Coming to Astoria: An Immigrant's Tale

Prologue

The Middle East

My paternal grandmother was short. She was about 5 feet tall and skinny, but with strong, sinewy muscles, and she was meaner than anyone I knew. Most of the men were afraid of her, and no woman -- including my mother would ever talk back to her. She was never mean to me or my brother, Yusef.

She loved us and wouldn’t allow anyone to abuse us. No matter what she was doing at the time, cleaning or even in the middle of chastising someone -- if she saw us, she’d stop to pat us on the head and say a few kind words before sending us on our way.

Her husband, my paternal grandfather, had passed away when I was five after getting hit by a speeding motorcycle. Doing what she could for us was her way of filling the void his absence left.

My fondest memories during my early life in Jordan were the stories my grandmother used to tell Yusef and me of her life in Palestine. She used to seat us outside, under a fig tree and bring a bowl of pomegranate seeds for us to eat. As we ate the seeds one by one we’d ask her about Palestine. What was it like? Was it was nicer than Jordan?

She was always excited to reminisce about the home they loved, and were forced to leave. She’d look us in the eye, and then grab each of us under the chin, and squeezing our faces with her strong fingers she’d lean over and give us a kiss on the cheek. As she did so, she’d mutter, "Mashallah" which means ‘whatever Allah wills.’ It is a phrase of pride at the object of your attention.

She’d sit down between us, close her eyes for a short while as if trying to remember, and then open them back up and begin her story.

My grandparents were farmers in the northern West Bank section of Palestine. They lived in a small hilltop village, located in the city of Nablus, about a two day walk from Jerusalem and six days west of Amman, Jordan. It was a small village. It occupied about six square miles encompassing an area that took four hours to walk. In the morning, while working in the fields my grandmother would see the sun rise over the deserts of Jordan, and as she prepared the evening meal she’d see the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea.

The land had belonged to my grandfather’s ancestors going back as far as anyone could remember. Well over several hundred years. Each first born son would inherit the land, passing it to his first born son when he was too old to cultivate. It was a treasured piece of land which no one ever thought of selling. Being flat, it was easier than most plots to farm. Being the highest, it was the only spot for miles where one could see both the sunrise and the sunset.

In the mornings, at the first crack of dawn, my grandmother and grandfather would take their time as they took care of the livestock. They loved tending to the animals and would listen to them come alive as the suns blinding rays began appearing.

In the evenings after supper they would sit outside with their closest neighbors watching the sun sink into the horizon as they drank tea, and reminisced about long gone relatives. It was a very peaceful happy existence.

Most of the people there were farmers growing olives, rice, wheat and other varieties of cereals. A few were sheepherders who raised goats and sheep. Before Israel was formed they made a living by selling their produce, dairy and meat at the markets in Nablus and Jerusalem. After Israel was formed, getting into and out of Jerusalem was too dangerous. Not just from fighting between the two sides, but from thieves and bandits. My grandfather was able to continue trading with the Jewish, Christian and Moslem merchants in Jerusalem for a short while afterwards, but stopped after he was robbed on two separate occasions.

Prior to the fighting, the village was home to a close knit group of about 50 families. Nablus, she’d tell us, remained within the new borders of Palestine. For a short while after Israel was formed, life in the village was still good. Although many people in other parts of the West Bank were infuriated about losing their land, my grandparents were pretty much untouched.

The war of 1948, when the surrounding Arab countries declared war on Israel, came as a surprise to everyone in the village. They were caught in the middle, with the dictators and monarchs from the surrounding countries on one side, and Israel on the other. Not only was my grandfather and his neighbors unable to trade, but they lost much of their crops and livestock as a result of the fighting.

Palestine used to be occupied by a proud and strong people, many of whom were sheepherders, farmers, and merchants. Jerusalem, a sacred place for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, was a thriving city filled with people from all religions. For hundreds of years Christians, Jews, and Moslems lived together in peace.

It wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century when the countries known as they are now within the region were formed that things began to go downhill. Western nations such as Britain and France, hoping to keep the region under control, divided the area forming countries like Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq and others. Self-proclaimed monarchs and dictators were put into power in exchange for their loyalty. As time passed, these dictators and monarchs became more and more brutal. They kept peace within their borders by killing any opposition, and prevented dissent by killing not only those who spoke up, but their entire families as well. Also, they wanted to expand their borders, and saw Palestine and Israel as an opportunity.

The constant fighting wiped out any chance for my grandfather to make a decent living or raise a normal family. If the other countries had left the Palestinians and Israelis on their own, the two groups could have lived in peace and prosperity. Moslems and Jews who were neighbors beforehand, were told they would be declared traitors if they didn’t stop doing business with each other.

As the fighting continued, life in the village became unbearable. It forced some of the inhabitants, including my grandfather, to search for a safer environment for their family. Jordan they were told, was a good country, with a good king who would welcome them with open arms. My grandparents packed what they could onto horses, mules and wagons for the trip to Jordan. They offered the use of their land and home to neighbors in exchange for watching over them until the day came when they could return. 

My grandmother would end her story there, giving us a hug before walking away with tears in her eyes. I learned the rest of the story from the other kids in the neighborhood and in classes from the Palestinian teachers who were just as unhappy as my grandparents with life in Jordan.

