FacingRacismLR
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On Not Feeling Safe<br />
An Anonymous story by Resa Matlock<br />
Storyteller is 44 years old.<br />
26<br />
It was our destiny.<br />
I lived in Iraq. My husband bounced between Iraq and Indiana. His mother was from Indiana<br />
and his father from Iraq. They met at IU. Our families knew each other. My sister married his<br />
brother. We met and talked, and we, and our families, agreed to our marriage.<br />
God meant for us to be together.<br />
When I moved to the U.S., I spoke very little English. I started to learn at the Muncie Career<br />
Center and was treated well. All over Muncie, even after 9/11 and the wars, I didn’t see any difficulty<br />
with people accepting me. I took CNA classes, became a nurse’s assistant and worked for four years<br />
until our second child was born. The hardest thing was to be away from my family in Iraq with new<br />
babies. I worked to adjust to my new life because I had no choice. This is my life. I can deal with it.<br />
My husband has problems and his problems are my problems.<br />
Racism is not just about black and white. Racism is not just about individuals. Racism is about<br />
families too.<br />
I came to the U.S. having the idea that this is a free country with rules, rights, and obligations.<br />
I still have that in mind, but year after year I find more discrimination. When I was working,<br />
some people would ask why do you wear that, because I wear the hijab in public. I worked with<br />
women from Mexico, Poland, and Sierra Leone, and we sometimes felt like the other nurses<br />
treated us differently.<br />
I tell my children we are different. We will stay different. Different is not a negative thing. People<br />
will know from our names, our color, our accent, our behavior. We are different.<br />
My children are white, and don’t have accents, but they have Arabic names.<br />
When I came here I became a U.S. citizen and believed that if you work hard, you would be okay.<br />
There is unfairness everywhere, but not like this unfairness that my husband has faced at his work.<br />
He doesn’t want to tell because he does not want to lose his job.<br />
You see, my husband is a U.S. citizen. He was born here. But his boss treats him like an outsider.<br />
His boss is more than just rude. His boss is racist. His boss constantly puts him down, calls him<br />
names, cusses at him, and says terrible things about our religion. What makes it worse is that my<br />
husband never gets a break. He’s not allowed to take vacation. He works overtime and is always<br />
called in on “time off”, both of which are unpaid. No one else in the company works as much as<br />
he does.<br />
When I say that racism impacts families this is what I mean. My husband is treated unfairly. Of<br />
course this comes home. Of course this impacts us. We believe that family time is important. And<br />
what little time we have together gets interrupted. Interrupted by these so called emergencies that<br />
I’m certain someone else can solve. Vacation days? No. He can’t use those either because it would<br />
be too chaotic at work without him. If he’s able to get a vacation days it’s never more than two days<br />
and at that, he usually has to work overtime the day before so make up for that time off.<br />
I also worry about what this teaches our children. I want our children to know that how their<br />
father is treated isn’t ok. That they shouldn’t expect that and they should speak up. I’ve tried to<br />
help my husband stand up, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t realize that he has rights as an employee. So<br />
instead he just takes it because he’s lucky to have a job. And our children see this. Do they know<br />
that this isn’t right? Is this what they think will happen to them when they start working? Will they<br />
just accept that this is normal and they will be lucky to have a job? I hope not.<br />
Our children come to me with their concerns or questions about school, the community, or<br />
things they see in the news. They come to me because they believe their father won’t stand up for<br />
them. They think this because he won’t stand up to his boss. So I have to take this on all by myself.<br />
I do my best to learn about whatever it is, to stand up for them when is necessary, and to teach them<br />
to do the same.<br />
I love my husband but I’m worried about him. I’m worried about us. I’m worried about our<br />
family. He is so consumed with work things that I worry about our family. Because I handle most<br />
things with our children, I worry about what will happen if something happens to me. Will he be<br />
able to stand up and protect our kids if I can’t? Will he stand up and protect me if I can’t do so? Will<br />
it always be like this?