GONZALEZ: Hey everybody, I’m Ana.

NUNES: I’m Alex. And you’re listening to Mosaic.

GONZALEZ: Alright, Alex, let’s talk about religion and immigration.

NUNES: Let's do it.

GONZALEZ: Lots of people come to America for religious reasons.

NUNES: Definitely. Sometimes they’re fleeing persecution. They want a place where they can practice their faith freely.

GONZALEZ: Once they’re here, religion helps connect immigrants and keep their traditions alive.

NUNES: Right. But what if you’re an immigrant who moves to a new place and there are no churches or temples there for your religion? What if you and your family members are the only people in your entire state who practice your faith?

GONZALEZ: In this episode of Mosaic, we meet someone in that exact situation.

KAMAL: Nobody knows who you are, and why you are here. And I didn’t know what to do, where to go. If I walk a block or two, I’m gonna be lost.

NUNES: If you visit enough organizations in Providence that help new immigrants, sooner or later you’ll probably bump into this guy.

KAMAL: Hello, this is me, Kamal.

GONZALEZ: Kamal is an Arabic interpreter from Iraq. He translates for other immigrants at doctors’ offices, appointments at social service agencies, and even trips to the DMV. 

KAMAL: Whatever appointment they have, I tell them what to do. Get them into an orientation sometimes: how to use the bus and how to go to the market--how to buy, how to purchase, how to do. I like to help people. Yeah, I like that help.

NUNES: We first meet Kamal at the Refugee Dream Center. He’s there to help translate interviews for us.

GONZALEZ: Kamal is a man who likes to stay busy. And when you talk with him, you get the sense he’s always been that way.

NUNES: Kamal has lived in the U.S. for about two-and-a-half years now. But he’s originally from Bashiqa, Iraq. It’s a town in the northern part of the country, northeast of Mosul.

GONZALEZ: In Iraq, Kamal is a man who wears many hats. He’s an interpreter for the U.S. Army. For a year, he helps soldiers and doctors at a hospital communicate with Iraqi patients.

NUNES: It’s a job he basically falls into one day.

KAMAL: My mom got sick, badly sick. She got a stroke, and we rush her to the hospital. And, at that time, I met the troops. There were injured people everywhere and nobody would interpret for them. They were young kids. So I volunteer. Wanted to help. 

NUNES: In Iraq, Kamal also teaches English, and he does handy work on the side as a plumber and an electrician. In northern Iraq, Kamal says, you can fry an egg on the ground. So he fixes a lot of air conditioners.

GONZALEZ: And with all this going on, Kamal also finds time to earn a master’s degree studying ancient literature.

NUNES: As he’ll proudly tell you, Kamal is the first person on the Arabian peninsula to write a thesis on love in the work of the Greek poetess Sappho.

KAMAL: [Sound of flipping through manuscript.] I wrote all of this. Everything I did.

NUNES: One of the few possessions he has with him from Iraq is a hardcover copy of his master’s thesis.

KAMAL: This chapter is on love, definition of love and the different kinds of love. Chapter two: erotic love in Sappho’s poetry, because she talks about erotic love. 

GONZALEZ: Beyond analyzing the nuances of ancient love, Kamal has other passions. He’s a religious person. He’s part of a small, religious minority in Iraq: the Yazidis.

NUNES: Yazidi people follow this monotheistic religion rooted in ancient ideas that some believe predate the Abrahamic faiths.

KAMAL: The Yazidis, we consider ourselves to be an old religion that’s related to the Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations, in those times when the sun was the center of the worship. We believe in God, and we believe in peace, and we love people. We pray for the peaceful of our neighbors, our friends, all others.

NUNES: Yazidis pray several times a day, and they worship at temples. They fast in December, and they hold ceremonies around the changing of the seasons.

GONZALEZ: Growing up, Kamal learns his religion like every other Yazidi: through oral tradition.

KAMAL: It is delivered to you when you receive it from your dad, and from your grandpa, and from your grandma. And it has been taught in that way. So a Yazidi is taught how to practice, how to worship, and how to learn his duties, being a Yazidi.

NUNES: Because there aren’t texts for people outside the Yazidi faith to read, there is a lot of misunderstanding about the religion.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Yazidis believe in a single God. They’re also taught that seven angels protect the earth.

NUNES: And some non-Yazidis have come to falsely interpret that to mean Yazidis worship a fallen angel that’s really Satan.

GONZALEZ: And that’s led to centuries of persecution.

KAMAL: We suffered a lot of that.

NUNES: After the U.S. invades Iraq in 2003, Kamal says discrimmination against Yazidis gets worse. In 2014, it reaches unfathomable levels of brutality.

PRESIDENT OBAMA NEWS CONFERENCE: And these terrorists have been especially barbaric towards religious minorities, including Christian and Yazidis, a small and ancient religious sect.

NUNES: In August of that year, ISIS, or ISIL, fighters invade Sinjar, a town in northern Iraq with a large Yazidi population. They execute and kidnap Yazidis. 

PRESIDENT OBAMA NEWS CONFERENCE: Chilling reports describe ISIL militants rounding up families, conducting mass executions, and enslaving Yazidi women.

KAMAL: My people ran away, fled for their lives to the mountains, where they were left for seven days, eight days, without water, without food. And young kids, young children, started dying because of that.

GONZALEZ: The United Nations estimates that thousands of Yazidis are either killed or kidnapped after the ISIS invasion. Women are raped and sold as slaves.

NUNES: The U.N. comes to formally label what happens to the Yazidis a genocide. 

KAMAL: How brutal was this incident? It was very, very horrible. And what can I say about this? I can’t say nothing because I am out of words. 

NUNES: Kamal is in Bashiqa, west of Sinjar, in August 2014. And soon after the invasion of Sinjar, he hears word that ISIS is headed for his town.

GONZALEZ: At midnight, he flees with his brothers and some friends. ISIS arrives in Bashiqa three hours later.

NUNES: Eventually, Kamal makes it safely to the city of Erbil, but his hometown is destroyed: homes, buildings, shrines, everything.

KAMAL: In Bashiqa, it’s known as the city of olive trees. ISIS burned all the olive trees. Some of the olive trees were a hundred years old and even older. It was all green and now, when you check the map, it is all dry because they burned everything. 

NUNES: After the genocide, Kamal and his brothers and sisters don’t feel safe in Iraq anymore. So they apply to be relocated to the U.S. as refugees.

GONZALEZ: Then, in 2016, Kamal gets a chance to visit Bashiqa after Kurdish Peshmerga forces liberate his hometown.

NUNES: He goes to his apartment and sees it’s virtually a total loss. He can’t salvage much more than a copy of his Sappho thesis.

GONZALEZ: But while he’s there, Kamal gets some very good news from the International Organization for Migration, or IOM.

KAMAL: I received a call from the IOM: “Well, prepare yourself, because the coming week is your travel day. You’re gonna move to the U.S.”

NUNES: Kamal and his sisters are getting priority because of the work they did as interpreters supporting U.S. troops in Iraq. They’re being resettled in Providence, Rhode Island.

GONZALEZ: Kamal flies into JFK Airport in February 2017.

NUNES: He’s happy and excited. It’s nighttime, and he’s amazed by the view of New York City.

GONZALEZ: Kamal is also a little intimidated. He’s thinking: How does someone make it in a place like this?

NUNES: But he doesn’t stay in New York long. In a few days, he’s driven up to Providence, where his sisters have already been resettled.

GONZALEZ: Kamal has done all sorts of research on Providence: what languages people speak here, what people do for work, what kinds of educational opportunities there are, even what crime is like in the city.

NUNES: But when he gets to Providence, it’s still really foreign to him.

KAMAL: Everything is different. Nobody would speak your language. And nobody knows who you are and why you are here. And I didn’t know what to do, where to go. I have no directions. If I walk a block or two, I’m gonna be lost.

GONZALEZ: There’s something else really new about Providence.

NUNES: Right. All his life, Kamal has lived around Yazidi people.

GONZALEZ: They pray together, fast together, go to these big celebrations together. The Yazidi community in Iraq is tight knit, and it’s a big part of his life.

NUNES: But in Rhode Island, Kamal says, there are no Yazidis. Outside his family and their home, literally, none.

KAMAL: We are the only family here, Yazidi family living here in Rhode Island. 

GONZALEZ: It’s a challenge. But even though he might be physically apart from other Yazidis, Kamal quickly realizes he can still draw on his faith for strength.

KAMAL: Every Yazidi is taught to be optimistic, to feel that tomorrow is going to be better. We believe that the night, the darkness of the night, will not last forever. After the night, the new day gonna start and the sun gonna rise again.

KAMAL: [Reading prayer in Kurdish]

NUNES: Kamal likes to start his day reciting a prayer in Kurdish, the most common language spoken among Yazidis. 

KAMAL: The idea of this is to welcome the new day, the new morning, the new sunrise--we call the new day--in full positivity to receive that day, to receive the gifts of that day.

GONZALEZ: Kamal says the prayer gives him strength. He feels like he doesn’t need to worry. And it helps him focus on being productive each day.

KAMAL: If you think positively, so you gonna work positively. And you gonna do your job, fulfill your duties, positively and complete them in a good manner. That power--I got that power from doing the worship, and then I start my day after that. 

GONZALEZ: After being here only a few weeks, Kamal starts looking for work. 

NUNES: When Kamal first gets to Rhode Island, he’s getting help from the Diocese of Providence. And one thing he notices is that the staff people there need help translating for Arabic-speaking immigrants, so he says: hey, I can do that.

GONZALEZ: It’s a volunteer gig. But Kamal says it’s a good fit. 

KAMAL: I believe that other people deserve to be helped. Because we were helped by the United States, by the IOM authorities, by the United Nations, and I’m trying to help others, and then they gonna start their life here from a point that I could say I helped a little bit.

NUNES: What Kamal does next is he uses the volunteer position at the Diocese of Providence as a springboard for other, paying jobs.

GONZALEZ: He starts working at hospitals and medical centers as an interpreter, and then he begins teaching at the Genesis Center. It’s this adult education center in Providence.

NUNES: And this all happens within about a year of arriving in Rhode Island. 

GONZALEZ: Kamal also keeps looking for extra positions. He says he’s going to be starting soon as an English teacher at Dorcas International.

NUNES: And, Kamal says, he’s made a lot of friends along the way.

KAMAL: Everywhere I could go, you could ask about me and they can tell you. They know me. And I like to make relationships here. And I have many other friends here, like Americans and Dominican Republic friends, and I have Congolian community friends.

NUNES: Kamal says he likes to go to parties, out to restaurants, or even just walks with his new friends.

GONZALEZ: And one thing that’s also helped Kamal adjust to life in the U.S. is maintaining a connection with other Yazidis, even if he can’t see them in person. 

NUNES: Right. So one thing you notice when you’re with Kamal is that his cell phone is really important to him.

KAMAL: Galaxy. Galaxy S8.

NUNES: So it does a lot for you, right?

KAMAL: Yes. Yeah.

NUNES: Kamal will stop mid-sentence to pull up Facebook on his phone and show you pictures of other Yazidis, or a video of a celebration at a sacred temple, or a song someone’s posted.

KAMAL: This is a friend, always posting live videos. [Music from online video.]

NUNES: So social media and the Internet has really made you able to stay in contact with your culture and people and everything?

KAMAL: Yes, that’s right. 

GONZALEZ: Both Sinjar, Iraq, and Kamal’s hometown of Bashiqa have been liberated from ISIS.

NUNES: And now, from his apartment in the U.S., Kamal can watch the rebuilding process.

GONZALEZ: He sees homes going up and sacred places being rebuilt.

KAMAL: I feel very happy. People are starting, gradually, to rebuild their life again. And I’m feeling proud of those people, those young boys and girls. They have that intention. They have that ambition.

GONZALEZ: Kamal is also able to share his life in America with Yazidis back in Iraq. 

NUNES: Yeah. And as we told you earlier, Kamal is passionate about literature, and he’s a poet. This is a poem he wrote: KAMAL: Tell them to go to Karsi to touch the rocks and to kiss the grounds and the valleys. Those valleys, they were blessed by the touch of those young feet, barefoot people.

GONZALEZ: Kamal writes about the experience of the Yazidi people, and then he posts his poetry on Facebook.

NUNES: This poem is about the Yazidi families that fled to the Karsi valley in 2014 and then were stuck there without food or water.

KAMAL: The cracked lips seeking for water. I ask you to listen, to keep listening silently to the whispers of those people. It is still there, and it is going to be there forever.

GONZALEZ: Kamal says he writes about the genocide so that people will remember it.

KAMAL: Because in that period, I believe that humanity stopped, and history stopped, everything stopped. You see children, young children, two years old, one year old, is dead because of thirst, is dead because of being a Yazidi.

NUNES: After the 2014 genocide, Yazidis fled Iraq and spread out across the globe.

GONZALEZ: Many were resettled in Canada. Other large groups moved to Germany, France, Australia and other countries.

NUNES: Several thousand Yazidis made it to the U.S. and settled in Nebraska. That’s the U.S. state with the highest number of Yazidis.

GONZALEZ: Kamal knows Yazidi people who resettled there. He keeps in touch with them online and says he wants to go there someday to visit.

NUNES: He says, at some point, he might also move to Nebraska permanently.

KAMAL: Maybe, one day, I’m going to move there to join them. It’s better to be with your people, because we have the same traditions, we have the same customs, we have the same everything. So I would like to join them one day.

NUNES: For now, Kamal has some concrete, short-term goals.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. He wants to go back to school. He’s not sure how many of his credits from Iraq will transfer, but he says he wants to study English or education.

NUNES: He also wants to get married and start a family. He wants to become a citizen. And he’s still hoping that his brothers and their families will be able to join him in the U.S. sometime soon.

KAMAL: Our family gonna be united again, as we were in Iraq. I hope so, and I wish today before tomorrow, because the soon they get here, the soon they learn how life is good here, and how life is peaceful, and how life is prosperous to be in the United States. Being in the U.S., being in America, is a great chance. And I can say it is a great incident to happen to me. It was a great moment.

GONZALEZ: Mosaic is a production of The Public’s Radio, edited by Sally Eisele with production help from James Baumgartner and Aaron Selbig. Our original music is by Bryn Bliska. Torey Malatia is the general manager of The Public’s Radio. I’m Ana Gonzalez.

NUNES: And I’m Alex Nunes. Thanks for listening.