Gutfreund  Cornett  Art
  • Home
  • News
  • Projects
    • BEYOND BORDERS: Stories of imMigration 2018 >
      • GALLERY Beyond Borders
      • INFO Beyond Borders
      • STORIES Beyond Borders
    • RISE: Empower, Change and Action 2018 >
      • INFO Rise
      • GALLERY Rise
    • SOCIAL JUSTICE: IT HAPPENS TO ONE, IT HAPPENS TO ALL 2016 >
      • GALLERY Social Justice
      • INFO Social Justice
    • VISAURAL: SIGHT, SOUND and ACTION 2015 >
      • GALLERY Visaural
      • INFO Visaural
    • VISION: AN ARTIST'S PERSPECTIVE 2016 >
      • GALLERY Vision
      • INFO Vision
    • WHAT'S RIGHT, WHAT'S LEFT: DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 2016 Phoenix Gallery NYC >
      • GALLERY Democracy
      • INFO Democracy
  • About Us
  • Coaching
    • Go Fund Yourself
    • How to Use Entrythingy
    • Things We Like
    • Venues and Collaborations
  • Contact
  • Join

Leaving Home by Fatima Eltayyeb

4/14/2018

2 Comments

 
     My father left Amman Jordan in 1971 to pursue a better life. While in Amman, he lived in a small two bedroom home with his mother, father, and ten brothers and sisters. His father owned a small store that barely paid the monthly bills. My father was the second oldest of his brothers and began working at 13, making only sixty dollars a month between the two of them. When he turned sixteen, he couldn’t bare the lifestyle anymore, so he left. When he arrived to Germany, he didn’t speak the language and spent ten days living in the street, until he met a doctor who was also from Amman who took him in. He provided him a job, and a home until he got onto his feet.
     My father eventually got his own apartment, but spent six days a week working sixteen hours a day, and sent most of his money back home to his family. Eight years later, my uncle immigrated to America and did everything he could to bring my father with him. When he arrived to America, he significantly struggled. He had a hard time grasping a third language, and finding a job, but eventually got a job as a janitor in a hospital.
     Years later, he met my mom and brought her to America as well. My mother described it as the worst experience of her life. She had a hard time leaving her family, and didn’t know one word of English, but her and my father agreed that living in America would be better and have more opportunities for their children . My mother would be scared to answer the door or even the phone because she did not know how to communicate with anybody in the new, foreign country she was in.
     I spent my childhood is a small two bedroom apartment in New York with my parents and two brothers. It consisted of translating for my parents(mostly my mom), my father being gone constantly, working, and providing for us any way he could. But as the years went by my mom learned the language, and my uncle was able to provide us a home in Santa Barbara, which is where we are currently living and my dad was able to retire.
     My father often brings up his migration from home, and I can’t even imagine how difficult it was for him to leave on his own and leave everything behind. He never complains, but if it was hard for my mother to leave with her husband, I wonder how hard it must have been for him to leave all on his own. But he and my mother always thank god that they were so lucky to come over here to find more opportunities, when many others could only dream of doing so. ​
2 Comments
Sherri Cornett
4/14/2018 08:08:52 am

Thank you, Fatima, for sharing your story with us!

Reply
Alli Malone
4/23/2018 02:17:38 pm

Congratulations Fatima!!!

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    STORIES from
    Beyond Borders

    WHY
    As a component of our Beyond Borders: Stories of im/Migration exhibition, we hope to move beyond the stereotypes, to grow a compassionate community and to personalize experiences of migration, immigration, assimilation, arrests and deportation. 

    WHO CAN SHARE THEIR STORIES
    Anyone who has personal or observed experiences with migration, immigration, assimilation, arrests  and/or deportation issues within the U.S. or other countries. 

    WHAT KIND OF STORIES
    Why did you migrate?  What was migration like for you?
    Did you choose to leave your home or did the political or environmental situation in our homeland force you to leave? Where did you want to go and why? Did you have a choice as to where you went? What happened during immigration? How were you received in your new country?  Did you feel secure in your new country?  Were you able to create the new life you imagined? How did you and your family assimilate? What kind of resources did you find helpful?  What were/are the challenges? Do you feel that your new community has accepted you into it? Do you feel like a citizen of your new country? If so, what made you feel that way? What did you bring with you and why are those things important to you? What did you leave behind? What do you fear? Do you fear being deported?   Have you or any of your family been deported? Been threatened with deportation? If so, what happened? Have you been in a deportation center or a refugee camp? And, any other stories you feel can help us become a more understanding, inclusive community. 

    WHAT KIND OF FORMATS
    We encourage you to send stories, photos, even videos to us. You may choose whether or not to use your real name or a pseudonym. Do not be concerned about perfect spelling, grammar, or form. What is important is your story. It can be conversational, bullet points, poetic, a series of phrases.. whatever method works for you.

    We will accept stories in any language (if you wish to include an English translation, your story length may be doubled). Stories may be short paragraphs to 1200 words. You may include photographs up to 1 GB, .mp4 videos less than 1 GB or links to Vimeo/YouTube, and links to online material.  We can also include a downloadable document. 

    HOW
    Please email to Blog.GutfreundCornettArt@gmail.com  

    ​WHERE
    To expand our dialogue as far as possible, in addition to this blog, we may share your story on our Facebook Page (Gutfreund Cornett Art), our Twitter (@GCA_Art), in the online and printed catalogs for our exhibition "Beyond Borders: Stories of im/Migration" and with visitors to that exhibition.

    Archives

    December 2020
    April 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed