Donate Now Matthew Hay Brown, for the Pulitzer Center
Baltimore, MD
I was invited to dinner last night by a family that in some ways typifies the Iraqi resettlement experience.
Abu Rawan is a 62-year-old engineer who served as an interpreter and adviser to U.S. commanders and diplomats after the 2003 invasion. His wife is a pediatrician; they have two sons, aged 13 and 14.
After a series of anonymous threats – over the phone, under the door, through neighbors – the family fled Baghdad in December 2006. They spent time in Syria and Jordan before arriving in the United States in May.
Abu Rawan – an Arabic construction that means "father of Rawan" – had asked to be resettled near Washington so he could look for government work as a cultural and political advisor on Iraq. He blames much of the violence in Iraq on a failure by Americans and Iraqis to understand each other.
His wife, meanwhile, wants to resume her medical practice.
For now, Abu Rawan is working as a loan counselor with a Baltimore nonprofit. He wants to pursue graduate study in political science. His wife, who can't practice here until she passes the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination, has found part-time work as a medical interpreter at Johns Hopkins Hospital.