The everyday reality in Iraq now is so far removed from the country they knew that, although the chaos has existed for years, many Iraqi Americans still seem baffled. Khalid Fakhri, an Iraqi refugee who came to Miami in 2008, punctuates his words with “I can’t believe it.”
“Who can live there like that? There’s no life, no safety, no education, nothing,” Fakhri said. “Nobody can live there.”
Even the media portrayal of the conflict doesn’t make sense to many Iraqi Americans. They say the rift between Shiite and Sunni factions is not religious but political. Fakhri says religion is being used “as a reason to kill each other.”
For Rahman, a retired teacher who was born in Iraq and has lived in Miami with her husband for two decades, the Shiite-Sunni infighting was far from inevitable.
“My sister was married to a Shiite. I have many friends, very dear life-long friends, who are Shiites,” Rahman said. “Some friends of mine, I didn’t even know they were Shiites.”
But much has changed in the city she called home.