 for a reading with the author of Call Me American. Abdi will be introduced tonight by Laurie Stavron, Community Partnership Coordinator for the Vermont Refugee Resilient Program, and Masiti Muhammad, a leader in the Somali community in Vermont. We are grateful that Abdi, who survived so much horror and literally won the lottery to come to America, could join us tonight to share his story. He came from Maine. Just a quick housekeeping items. Front door is locked, so it'll reopen after the talk. If you need to exit before we are through, the back door will be open, and the bathroom is located at the back door to the right. Please mute or turn off your cell phones. I'm gonna pass around the sign up for our new email newsletter, if you haven't signed up for it already. I'd like to thank Orca Media for filling tonight's event, and the Vermont Arts Council for featuring the event as a Vermont Arts 2018 program. I'd like to thank you in advance for buying Abdi's book. The registers will be open all night, and he will sign after he speaks. Without further ado, please help me welcome our guests, Lori and Nassiti, first. It's so exciting to see everybody here tonight supporting the America we know and love. We are Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. The state of Vermont, not Burlington area, is resettling refugees, and we are so grateful for the support that we have from our community. We have a wonderful Somali community in the Burlington area, and the CD will be speaking in a couple of minutes. If anybody's interested in finding out more about what's happening in Refugee Resettlement in Vermont, or getting involved in any way, whether it's volunteering, donating, or participating in events, then please feel free to speak with me tonight or reach out after in the office. We have December 1st, we have an event coming up. It will be a showcase at the Flynn Space in Burlington. Different talents will be sharing their culture, their traditions, and it will be a lot of fun. Right now we have an art show at the Amy Tarant Gallery at the Flynn. It's open on Saturdays. Every Saturday until December 1st, so please check out the art also. Right now I'd like to introduce Masiti Mohamed. She also has a refugee background and has been a leader in the Burlington community since she arrived. Masiti Mohamed, same as the other, I also don't know much about my country. He knows some, so he's lucky, but I played when I was six years old and had ended in Kenya, where I mostly grew and became, you know, at least basic English speaker because we kind of benefited from the Kenyan education system. And then I grew up there, married there, and I mostly call myself as a Kenyan something, but I'm not. I'm in the middle, and then I was lucky enough to get a resettlement program, a process to come to the United States. Although it took a long process, we are happy and lucky that we ended up being in a safe place. And as soon as we came, the refugee resettlement was more than welcoming it. We didn't know more that there will be people who will be helping us, so the refugee resettlement welcomed us in a night that was full of snow, as you guys say, in the middle of February, the 27th. No one was going to work, if you can remember that. People are not going to work for three days, I think. They were sleeping, and I'll find out. Had you ever seen snow? No, but from now. We were surprised as the plane was landing. We thought that we were kind of put down into a garden of cotton. So it was funny, but we loved it. I am in Vermont in the Burlington area for 14 years now, so I'm loving it, and kind of benefited from the education system as well. I wasn't good enough in my education years background because we could not finish our high school, so I was lucky enough to finish my high school and also go to college, finish my master's degree, so. Woo-hoo! She is so good. Thank you. I was moved by, as soon as she posted that there was somebody who experienced a life like ours is here. I said, I can't wait to meet her. I read about him, so thank you for joining us and coming here today, and we are from Burlington, and we are all happy to welcome you here in Vermont. Welcome all of you. Thank you. Good time for this thing. Thank you. Thanks for the introduction. That was so sweet. Thank you. Thank you, Burlington. Right? I'm not a healer. I'm not a non-healer. Oh. This is my one-billier. Oh, okay. I apologize. I apologize. What? Okay, we're in Vermont, but that's right. How did I know that? I'm staying in your house. Well, I got a lot going on, so my mind is so busy. You've been in so many places. Right, right. Arizona last week, and then, actually, Arizona two weeks ago, and then last week, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and yeah, book tours going great. Yeah, I left Arizona specifically because it was hot and dry. And you fled, and the guy who was driving me three hours from Phoenix to Bisbee, I was like, I haven't seen one river. I haven't seen one lake. What's going on in this area? Because I already, you know, in Maine, if you drive 10, 15 minutes, you see something, right? There's so much water that we have up there. Probably here, too. So, but thank you for having me here. It's beautiful. Rainy, gray. So, like, yeah, like yourself, well, I didn't come when snow was falling from the sky. I came when snow was like around, you know, just kind of coming. So I came late August, but... That's when the leaves were turning colors. I was super excited. And then the leaves fell from the tree. I was so mad. And then the snow came and covered everything else. So, yeah, I was so excited. I said, you know, it's interesting, and I had, I guess what my first job was. Some of you may probably have already heard. Yeah, you know. My first job was insulation. We put a sign in the front yard and said, you know, here's a nice guy, but I can't find a job, you know, because a couple months later, I couldn't find a job. But the first people who contacted me were an insulation company. They said, it's all physical. Do you want to do that? I said, yes. $11 an hour. Are you okay with that? I'm like, more than fine. I took the job and it started snowing and the boss warned me. He said, you need to bundle up. You know, go to the LLB and get some layers, some socks, you know, stuff. So, please don't come here with, you know, like light shirt or something like that. And I'm like, I think I can beat the cold. No! But I called him. I called the office one morning and I said, I can't come because I can't even get out of the house. And then that's when I actually, someone had to give me a ride and go to LLB and get gloves and things like that. Yeah, it's all documented in the book. What an interesting job. I talked to my mom. I said, money doesn't grow on trees, mom. You know, I'm really working hard to get, you know, whatever I'm sending. So, well, you know, call me American. It's a title that's so funny, right? Like, am I American? I am. You don't really, you don't have to be born in the United States to be American. You know, you can think of it as like when I was, you know, around 10, 9, 10, 11, 12, in Mogadishu. We just got out of the 1992 drought. The civil war erupted in 1991. Somalis war, you know, took us to the next level where, like, seeing bodies and dead people were just normal. It was not something to be scary about. However, I survived to the age of 10, and that was, wow, you know, once you survived to that age, you know that you have done something. Oh, my God. You know, yeah, my brother and I were, when we returned from the displacement within the country to the southern side of the country, to Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia. The country