Haseena Niazi, Billing Accountant
Coming to the United States from Afghanistan is not an easy move. But for Haseena Niazi, it only took until November 23 – and her first bite of turkey – for her to realize it wouldn’t be so bad.
To Haseena, her family is everything. She remembers as a child – she’s the youngest of 12 – sitting around the dinner table, listening to her siblings’ tales from school and her father’s from his office. Even though she was too young to add her own stories, she still enjoyed hearing theirs.
On November 23, a mere three months after her move from Kabul to the U.S., she found herself sitting around a different dining room table – this time with her newfound American family – celebrating Thanksgiving.
Even at home in Afghanistan, where family values are deeply ingrained in the culture and everyday life, there is no holiday like American Thanksgiving.
“In Afghanistan, we don’t have a special day for the whole family to get together and thank each other for everything,” she says. “I loved that. It’s my favorite American holiday.”
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO RHODE ISLAND
Growing up in Afghanistan in the 1990s was not too welcoming for young Haseena, or for her family of 14. When she was nine years old, her family couldn’t take any more war and uncertainty; they picked up and moved from Kabul to Peshawar in Pakistan.
They joined thousands of other Afghan refugees seeking peace away from home, building their own community of immigrants.
“We even didn’t feel like we were in Pakistan,” she says. “Because everywhere you would go, the store, the school, everywhere there were Afghans.”
In 2002, after the fall of the Taliban, her family was finally able to return to their home in Kabul. But she didn’t stay long. She had her eye on a university degree farther afield.
“I was always looking for scholarships,” she says. “I wanted to gain education in one of these foreign countries. America and United Kingdom were on my list, because I could speak English. So I always applied for scholarships, and I got the scholarship here in the U.S. So I came here.”
Simple as that, it seems. Haseena, a young, bright student with several years of professional experience already under her belt, accepted a scholarship to Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Her move from Kabul to Bristol was a big step: the first time living away from her family. But it didn’t stop there. Freshman year at college was filled with big decisions: which dormitory to live in, what classes to take, which clubs to join.
“I had to be independent and do everything on my own,” she says. “I had to decide which class I’m taking. I had to make all the decisions. It was very challenging.”
For Haseena, it was the first time making decisions without guidance from her parents. “Afghan women are very family-oriented and dependent,” she explains. “It’s always the parents or the elders who decide for us, even for very small little things.”
In the absence of her family, Haseena did the second best thing. She found an American family.
As part of the scholarship program, Haseena was to be paired with a host family. Hers – an older couple with grown-up kids of their own – actually signed up for the host family program only after hearing her speak at a local church.
“My American mom told me that when she heard me speak, she knew she needed to get involved,” Haseena says. “She told me she saw something in my eyes, and she needed to help me.”
Haseena would visit them on the weekends, and they, in turn, would drive to campus to visit her. They would catch up over meals and walks around campus. She would spend all major holidays with the couple and their extended family at their home. Still today, she flies to Bristol, Rhode Island every Thanksgiving to be with her American family.
A GOOD MATCH AT CREATIVE
With her degree in hand, Haseena began searching for her first job. She knew she could go work for a big financial company in the United States, but she wanted more than a job. She wanted to help her own country and others around the world.
“If I work for development companies which have projects in Afghanistan,” she explains, “through my work, I can both help my country and I can do my job.”
She accepted a position at Creative, working as an accountant for the organization’s programs in Afghanistan. And she jumped right in.
“When I started working here, I picked up everything very quickly,” she says. “The only thing that was challenging for me was the software that we were using, and I learned it after one week.”
She also liked the atmosphere. She found her coworkers to be friendly and welcoming.
“I didn’t feel like a stranger or anything when I started working,” she says. “I felt like family. Everyone was so welcoming and like a family, and that made me want to just continue working here.”
Haseena still misses her family very much. The visits back to Kabul are never frequent enough, and Skype doesn’t feel the same as seeing them. But she’s found ways to help her through.
From her American family in Rhode Island to a family of coworkers at Creative, Haseena knows that finding comfort, even far away from her own loved ones, is possible.
“Anywhere you go, if you make yourself comfortable,” she explains, “it’s easy to just feel at home and you do not miss your country or family that much.”
She still misses those family dinner table discussions back in Kabul, but she has found that looking around the table during a shared meal in the United States feels quite a bit like home now too.