As the fighting continued, the villagers and others from the West Bank began migrating to Jordan, landing in the outskirts of Amman. Refugee camps, the ghettos of the Middle East, were created in order to segregate the Palestinians.

The refugee camps, a collection of tents as far as the eye could see, were extremely dangerous areas to live in. Fights were constantly breaking out as people got caught stealing food to feed their family, or cutting in front of the water lines at one of the few wells at each camp. Jobs were hard to come by, unless one had enough money to bribe a government official. Occasionally someone would be seriously injured or killed for trying to go after someone’s daughter. The poverty and sub-standard living conditions were akin to those of fourth world countries.

However, as bad as the circumstances were, the influx into Jordan continued. Unwelcomed and unaided by the government or people of Jordan, the Palestinian people would find out too late they were better off back home and that the search for freedom and prosperity was far from over.

During one of our moments under the fig tree, I asked my grandmother about going back to Palestine. She said Jordan was our home now, that Palestine had become a changed place.

Your grandfather tried to go back once, she said.

What happened, we asked?

He got blisters on his feet, she said, and then went on to explain.

In 1950, about a year after settling in Jordan, my grandfather went back to the village to assess the chances of returning home. He was not met with open arms. In Nablus, just shy of his old farm, Palestinian ruffians attacked him taking his money and killing his favorite horse in the process. He was forced to make the journey back to Amman on foot. He made the return trip in four days, sleeping in the desert and getting scant amounts of food from the kindness of strangers.

Upon arriving in Amman, his shoes-- worn out to begin with, were just about useless and large blisters covered the bottom of both feet. He would curse every Arab that ever lived for about a week straight. Everyone, including my grandmother, stayed far away from him that week.

She laughed while telling us about his blisters, and how angry he was.

Upon waking up the day after he arrived back, his feet hurt so much that he had to walk on the outside edges of his feet. About a month later, she told him how funny he looked walking like that and the two of them laughed out loud. 

Aside from my grandfather who suffered mostly an injured pride, many others tried to go back only to get killed trying or blocked at the border if they were lucky. Jordan, for better or worse, became their new home.

Jordan itself wasn’t without its own share of problems. The war with Israel over Palestine caused a lot of animosity between the Jordanians -- especially those who lost sons in the war, and the Palestinians. They weren’t well liked by the community in general, and usually treated as uneducated second class citizens.

The Palestinians, who were originally displaced when Israel was created, were among the first immigrants into Jordan. Any jobs or cheap land were quickly taken by them, leaving nothing for the next wave of immigrants who began coming after the fighting started. Jobs outside of the Army were almost non-existent, especially for refugees and other immigrants. Any jobs left were given out through nepotism and bribery. It was not the best of prospects, but there was no going back to Palestine.

Although my mother was there with us, the best memories I have of growing up in Jordan were of my grandmother, and how kind she was to us kids. She stayed by herself for about seven years after we left, and then began going senile. Living alone for so long with no one to take care of, to make her feel wanted, took its toll on her. My father and Uncle brought her over to Astoria in 1975. There she went completely senile before passing away a few weeks later. She was only sixty years old. She was buried far away from her husband, all alone in a cemetery in Butler, New Jersey.

1-Jordan

Although they were only teenagers at the time, my parents were married through a brokered arrangement in 1952. Nine months later, at fifteen years old, my mother gave birth to her first child, Rania. She was the first of what would become five girls, and five boys. A month after Rania was born my father was drafted into the Jordanian army. It was a requirement upon turning eighteen, even for residents of the refugee camps.

A year later my mother gave birth to her first son followed by another daughter a year later. Both babies became sick, and died during their second year. After the second baby died my mother went into a depression, and wouldn’t have another one until three years later when she gave birth to my older brother, Yusef. His birth lifted her out of the depression, and that probably explains why she always favored him. Two years after Yusef on March 15th, 1960 I was born.

By the time I was born, my grandfather had managed to buy a small one story shack directly across the street from the refugee camp. He sold just about everything he owned to raise enough money to buy it. It was a small house, made from mud, stones, rocks and concrete. In the front of the house was a small courtyard. It was about five feet wide and twenty feet long surrounded by a concrete wall. On one side of the courtyard was the outhouse, and on the other was our fig tree. The house had three rooms -- one for my parents, one for my grandparents, and the other was for the kids.

We did everything in the other room; we slept in it, bathed in it, ate in it, and played in it. After work, the grownups would sit in it. It made things very simple for us, unless it was late and the adults were still huddled about talking.

Regardless of which topic they started with, the conversation would eventually get around to how bad things were at the time. The eldest ones would then bring up the old days -- about how much worse they had it back then. Those talks would go on for half the night, while we sat on the floor by the kitchen stove, our heads going up and down like bopping head tops as we fought to stay awake. We hated those nights.

The days they talked about sounded so horrible I couldn’t fathom how anyone had it so bad and still survived.

We had no electricity.

Neither did we, and no outhouse either; we had to go in the desert. Can you imagine doing that in the middle of a sand storm? It’s not like you can hold it in till the storm is gone, sometimes the storms last for days!

And where do you think we were? Just across the sand dunes in the same storm and we had no tents!

We had to bathe in cold water!

You had water!?

Look at the crime and poverty we had.

Someone else would