at the time was called, actually the city was called the city of women and children. So we couldn't find our dad. He separated from us and said goodbye and kissed us in the forehead. So we assumed that he was dead because every other child that was either my friend or in the neighborhood was an orphan. So we were orphans. And my dad is still alive. We found him a few years later. Yes, so at the age of 10, the only thing that could be an entertainment, you know, that could distract me from the wars, from being recruited, or being forced to carry a gun, was to go to a movie theater. So this woman had opened up a movie theater which is made of tin roof, you know, it's like a shack. And there was a little television screen sitting on top of a small table. And she had a pile of cassettes. And these were all action movies. The Commandoes, Terminators, Jack Norris and all of those, you know, sort of things. So it was kind of, it was really exciting because the visual that we saw, I saw at the movie, somehow related to what was happening in the environment, you know, the wars, the, you know, things blown up, people have been killed and all those sort of stuff, but in a different way, right? Because where these guys in the movies are fighting, it's not Mogadishu. It has nothing to do with Mogadishu. It's just clean streets, there's a sale of leaves, there's still restaurants, people are dining, and when they, you know, when the movie, for those of you who have seen Commandoes, you know, he hangs out with his daughter, right? And they have ice cream. And they're running all over the place in the mall. So you can see there's life out there. But there's also the destruction part of it, the chaos part of it. And that had really somehow got me connected like I wish Mogadishu was like shiny like that. And then I wish things were blown up. I lost it. But it was not. It was dry, spooky in Mogadishu at the time. Houses were there, but doors were gone, roofs were gone, and windows were gone. So somehow that was a hiding spot for us. You know, when my mom kicked me out of the house for bringing a portrait of Madonna in a bikini. And I hang it in the room. She didn't like it. She kicked me out of the house. So I stayed, you know, any one of those buildings that no one could buy it. So it was fun. So by that time, my Americanization process was at work. And you were 10? I was 10, yes. And I was a little funny kid because it, you know, what I was trying to do was somehow a crime in the city. We just, you know, the war erupted in 1991. And my mom was saying that we had the Civil War because we neglected our culture. In the 80s and 70s, Somalia had movie theaters, as well as nightclubs. Italians and actually Europeans and Americans visited, you know, to hang out at the beach, you know, because we have really nice warm, you know, beaches up there. And then my dad remembers, you know, seeing this naked woman on the beach. And she feels like, I think that's what made God angry. So at this point, we're being punished for that. And then she said, because that's how it works. We don't have to attach to anything on earth. This is all temporary. So we're going to be, you know, everyone's going to die. So for us to die, we have to die the proper way. So that's one of the reasons that she sent me to the madrasa. And madrasa is sort of a school where you sit on the dirt and have to memorize 114 chapters of the Quran, 6,666 verses. It was not easy. And it was hard teaching. And I documented it all here in the book. But I eventually graduated from that. And then that's when, you know, when my mother says, well, that's step number one, step number two, you got to be his assistant. I said, no, that was step number one. Step number two is that I got to go a different direction. And she said, no, you know, I've been sending you to this school for many years now and I want you to be an assistant so that you can grow up to eventually be able to, you know, become an Islamic cleric or something like that. I know that's a Somalia, you know, we're all homogenous society, everyone's religion, one faith and everything else. However, everyone was going that direction but I went the different direction. Why was I doing that? I really don't know because every kid has something to be inspired of. So movies were evil things according to my mother. Movies were things that turned your mind into evil or like you think about the horrible things hanging out with women, singing on the streets, dancing and wearing horrible clothes and that exactly happened. I started hanging out with a woman. I dressed funny clothes and I started wagging and doing some dancing, you know, movements on the streets and soon I became the idiot in the city. Yes, everyone called me the idiot, like the bad guy in the city. It's like I was just spreading a western culture sort of. However, so many young men were excited about that and then I became the translator at the movies because I started picking up English from the movies and I started translating and he says, all these days he's going to jump off the wall and everyone's watching and the guy jumps. I'm like, I told you, right? And I say, all these days he's going to, you know, he's going to go, you know, push that guy and that happened. So I became a translator, I became a storyteller and that's where it kind of exploded for me and then I become a little celebrity in the area. It was like celebrity according to the people of my age but the elderly people were trying to get rid of me. Including my mother, she kicked me out of the house. However, this whole happiness ended by 2006 when Somalia became an Islamic State. There's a group called Al-Shabaab that came run over the entire country and the second thing I can remember is that I get a phone call from an unknown number and they tell me, wait, are you the one they are calling American nowadays? I said, that's my nickname, yeah? You guys top that sort of thing, drop that nickname, I warn you. And he hangs up and it's not easy because they have killed so many people that way. You know, they called and warned and then the next thing you know is like your body is somewhere else. So I was freaked out. I wasn't really quite sure what to do. I knew this was a real warning and I didn't take it lightly. So I accepted the way they warned. I shaved my hair, stopped listening to music, they bombed the movie so the movie was gone. So it all became nightmare and now I was scared for my own life because the recruitment of the Islamists were just happening so fast and they couldn't even deal, like so many young people were so interested in joining them. So they were dealing with that long line of young men of my age. How young? Well, that's a model. You know, if you're eight year old, as long as you can carry again, they would recruit you. So that's what was happening at the time. But someone of my age, you know, into my 20s at the time, that's what they were looking for. That's the perfect age they were looking for. So what was happening at this time? The United States was not happy with what was happening in Somalia. So they were sponsoring Ethiopian troops to invade Somalia and the Ethiopians have already infiltrated into Somali territory so they were like 100 miles from the city. So we knew the world was going to happen and the Islamists had huge speakers, you know, on top of their pickup trucks and they were moving around saying, like, if you have not signed up before we come to your house, you still have time. And the recruitment centers were just like every corner of the city. So what did I do? I technically went into hiding. You can't hide forever. Somehow while I was hiding, the war begins, because Ethiopians actually have