U.S. Worth an Arduous Journey for Iraqi Assyrian Family

June, 11, 07
By Jeff Jardine
www.modbee.com

Turlock, California -- Regardless of what you might think about the ongoing immigration debate, you can understand why people from other nations want to come to the United States.

It might be for economic opportunity. It might be for education, the freedoms of living in a democracy or for a higher standard of living.

In the case of Turlock's Josefin Yako, it was because Saddam Hussein's henchmen likely would have killed her and her family had they remained in her native Iraq.

The decision to leave or perish in 1989 was a no-brainer for the Assyrian Christian family. It set them on a journey into Turkey, where American officials eventually granted them visas.

Theirs is a story like nothing most of us can imagine. Yet it is commonplace among those who have come here from dictatorships and war-torn countries where murder, torture and religious persecution are daily occurrences.

Consequently, Josefin and many like her hold a strong appreciation for America and what it offers.

"I am so happy here," said Josefin, 42.

As in happy and safe in their small home in Turlock, where her husband, 52-year-old Aprem Iskender, spends hours each day tending to the vegetable garden in their back yard.

Back in Iraq, it was never so serene. Before Josefin got married, Saddam's goons would come to her family's home looking for her brothers, to force them into his army, she said.

"The kids used to hide in the water (storage) tanks," she said. "One time, when they asked my dad where my brothers were, he told me, 'Don't tell them.'"

She'll show you the scars on her forearms and legs where Saddam's thugs burned her with cigarettes because she wouldn't give them up. And one of her brothers was jailed and beaten with chains.

Little changed after she and Aprem were married.

One day in 1989, she looked out the window of her Baghdad home to see hundreds of people out on the streets. She asked a woman why so many people were out.

"She said Saddam and his troops were trying to kill everyone," Josefin said.

Pregnant with their second child, Josefin threw together some food and blankets, bundled up their infant son Albert, and told her husband they needed to leave immediately.

"We started to head off to the mountains," she said.

They marched with other refugees for two days, Josefin without shoes.

"I got blisters from the rocks," she said. "My husband made me some shoes out of clothes."

By pure chance, her brother came along in his car and drove them three hours to a camp just inside Iraq near the Turkish border. They stayed there for the next three years. Daughter Jacline was born there in 1990, followed by son Robert in 1991 and daughter Maureen in 1992. But the youngest ones' health suffered in the crowded camp conditions, where refugees often drank water from the same stream where they washed their clothes and bathed, Josefin said.

One day late in 1992, Robert and Maureen, both severely malnourished, didn't respond when their mother tried to wake them. She summoned her husband, who had to tell her that both children were dead.

"Time was going by and I didn't know what to do with them," Josefin said. "I saw a tree near a church, and I dug a hole and laid them there. I prayed and put a big rock on their grave so if I ever went back, I'd know where they were."

The other two children needed medical attention, so Josefin and Aprem took them to a hospital in a nearby town across the Turkish border.

"There were people in line to see a doctor, and my husband was in line with our kids (Albert and Jacline)," she said.

Somehow, in the surge of humanity at the hospital, she became separated from them.

"I started to yell their names out," she said. "I looked and looked and still, nothing. Dark was coming and I didn't find them."

Two days passed, and a man offered her a place to stay outside of town. It wasn't until 33 days later that she and her family were reunited when she returned to the hospital.

"I sat in the same spot (where she'd been when they were separated) and an hour later, my little girl saw me and yelled out my name," she said. "I was so happy. My husband held me in his arms and cried."

Five days later, in early January 1993, they met with American immigration officials and told them they wanted to go to the United States. They explained what had driven them from Baghdad and how two of their children had died along the way.

"They didn't believe us," Josefin said, who by now carried another child.

"We took them back and showed them the spot where they were buried," Josefin said through daughter Jacline, who periodically translated during the interview. Josefin's Assyrian is still far better than her improving English.

Convinced they had told the truth, and because she had a sister living in Turlock, the Americans processed their paperwork and put them on a plane to the United States within days. No one in the family spoke a word of English when they arrived in Turlock, where they stayed with her sister for about a month.

Josefin found work cleaning houses and then at a retirement home in Turlock. Aprem worked briefly at Foster Farms and then for convenience stores. Life already was better than it had been in Iraq.

Albert, 18, recently graduated from Freedom High School in Turlock. Jacline, 17, just finished her junior year at Pitman High, and son Nenos, who was born after the family came to the States, is 13 and attends Turlock Junior High.

Josefin, meanwhile, is fighting breast cancer. She lost her hair to the chemotherapy and needs five more weeks of radiation treatments.

But nothing changes her upbeat disposition or her love of being here. Her experiences in escaping Iraq gave her the strength to take the disease head-on. After all, breast cancer is treatable. Staying in Iraq would have been fatal.

She plans to take the U.S. citizenship test soon, as will her daughter.

"I am happy with my life," Josefin said. "And even now, I still pray and thank God that he was there for us."