The story below is a preview from our May/June 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Roanoke opens its arms for refugees, including from Afghanistan.
Like many urban areas, Roanoke is home to people from all walks of life, including refugees. United States law defines a refugee as an individual located outside the country who “demonstrates that they were persecuted or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.”
Not quite two years ago, Roanoke saw in influx in its refugee population when a number of refugees from Afghanistan were resettled in the area by organizations like Commonwealth Catholic Charities (CCC) following the Taliban taking control of the country after the United States military withdrawal.
“It has been incredible to be part of the response to assisting Afghan evacuees rebuild their lives here in Virginia,” says Katie Dillon, CCC’s marketing manager.
One of the refugees CCC helped get to Roanoke is 21-year-old Zai. She asked to only be identified by her surname, a common Afghan name, out of fear that her family back in Afghanistan could be persecuted because of her speaking out.
Having grown up after the Taliban’s ill-fated first attempt at governing Afghanistan, Zai received a full education. Despite the stability of her upbringing, the knowledge that the Taliban sought a return to power caused her much unease. Its policies of limiting the education and movement of women were top of mind.
Her concern proved to be prescient. “When they came, I lost everything,” she says.
At the time that the Afghan government fell in mid-2021, she was studying at a university and working at a government television station as a marketing assistant.
Courtesy of Friendship House Roanoke
Friendship House of Roanoke offers temporary housing to refugees through its Good Neighbor Program. After it purchased two houses in 2021, Friendship House now operates four apartment units as part of the program.
Due to her sex and line of work, she felt she was a target. “It’s so hard for women because the Taliban always wanted to attack and kill women journalists,” she says.
Zai remembers the first day of the invasion as being very hectic. “We heard shooting. It was a bad situation. The cars were stopped on the streets. It was like somebody closed everything,” she recalls.
She left the station and ran to her family’s apartment. “My parents shut down the lights. They closed the doors,” she says.
She received a text the following day from a colleague who told her that many who feared the Taliban were going to the Kabul International Airport in the hopes of safe passage out of the country.
At first, she didn’t believe her colleague. “How could someone go out of the country without having a visa or a process?” she remembers thinking. After her colleague informed her that she had already been exfiltrated to Qatar, she knew what she had to do.
She told her family that she was leaving for the airport, with only her phone, passport and identification card. To protect herself, she wore a hijab.
Upon arrival, she found herself engulfed in mayhem. “The Taliban was shooting other people. I was so scared,” she says. She didn’t make it inside the first day, so she stayed the night nearby with her aunt.
She returned to the airport early the following morning. She eventually caught the attention of U.S. military personnel when she volunteered to translate for them. Once she was finished, she showed them her work identification and asked if she could leave the country. She could, they said, but didn’t have time to go back and get her family.
“I was crying. It was my first time getting separated from my family,” she says.
Eventually, she was sent to a military base in Qatar, where she stayed for 26 days. After brief stops in Bahrain, Spain and Washington, D.C., she ended up in Wisconsin.
Two and a half months later, she was asked where she wanted to stay long-term. The only familial connection she has in the U.S. is her aunt, who lives in Roanoke. She arrived in the city in December 2021.
Courtesy of Friendship House Roanoke
She was placed in a hotel by CCC before she obtained her own housing the following month in Northwest Roanoke near Bowman Park.
Despite traveling a rocky road, Zai is hopeful about her future. She’s currently taking classes at Virginia Western Community College in the hopes of transferring to Virginia Tech to study computer engineering. She also works remotely to support herself and her family back in Afghanistan.
“The only thing that makes me happy is going to school and learning,” she says.
One of her favorite places in the city is the Hotel Roanoke.
Even if the Taliban loses power, Zai has no plans of returning. She simply wants to bring her family to the U.S., which she says has turned out to be much more accepting of Muslims than she was raised to believe.
Friendship House Roanoke and the Roanoke Refugee Partnership are among the organizations helping refugees like Zai start their lives in Roanoke.
Want to learn more about Roanoke organizations helping refugees find their footing, including insights from Aaron Dowdy, executive director of Friendship House and Bethany Lackey, executive director of the Roanoke Refugee Partnership? Check out the latest issue, now on newsstands, or see it for free in our digital guide linked below!
The story above is a preview from our May/June 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!