so much more power compared to the Islamists who just have automatic machine guns. So these guys came with their tanks, airplanes, fighter jets and everything else. Half of the Islamists were killed and these guys pushed to the city. So the Ethiopians came to the city and then the war now shifts into insurgency where they start burying roadside bombs and finding simulatizers into the area. So that was when I actually came out of my hiding and I was perfied. My mom and I separated so she went out into the outskirts of the city and, you know, that's where she lived. But I was walking around the city figuring out what I need to do with my life because I thought that I'm not going to make it to the next day when we had another, you know, death was really so close. However, I meet this American journalist who takes so much risk to fly into a movie issue and starts taking pictures and writing stories and his name was Paul Sullivan. Paul, you know, had bodyguards like a bunch of militias surrounding him while he was doing this sort of stuff, you know, taking pictures and wondering who he wants to talk to. I happen to be right there walking by when I see him and yell in English. You know, that's my first time to actually try to practice English. I learned from movies. I said, hello, what's up? And then, you know, the militias were pointing their guns at me trying to, you know, get me away from him. But he said, let him come in. So I went in and he handed me a Bipsicola. Just one Bipsicola. I drank it so fast that I said, do you have another one? He brings out two more and he says, tell me your story. So I kept talking to him and he couldn't believe my frustration and anger. You know, everything I said was like, life here sucks. You know, I'm not supposed to be here. It's horrible. You know, people are dying and I don't want to join either militias. So there's no third option. It's so hard. You know, it's not easy to get away from here. So he flies back and publishes my story and tells me, stay in touch. Actually he handed me $50 to say buy a cell phone and try to communicate with me. So... And I think like four or five days later I received a phone call because I already have a phone. Paul knows my number. Someone calls me from North Carolina. I pick up. It's a voice of a woman. And she says, is this Abdi? Yes. Hi Abdi, how's it going? I just want to make sure if you have time we would like to talk, you know, discuss with you on a project. I'm like, I'm now outside but I can't talk. So let me get somewhere. So I get to the house, you know, away from other people because I could be a sympathizer. You know, I could be killed for being a spy speaking English on the streets of Somalia. And she calls me back in 15 minutes and she says, you know, these stories of Somalia are unheard. You know, nobody ever hears about that. So would you be interested in doing a diary of your daily life recording yourself on a phone and can you send us the audio? I said, okay, I was not quite sure if I really wanted to do that because that was a death sentence at some point because I was called and told not to speak English and to drop the American nickname and all those sort of stuff. So at least now I was in the area and nobody was targeting me. But speaking English, especially speaking about stories that were happening in the city, was some sort of like, it could be like certain death. Like they find me and they can kill me. I said, I will think about that. I walked for miles to go to my mother. I met her and I said, Mom, don't tell anybody. And I was whispering. I said, I have a big opportunity to tell my story to the rest of the world. And these radio people in North Carolina, well, of course she doesn't know North Carolina so I said, America, want me to tell this my story. She said, did not even try to do it. Stay here. Yes, she said, stay here. If you're supposed to die here, you're gonna die. But I don't want you to take risk and kill yourself. So that's like, no, don't do it. I emailed my brother who's in Kenya at the time and I said, Hassan, this is what I have. This is an opportunity and these people want me to tell my story. He said, go ahead and do it. This can open a window and it could be good for you. I went ahead and I said, okay, so I started recording myself every single day. Something was happening. And then the diaries, the things I recorded, the stories were aired on the radio as a podcast. And it became an extremely interesting, very touching story. They called it Messages from Mogadishu. One woman, however, who actually was fixing some breakfast in Yarmouth, actually she lived in Vermont at the time, Picham, Vermont. Picham, Vermont. Someone in Picham, Vermont called Sharon McDonnell actually heard my story while she was in the kitchen. She emailed quickly the radio. She said, this young man deserves a life. He's telling his story in the middle of this danger. She's been to Afghanistan and she knows this type of things. Many people can't do it. It takes so much courage to actually be able to tell your own story. Specifically if you're in Kabul or Mogadishu or Baghdad at the time or somewhere else. It's not easy. You get killed for those sort of things. Journalists were killed. Importers were killed. People who told their stories were killed. People who spoke up were targeted and killed. So to me it was extreme courage that I did that. And then the radio, Sharon who was living in Picham at the time said, is there a way that I can contact this young man? They give her my email address and they're asking me if she could reach out to me. And she sent me an email and the title of that email I still remember it was excruciating, gorgeous and painful. Excruciating, courageous and painful? Excruciating, gorgeous and painful. She talked about snow. She talked about the dogs that they have. She talked about the cats. She talked about our family. She talked about the tractor that they use to shovel their snow. She talked about the barn. She talked about the horse. She talked about the chickens. I couldn't digest all of this thing I was laughing. It's like it's not easy creating the email because someone can see it. But I was just so happy this type of world that she described. And then we emailed back and forth and then the second thing she would send is a clip of a snow where her husband, Gip, was using the tractor and she was using the shovel to get snow out of their driveway. I said this is heaven. And then from there a team, Abdi, a team of American professors, doctors and friends actually got together to save my life. To get me out of Somalia and bring me to Kenya as a refugee. I come to Kenya as a refugee. It wasn't easy to get to Kenya. It took us so much time to figure out how to get to Kenya because the Kenyans consider anybody coming from Somalia as a danger, as a terrorist. So they closed the border and they said no flights from Somalia can land in our country. So I went to Uganda and smuggled myself across the border, eight hours drive. And I ended up in Nairobi where my brother was and he said welcome to the refugee life. We had some cash from team Abdi. And the first thing we did, we ate at the Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is Nairobi? This Nairobi. It's a big deal eating there. It's like rich people eat there. It was great. The chicken was tasty. I never had any food like that. The Coca-Cola was amazing. We loved it. We enjoyed it. And then once we walked out of that it was March 20th I think 2011. And my brother said watch out. Next thing you know is someone is going to handcuff you for no reason. I said why? Why did we were just, why I was like figuring out why would they do that? Someone put a handcuff on my hand. And