right things for us and our children; we feel like, to come from that country to this country we should be just like an ambassador and the face of the country. And, you wanna change the image, you know lots of people in the past they have the image of Middle Eastern people, negative stereotyping we're here, just like everybody else. We try to show the best picture of our country. We are human, we have the rights just like everybody else, we're civil people and that's about it.

Hanada: So you mentioned that you keep going back and forth between Jordan, Palestine and Egypt. Could you tell us some of the things that you noticed, in terms of the changes that happen back home, on a social level, on a political level, on economic levels?

M: There's a lot of changes. When I came back in '78, you know back in these days we felt that the people there, they were more honest in our countries.

H: And that's in Palestine?

M: Palestine, whether in Palestine and Jordan. Things are changing. People now its the struggle to make the living, the life, the current situation over there it's a little bit difficult. The people are not living very comfortable like here, and everything has changed. Everything; I would say there's lots been changed and wish they were kind of like still the same. The honesty of the people, the mentality has changed; lots of the Middle Eastern people now they want to copy the American mentality especially the new generation and they're doing it in the wrong ways. You know, I wish they kind of like figured it out that it's better, but they're trying to copy other stuff and it's not good. That's some of the stuff I noticed traveling back and forth.

هناده: و هل هي نفس التغيرات في مصر؟

G: Uh, yeah I would say yes because there is a lot more people and also the economy is not as good, so people are struggling and, you know, the quality of life I guess is not what it used to be. I guess economy has to do a lot with it.

M: I feel that like a lot of people are under pressure, lots of pressure. And when the people come under pressure, they don't have the money to do what they want or to live good and it can create a lot of troubles.