Mia Khalifa Interview

Mia Latifah is a 22-year-old woman who arrived in the United States as a refugee in 2003, at the height of the Iraqi war. She had never attended formal school before enrolling in elementary school, which she describes as a difficult experience. Mia had never left the safety of her home and found it difficult to adjust to a foreign world and community. Entering a classroom with strangers was one of her most terrifying experiences. She had seen Arabic writings as a child, and even though she couldn't understand it, it had become familiar to her. When the teacher introduced her to the alphabet, she remembers crying uncontrollably , “I was inconsolable, I never seemed to grasp anything, and the teacher kept shouting at me.”

Mia picked up some few words from her classmates, remembering how some of them looked mesmerized by her hair but still treated her well. “This helped me learn English faster than I expected, and I recall my teacher, becoming supportive and giving me extra homework and short stories to take home.” Her father was also very pivotal since he’d learned English while in school, “education for men is taken very seriously in our culture, whereas women are supposed to stay indoors and take care of the household,” she continues.

“My father would take me to watch educational films and museum tours which excited me a lot thus enhancing my literacy levels.” Even though her father could not afford to take her to the best schools, he still made sure she integrated easily into the school culture by taking her to a school she would interact with students from all races. “I became comfortable and felt everyone trying to helping me learn,” Mia tells me that. She even enrolled in further English lessons, which she says helps her teach other women and girls facing the same predicament as she, many years back.

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In conclusion, she tells me, “today's illiterate children have better conditions, such as programs dedicated specifically to them, which enables them to learn fast and easily, there are also sponsors like me who will hold their hand through language difficulties, helping them read and write fluently.”