I saw someone was dragging me. It's normal. Some refugees are being targeted by the police every single day in Kenya. And all they want is money. You know what they call us? They call us the ATM machine. So they come to withdraw money from our pockets. And then they walk away laughing, you know, like nobody talks about that. It happened to me many times. I had to brighten myself up. So every time you're refugee in Nairobi well technically refugees are not supposed to be in Nairobi. Because you're refugee. What are you doing in the city? Refugees have refugee camps. And they're in North East in Kenya. There's one called Daab. There's another one called Kakuma that people are supposed to go. But my brother had seen that and it's horrible. You can't live in it. It's dry. It's hot. And then you only live on rations brought by the United Nations once in two weeks. And that's not even enough. So as a young man, life there is so, so hard. I was 25. Yeah. So I come, you know, my brother and I we realized that and we started selling socks, hats, you know, whatever we could sell. And that was sort of illegal business. But we needed some sort of income. So we woke up early in the morning and went to this store and the guy handed us so much stuff like clothes and hats and he's like, go, you have two hours. You have to set everything. So we would come dashing on the streets and sticking whatever we were selling into the windows of cars so that people have to buy or maybe say, get away from me. So it was sort of danger. We could have been shot. But somehow I was really okay. You know, it's like, it's not more of a issue. I don't feel like nobody's going to recruit me or do anything to me. So life has felt good and I really bought a nice shirt and jeans and shoes and, you know, was going to restaurants when I had money and we had Team Abdi and we were discussing what are the best ways that we could come to America. And then I met Min, who's now sitting behind you. She, Min actually tutored me English beginning from 2012, I believe. And she became a tutor and my English, you know, from the movies now turned into sort of like learning the grammar and reading a lot of good articles written and books and all those sort of things. And so that was so interesting. And I felt like even though I was refugee, but I had the future. I was looking forward to something. You know, learning English and getting connected to these people and we landed. My brother and I landed two different colleges in Nairobi. Well, I want to clarify this. As a refugee, you're not supposed to go to college. So that's not how it works. But as long as you can pay money in Kenya, you can do anything. You can get citizenship. You can get passport. It all depends on the money. So with Sharon and everybody else writing letters, we ended up, I ended up going to a college called African Nazarene University and my brother went to another college. So the two of us were now busy. You know, going to school and working, just figuring our way out. But however, I tried student visa to the United States. I applied for a community college in Maine. The college accepted me surprisingly when I did some tests. And they said, you're great. We're going to send you the forms. Take these forms to the U.S. Embassy. And you're all set. You know, it depends on the U.S. government. If they give you the visa, come over here. You know, you can stay in the school. And then once your education finishes, you can go back to your country. I was so excited because this was the closest I could get to come to the United States. So we put everything together. We have letters from Bernie Sanders and other people. The wrote letters that are like, you know, this young man deserves to come to this country and study. But the U.S. Embassy did not give me a visa. They denied me. They denied me based on bureaucracy. I remember what he said. He said, listen, you know, a student visa is a non-immigrant visa. That means you're not immigrant. So if you go to the United States, go to college and study, how can you prove that you're going to come back and tell me where do you want to come back? He said, do you want to come back to Somalia? I said, do you want to come back to Kenya? I said, where do you want to come back? So in this case, I really have a reason to not give you the visa. Goodbye. Of course, I was devastated. But I realized that how hard the American immigration system is. I want to take you back to before I left Somalia and before I met Sharon and before I met anybody else when Somalia was run over by the Islamists. I was figuring out one way I could get out of Somalia. And there were two ways that Somalis actually left Somalia at the time. One was crossing the ocean into Yemen. There's the Gulf of Aden, which sits between Somalia and Yemen. Another one was going through Ethiopia and crossing the desert. Through Ethiopia and Sudan and then crossing the desert and going all the way up to Libya and then catch a boat to Malta or Sicily. Sicily. Those two islands in Europe. The one crossing the desert was extremely expensive. $3,000 or something like that. I could never get that money. Never. Whatever I do. The other one in the Gulf of Aden just costed $80, $80. So I worked so hard as a conductor, someone who assisted them to the driver bringing people up to, you know, in Mogadishu at the time. So I worked for months and I only earned $50. So I want to read a small, like an excerpt from that and talk a little bit about the boat. There was a lot of jostling and the militias fired shots into the air to control the crowd. Finally, the boat was ready to leave. The passengers, hidden under a heavy tarp, they were off to Yemen. I wanted to be on that boat with my friends. I didn't care how dangerous it was. I did not want to go back to Mogadishu. I watched into the line for the next boat. When it was my turn to pay, I handed the smuggler my 40 American dollars. Where is the other 40? He shouted. The boat is $80. I started telling him, I didn't have the rest, but he didn't want to hear my story. He threw the cash back in my face and said, fuck you. And moved on to the next person. In a few minutes, that boat was off. Me, still on the pier, miserable beyond belief. Evening was settling in Bossasso and the crowd waiting to get on the boat grew larger. I needed 40 more dollars. I did not know what to do. So I walked back into town to see if there were any jobs available. I found nothing. There was no big market like Bakara where you could find odd jobs as a toot or porter. And I knew that the more time I spent in Bossasso, the less money I would have. Because sooner or later, I would need to eat. I skipped dinner, but I had to get breakfast. Locals figured that the migrants came with a lot of money. So they were gouging prices on everything. Bread and tea that would have cost 20 cents in Mogadishu were a dollar. That night, I lay on the beach next to a crowd of migrants waiting for the sun to rise. A few hundred feet from the pier. In the morning, I went back to the pier and saw a familiar face. It was Abdulahi Marobey, a man from my neighborhood in Mogadishu. His wife and two kids were with him, all trying to get to Yemen. When he saw me, he ran over. We chatted a bit. I told him I had financial issues. But I, too, was hoping to get to Yemen. He wished me good luck. I watched as he and his family boarded a boat and slowly disappeared over the horizon. By afternoon, we heard that Abbas and Ahmed's boat had made it to Yemen safely. I was happy for them. But all I could think about was my own sad situation. I paced up and down the beach for hours. Mostly, I didn't want to admit to myself the obvious. I would be going back to Mogadishu. Then