HIGH HOPES in a NEW WORLD
Former interpreter from Afghanistan sets out here on American dream
Jay Yousafzoy’s life in Houston is much more different since he left Kabul last year. For one, Yousafzoy discovered, there is Mexican food. And he finds delights unimaginable to him back in Afghanistan: the zoo. Frequent trips to the beach. Visits to the movie theater (he liked “Jurassic World” and “12 Strong”). And the Texas Renaissance Festival.
“I never thought this existed,” Yousafzoy said.
Perhaps most happily for the former interpreter, who spent seven years working with American troops and their allies, Yousafzoy, 25, no longer has to fear reprisals from anti-American insurgents responsible for killing hundreds of interpreters from Afghanistan and Iraq. He arrived in Houston in last November, four years after first applying for a special immigrant visa available to interpreters and others who helped the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now, he has set about trying to realize his own American dream here in Southeast Texas: finding a job, continuing his education and helping relatives still in Afghanistan.
He spent several months living in southeast Houston with one of the officers for whom he used to interpret, gradually acclimating to a new nation and a new life.
He traded patrols in Humvees for commutes on the region’s busy roads in a 2009 Toyota Corolla. He moved to Pasadena and found a job at a hose and pipe manufacturing plant; within a few months, he was promoted to foreman. An avid bodybuilder — a hobby he picked up working with American special forces operators — Yousafzoy found Fitness Connection near his new apartment. He started working out six days a week, and he soon found some friends there.
But starting a new life in a new
country — nearly alone — is no easy task, and this first year has had its challenges, with many still-unrealized dreams.
While Yousafzoy no longer has to fear for his own safety, his family back in Kabul remains in constant danger.
He spends the nights trying to keep abreast of the news in Afghanistan, but barely a week seems to goes by without a bombing or other terrorist attack.
“Their lives scare me (now) more than I was scared for my life when I was there,” Yousafzoy said, as he tucked into a loaded baked potato at El Torito Country Cooking in Pasadena on a recent November evening.
Separation pain
He calls his family every day, to speak with his mother and father and his six siblings. And every month, he sends home as much of his paycheck as he can. He knows they have high hopes for him.
The pain of separation is severe. When he talks to his mother, sometimes she can’t bear to look at him.
His youngest sister — who turns 8 next month — kept asking when he would come home, and he finally had to tell her he wouldn’t be coming home anytime soon.
In a country where many women run the household, Yousafzoy had never really learned to cook before he arrived in the U.S.
Now, he tries to make the dishes he misses most, shorba — a type of beef broth — and bolani (a stuffed flatbread). The results never taste quite right, so he drives into Houston every few weeks to a traditional Afghan restaurant for food that tastes of home.
Like many other combat veterans, Yousafzoy has found the return to civilian life a little jarring — made all the more so by the transition to a new country and community.
He misses the brotherhood of the military, working alongside other American and Afghan servicemembers.
“It was very, very beautiful,” he said. “The love and friendship and trust — in all conditions.”
He had hoped to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, but was told that branch has stopped allowing noncitizens to enlist.
And he applied to the U.S. Army, but struggled with the entrance exam.
The year ahead
In years past, Yousafzoy ate Thanksgiving dinner with Americans on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan. Then, the holiday was marked by their distance from home, and the hope to be together again soon.
On Thursday, Yousafzoy drove to the house of a co-worker he met at his job in Pasadena for his first Thanksgiving in America. The house was filled with his friends and their family. He piled his dish with fried turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and green bean casserole.
He gave thanks for his friends, and he thought of his family back home.
“It's not very easy to just ‘take it easy,’ ” Yousafzoy said. “I hope I never, ever, hear anything bad happens to any member of my family.”
He thought about the year ahead. One of his fellow interpreters arrived in Houston a few months ago; another has received his visa, and will soon hopefully be on his way.
Yousafzoy hopes to enter his first body-building competition in the U.S. this year.
He is grateful for his job, his new home. But the expectations of his parents weigh in the back of his mind.
Most of all, he hopes to finally go back to school.
“Every son wants to make their family proud,” he said. “I can’t let my family down.”
“It's not very easy to just ‘take it easy.’ I hope I never, ever, hear anything bad happens to any member of my family.” Jay Yousafzoy