came terrible news. Abdulahi Marobey's boat had capsized a few hours of the Samalik cost. More than 70 people drowned. Abdulahi and his family did not return. Had I been on that boat, I probably would have died with them. Had I been on Abbas and Ahmed's boat, I would have lived. As I trudged back to the basketball, I felt my whole life was like that. Every day that I could remember was a matter of life and death. So that was basically what life in Somalia looked like at the time. It's just a matter of life and death. Frisking your life. Right. I mean, you know, there's two movies that they made out of Somalia. One was called Black Hawk Down. Another one was called A Captain Philips. It's about the Somali pirates. So these movies about Somalia, it's all about what? Just militias, how horrible life is, and all those sort of stuff. Of course, there's all that documented in this book, but one message that you find in this book is the human desire for survival. It's just a basic right for all of us. We need to survive, and we need to leave. We need to eat. I told myself English. I avoided recruitment. I went to Kenya. I met friends. I landed in college. I went to college, not even being able to eat sometimes a day. But that was what I really needed to do. But then it just shows you how the American immigration system isn't as easy as we all think it is. Right. As a young man from Somalia and around that age, America puts Somalia under probably the axis of evil, I think. One of the countries that the United States government considered as a safe haven for tourists. So let's assume you're an American interviewing immigrants. How would you trust a young man from Somalia shows up to your window for an interview? And I speak English. When was the last time you were in Somalia? I would say 2011. That was pretty close. So it's so hard for the U.S. people to interview the officers to really trust us. But then there's no way that they can read my mind. There's no way that I can have my story to them so that I would say, I'm not really what you think. I'm not a tourist. Being a Somali does not make me a tourist. Being a Muslim does not make me a tourist. Being, you know, a refugee. A terrorist? Yeah, a terrorist. Someone who makes problems. Someone who blows up things. That's the main theme of the time about Somalia. Still in Kenya, Somalia is sending them to terrorism. It was not really easy. I got denied a student visa. And then what's the next thing I could do? I didn't give up. That's when you know you're onto something. My friends and the supporters and people who were so close in my life, they were just also thinking about ideas. But one thing that many people didn't know about is something called the Diversity Visa Library. I happened to be in the right coffee shop one evening and I looked across the street and I see a note on the wall and I walk up to the note and he says apply for the U.S. Diversity Library and I walk inside that building and the guy who's running all over the place says it's real. You apply, you win and you go to America. And I said, are you kidding me? He's like, yes. It costs a few cents. But if you're lucky and if you win and you go to the United States. And he's like, who guys? And I said, why don't you go yourself? I said, I've been trying this since 1999. I'm not lucky to win. So many people have tried it and I was like, this guy's been trying since 1999. How much luck do I need to win this thing? Anyways, it cost me a few cents and I applied, you know, with ten of my friends and we said, let's wish ourselves luck. Six months later everyone had to find out, you know who, did anyone listen to this American life podcast called I'll be on the golden ticket? That's me. That's where the story begins. So, yeah and we had to apply, you know, and six months later we had to, you know, everyone has to make sure who won. My friends went first and everyone was like not selected, not selected, not selected, continued. I was like, who won? Except me. I put on my information and I couldn't believe what the screen was saying. You had been randomly selected for father processing on this visa. Oh my god, yeah. They threw me around. My friends were so, so, so excited and then I was like wondering so what's next? Am I going to America tomorrow? I wasn't quite sure. There were so many difficult steps ahead and one of them included I had to put together all the documents from Somalia. I have no documents at all, no passport, no parts certificate. That's why first job number one in my book is called Born Under the Tree, you know, under the Neem Tree. I say I was born in 1985. My mom doesn't know when. I need to find out the month. She doesn't know the month. I need to find out the day. I call her mom. When was I born? She's like she usually says it was hot and humid. But guess what? It's always hot and humid in Somalia. We don't have snow. We don't have falls. It's always the same time, right? So, yeah, I picked that, you know, June 20th, actually when I came to America because in Kenya my birthday was January 1. And almost every refugee was born on January 1. On my Facebook January 1 I have 700, 800 birthdays and I'm like happy birthday to all refugees. Wish you all luck. So many cakes. But I try to be a little bit more sophisticated and professional so I picked June 20th. Why? Because it's World Refugee Day. So I stick with June 20th. So June 20th is my birthday. The book actually came out June 20th. It was all timely. And so it kind of tells the stories that are not in those two movies that I mentioned, you know, the stories that people need to hear. And it's just my memoir, you know, how much I love this country and how much I avoided everything else to come here and most importantly find life. I'm not looking for anything else. I'm not looking for or steal anything from this country. I came here to contribute as much as I can, but most importantly to just belong and be part of it. And there's a lot of, you know, talk over there about integration and assimilation. I totally understand. Some people are freaked out of assimilation. Assimilation might mean you need to throw that scarf and, you know, uncover your hair and be part of these people. Integration might mean no you don't have to do that. You know, you just integrate but, you know, attach to your culture and religion and what not. And then there's the melting pot that, you know, many people say like, this is a melting pot country. It's like, who's who wants to melt into something else? Right. And then it's like, what about if we become a salad? Like the salad has so many different ingredients. And it all tastes good. It's delicious. But no one, like the tomato is not melting into the cucumber. So they're all over there but you eat them together but it's all delicious. So we can be like that. So that's basically, you know, so my feeling of America changed a little bit when I came to this country was like when I was in Somalia I avoided speaking Somali. I spoke English all the time. Why? Because I thought it was wonderful. I was so obsessed with it. I didn't even speak good English and I remember I was wearing a lot. I swear words were kind of backing me up every time I can't find I can't find the word. And my friends loved it, you know, they just wanted to hear me. So they're like, oh, say it is. And I say, and they're like, you sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And now I realize, now I realize that I have a better accent than him. Is that true? That's true. Doesn't he have an accent? Yeah, right. He can't say little. He says little. So who sounds more like American? And he's the one I learned English from. Yeah, isn't that interesting? I know. So when I came to Boston and the family actually moved from Bichon, Vermont to Yarmouth, Maine I landed in the United States, August 11. And that was the day after Michael Brown was killed in Missouri. The young black man was shot and killed by the cops. And the Black Lives Matter was just kind of emerging. Did I care all about that? I did not. I landed and yelled, I'm in America. The lady who was so bored next to me in the flight just had smiled and she said, wow. Really? You're excited? 20 hours of flight. I said, yeah. And so we drove all the way from Logan airport to Maine on 295 and it was like nine o'clock at night. It's so dark. Somehow I thought that I was cannot. Who are you driving? The people of the white American family in Yarmouth, Maine, we never met but they have been supporting me forever. But the reality kicked in when I was sitting in the backseat of the car and we were headed home. And then what was going on in my mind is that I'm completely different than all other Somali immigrants because I didn't come to the U.S. being considered a refugee. So I had no assistance from the U.S. government. I wasn't given any counseling on trauma or PTSD or anything like that. So I ended up in this family's hands. Right? And my family were 9,000 miles away from me. And now while we were driving for three hours to get home the thing that was ringing in my mind was is this going to be okay? Am I going to like this? How will you interact with these people? What's it going to be like? What's America like? This whole confusion and things that created my mind just actually surprised me because before the plane landed I was the heaviest man on earth. Just yelled everything. But then reality kicked in within a few minutes. We got home. They have a beautiful house and they have horses and chickens and all this stuff. So you can imagine how big the property looks like. Looking through the window of my room in the morning seeing deer and turkeys and everything, this wildlife grazing. So you can't see the next neighbors. You have to walk up a while to get to their house. So I realized this does not look like the America that I see in the movies. It was like the walking dead area. No pedestrian, like you can't see people. People are driving around, it's very quiet and I was freaked out and we woke up and there was still all this breaking news on the television and people have been talking about it. So I call her my sister Natalia is the daughter of the family and she and I actually started walking next day to get introduced to the neighbors. They were so curious and asking me what Yarmouth is like a town of 7,000 people extremely less diverse you can't see a person of color in the area and I was the new guy in the area so every neighbor had to know me before they dialed 9-1-1 or something like that. So we got to meet every neighbor and said my name is Abdi and I'm here I don't know how long but I'm here now and I'm excited and I was wearing a coat even though it was still August but I thought it was really really cold. So my introduction was interesting and first thing I asked it was like where's McDonald's where's Dunkin Donuts I thought everyone loves it and then they said oh if you want to go down that way 3 miles I went to Dunkin Donuts and no one wanted to come with me because no one wants to drink there I don't know and I realized I realized I realized two things that were really really difficult well first thing was how do you order something there's a menu I have no idea what a menu like hot chocolate was for example and second thing was when they take you order they need to write down your name so when she asked me to spell my name I wasn't quite sure what to say I said Abdi Abdi she was just a young woman just hired and she was like A for what we Africans actually never spell out our names so it was one lesson to learn right and then we went back and forth and then I realized when I came back home I was like do you guys spell out your name yes so A for what like A is an apple B as in maybe Ben Gore say it may Ben Donuts and I as an iPhone so I memorized it wherever I go whenever I go when they ask me for my name that's what I go by that's what I say it's fun isn't it but that's what I say everybody else is like J as in John Abdi as in I don't know so that's what I go by now yes so the book came out like a little after Trump was elected so I was kind of finishing it up finishing it up and it's my first book it's a memoir I hope everyone will like it I hope everyone will buy it you'll find so many interesting stories in there I still have PTSD and then there's no question about that it takes quite a while to recover from it but to me I don't know how long it will take because I didn't come with my family my mother lives on the same street and you know when I describe chapter 1, 2, 3 and 4 she is still out there and it's horror it's extremely difficult to read and when I was writing she was helping me with all these events and things that happen in the area but she's still there so you can imagine what it feels like to be here and trying to get away from the past but I can't because the past lives in me my entire family is still out there so when I receive a phone call my whole world goes back and I'm right there I know where she is, I know what's going on I think she wants to come here not because she loves America but she's tired of war she's tired of the conflicts that are happening in there she wants to come here and stay here temporarily until she can go back at some point can I do that? I can't I'm still a green card holder even if I become a citizen it's a long process I look forward to voting 2020 I cannot vote in these midterms I can't because I have a green card and they don't let us vote sadly even though I'm more American than Trump himself well actually I'm more American than many people because I still have so much love and appreciation for the things privileged that we still have in this country but I can't vote, I'm not really part of the process of this country yet so I'm still considered as a refugee as an immigrant and I'm like when will I ever see myself get away from this name when will I be called American when will I be called my name? I receive emails and text messages from people I don't talk at this event, it's for refugees and immigrants and we thought we are the right person I'm like of course everyone still thinks I'm still a refugee you know it's like it's not easy to get away from it I crossed into Canada before term was elected I went to Quebec you know why I did that because I have never ever legally crossed into another border right I crossed my borders but I didn't have any documents so it was so interesting to hand out my green card to the officers in the Canadian they looked at it and said you know welcome to Canada and then on the way back to the US just showing them they looked at it and they said welcome to the United States so it was a huge moment turning point in my life now for the last year and a half and maybe in the future until the White House is now my brother he was denied to come to the US two weeks when Trump came and then they sent him a letter which says all routes or I can't remember where it was maybe all avenues that's right all avenues were exhausted so don't even try to apply or come for an interview again it was devastating but Tim Abdi now turned to Tim Hassan we got him a Canadian process through a Canadian church and he's coming to Toronto sometime very soon yes but can I go see him I don't think so so for those of you from Vermont I have a question for you who lives in Derby? I heard that there's a restaurant in Derby is it library? from the Canadian side and then to the US side so the song could go to the US? that's what we were thinking I'd say like you're in Canada and I'm in the US is that possible? okay great that's really good to know so there's like a black line that crosses down the middle of the building once you're in the library you can go anywhere in the library but you have to go if you go in it's the door you have to leave from you can't go into the library from America and leave the library to Canada oh okay no you can't do that but your brother can come in from Canada and you can come from America you can walk around all the library everywhere and shake hands all you want and then you must leave by the way you came but what happens if I try to leave the Canadian? there's a video camera can you hear what they're working on? huh? they were told by car no they didn't come out oh they'll come after me? okay, alright that's good to know that's really good that's what we're trying to do and we will document that how do your brother in the middle of the library is disturbing? because we can't meet he can't come here and I can't go and that will show how complicated this administration is and the separate us but we're trying to find each other so that's what we're trying to do and I will keep you posted alright, questions now do you want to answer that? so I heard the stories of Abdi and Mogadishu from Sharon our friend who we lived and teach him at the time and they lived and teach him so I started hearing stories about him from them and it was Sharon who said you know, Hassan and Abdi are just hanging out in Nairobi they were trying to get a student visa and I was teaching college writing at the time would you be willing to so we just set up kind of a correspondence course by email and I put them in touch with some of my students and it was just an opportunity for them to practice writing in English did you skype though? did you skype? we didn't skype no, we did it all by you oh the you skype was Sharon yes teacher yes I I define American as as a human being who has dreams has a heart for all the good things it bothers me to see a division in this country and some of the things that people argue about and some of the misconceptions misunderstandings that kind of rotate around immigration or refugees or things like that but I have my own way of seeing America I have my own story and I I escaped recruitment I escaped war I escaped everything else you can suck you in to just come here in this country and to leave the freedom that this country has so I really appreciate the freedom this country has and in the eyes of the world even before I came to the US the way many people see America is an exceptional nation because of the founders of this country and the things that have been written on the laws and the opportunities plenty of opportunities that people have so as long as you appreciate those things I think you're a good American I'm not specifically targeting a party because I don't even know which party I associate my field with sometimes Democrats get into my nerves but but as long as you love as I love everything that this country is doing good I appreciate it and that's why I say I'm really more American because so many people don't understand what they have but I appreciate what we have in this country oh and when I was in Somalia I did but like I said it was expensive the only way to go there was through Ethiopia, Sudan and then desert and then across some sort of ocean but that was if I had that money I wouldn't be here now yes I would have done it I tried Yemen I mean my life is full of lack, determination, risk so many things but who knows I mean I have friends that survive the boats but today they're still out there in Saudi Arabia they haven't done anything for their lives they just leave from hand to mouth whereas I left 10 years after them came to Kenya and came to the United States in the last four years I have done so much including writing a book and going to college and all of these things so yeah it strikes me that first of all you are a fantastic storyteller and this has been such a pleasure but what really strikes me is that you have this incredible one stroke of luck with the lottery but the rest of it has been your own perseverance, your dedication to your dream your courage and your your decision to make your life a life of purpose and gratitude and it it moves my heart to see you standing here alive and beautiful and not dead on the streets it's a lovely thing thank you yeah well yeah my mom says that I wasn't supposed to die it's like that sometimes when in Islam we believe that everyone has a leaf in a tree and that tree is somewhere out there in heaven or somewhere else and then when that leaf fails that's the end of your life you die so she says your leaves still green and I'm like yeah but don't tell me about it because when I hear it turns yellow I don't want to hear so yeah I survived this day but my family are surviving the worst they go to bed every night thinking about I'm not sure what's going to happen tomorrow my sister has five kids and I keep telling her stop you can't have no more babies because I'm financially responsible taking care of you and you're just leaving a privileged life of uncertainty it's so good that my brother is eventually be able to come to North America and maybe five years from now he and I will do something when maybe this administration is gone maybe he'll be able to come here I'll be able to go out I can't wait to introduce him to Christmas those are one of the things that I am really so proud of because being with this white American family made I have learned so many things they taught me how the dishwasher runs they taught me how the oven and the toaster all of these tiny things that you guys take for granted and the first time they put me behind the wheels like I crash into their garage but they said it's fine it's gone they have been so kind extremely kind to me I think everyday what can you give these people they have done so much that I can't even do for the next 10 years because as a refugee where would I get $1,500 to buy a ticket to come to America I can't as a refugee I can never get my money they raised it and they took care of it so much effort two hands let's go for you first thank you for your talk and do you still like to watch movies I do not what I saw as Meg well of course there are so many other movies I just came up but I can't because I'm touring around they send me to Arizona and all these places like I'm stuck in a hotel I don't know where the movie theater is so once I think slow down I can't wait to go back to the movie theater again but yeah now it's not some comedy and other movies like I'm not catching up with but I love Star Wars as well yes so I'm teaching your book currently to my college students at Tate Michaels and I wanted to say first of all I have been so incredibly moved not just by the story but by the quality of your writing which I see as incredibly artful and loving and what I wanted to be able to say to you I'm so impressed and inspiring your non-judgmental view of people is and in particular the scene in Baidoa I hope I'm saying that where you were a 6 year old boy and you picked up the bullet and you handed it to the young man who was searching the home where you were and you saw him as a person and the red goes through the book in so many different ways I called him uncle you see people as people and I'm so inspired by that and grateful and my question now 20 minutes later is what are you doing now for work besides stuff for the book what job have you found in name what are you doing in your community there I'm an interpreter I'm a community organizer fixer the community most of the community have been through the same experience there's two different of them Somali's biggest displacement have been 9 to 1 so some people were so lucky to already get out of Somalia and they haven't seen what we have seen when I picked that bullet at the age of 6 and to call the guy uncle it saved my life he found me as an innocent kid but around that time people have already been crossing the Somali border and went into Kenya and I'm sure that by 1992 Kenya had 300,000 Somali refugees and the inflates have even grew larger from there but now in Maine there actually is not there's probably a larger Somali community compared to Vermont but there isn't a lot of them Portland area where I live there's just handful and I talk in my chapter of respect I talk a little bit about the community and my honesty just my own interpretation because I worked with this community for over two years now and the things I see is that people feel like they're here temporarily but they might be set back but what you need to know is when you come to the US as a refugee you need to know that you're here permanently because you get a green card and you get citizenship and you move on but people aren't going to the adult aid to learn English people aren't feeling like I can really adjust to America it's really hard people don't feel like I want to eat apple pie and steaks and burgers my cultural tradition I need a predominant Somalis are so proud just in case you didn't know this we're tribal we appreciate our values and norms of whatever we have in the country and that's how we live so if my mother has neighbors of her own tribe she would be the happiest on earth but for her to come to Portland I live in an apartment with other people that she might not understand she won't like this place she calls it temporary and she's expecting Somali to have peace at some point so I, you know walking through the community so one of the things I was trying to just bridge the gap was well first of all let's accept that we're here let's not fool ourselves like this is home and this is home because the people who came in 97 who said we're here temporarily had kids they are going to college and the kids don't speak Somali anymore they're Americans they're completely assimilated and then that even drives people crazier I don't want America to steal my kids and my culture and my heritage but instead of thinking we're here temporarily why don't we actually accept but then find a way when I understand some complicated issues America teaches one English language in the schools to get their things from the schools and that's a bigger problem there's no way that I can solve that if you hire me to teach Somali at the high school I would be more than happy to actually teach Somali but is that necessary in America? it's like many kids now we don't have to do that Somalis only there are Vietnamese Chinese like what do you want to do with those sort of kids now there's Spanish of course so I think that's one of the problems that just scares some people that I worked with but also the kids that were born here that are Somalis, Somali parents some of them are so successful extremely successful they went to college, found their values appreciated their culture they might not be able to speak Somali but they're out there advocating for Somali culture advocating for Somali music advocating for integration doing those sort of jobs and where can you find them? go to Minnesota, there's a lot of them yes there's a lot of them that are really really doing that sort of a job I have a good friend that last time I was there for my book tour I made this gentleman who's my age but speaks zero Somali but speaks about Somali speaks to the community in English about Somali I teach about Somali he's very knowledgeable he's very knowledgeable so he's teaching the other young generation about our culture about our music he somehow even can put it in a better way than I can because he's really that's what he talks about so everyone is not failing but every community has ups and downs in Maine are there Somalis in Lewiston as well? there is so is the community divided there Somali and Somali Bantu? Somali Bantu is a separate there are Somalis but they have their own community and the reason is I hate to say this but there's some sort of discrimination within Somali community Bantu's are really discriminated because they are farmers and they were kicked out kicked off their lands and other tribes took them and I remember in the night before 9-11 one of the recent one of the interview questions that the U.S. Embassy would ask people is if you're Bantu you're discriminated so you'd be easier for Bantu's to come to the United States so in Maine there's a large actually growing number of Somali Bantu's and they speak the my dialect which I have been to speak because my parents come from that area and they're doing really great I mean they have their ups and downs but they're I would say separate from the other Somalis Do the Somalis here discriminate against the Bantu as much as they did in Somalia? The answer is yes two days ago a Bantu man was and this is all of the news not in CNN but in Somali you probably know about it so someone was burned to life and he was from Bantu because he married a woman who was from the other tribes so he was burned alive and there's all this hashtag now on Somali social world saying like I'm Bantu as well so we still have that discrimination bringing our tribal affiliations I'm being attacked for my tribes as well and I documented in my book is I belong to the Rhan Wain which are considered lower class why do they consider lower class? they're so large but unfortunately they're farmers they love their thematic culture and stuff like that but in the Somali city people they somehow don't associate with thematic people they're considered as bad things for example I talk about when my mother they said my mother smells like a goat pea the goat pea and my mom's like I love my goats I love the way the goats smell but when someone calls her you smell like goat I mean is that an insult? she didn't find us an insult but many people found us an insult so that exists and I hope there should be some movement I'm not sure if I'm the right guy but there must be and this is part of the movement of like discovering the truth I talk about it I talk about the tribe state I talk about who killed who why are we really fighting who are the Rhan Wain I don't mention Ben Thu at all because that's I'm just writing one book but I kind of talk about basic introduction of how the tribal things work in Somali I mean who's fighting in Somalia it's us tribes we're killing each other you belong to the tribes so I don't want you we displace ourselves the war civil war was started by us and I don't know where we got this tribal thing from I don't even believe it's true because we all look alike you all look alike I said I was like what does it do so you were thinking which tribe I'm lying to there's see there welcome to the Somali world but you couldn't tell she can't I could tell that he was from there because you read my book how would you tell that it's physical that's so interesting I look like every other Somali so it's so funny that you I don't know I really seriously don't know because you look like everybody else but I can tell you one thing you grew up in Kenya so yeah welcome to the Somali world it was like in Americans like I'm from North Carolina we identify ourselves as our tribes sometimes we kill each other all this care of the other it's you know America is full of it too it's it's terrible care that someone who doesn't look like you or particular culture is going to I don't know what I don't know what that's right thanks guys