(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES ? Anila Daulatzai stared at the green blinking lights on her television screen on the first day of U.S.-led airstrikes on Afghanistan, wondering if the cities and camps she had visited just a few weeks before would be attacked.
In the days following, her fears were confirmed when she discovered that the Red Cross building she once worked at was bombed.
Daulatzai, a University of California-Los Angeles alumna and a graduate student in international public health, was working in refugee camps in Peshawar, Pakistan, during the Sept. 11 attacks.
As she struggled to find a ticket to leave the country, she knew others in the refugee camps would not have the luxury she had to come to the United States.
“It just felt so wrong, and I felt so guilty because the only difference between us was that I had the money to get out and avoid the bombs,” she said.
“These are people who are already on the go, so now they are like double refugees, but after everything that they have been through, they really do put their hands in God and say ‘Insha’Allah’ ? ‘everything will be OK,'” she continued.
Daulatzi was referring to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, when many Afghans were left as refugees and, she said, America did not continue to give aid once its troops pulled out of the country.
As people struggle to resume life in the aftermath of Sept. 11, Afghan-Americans are contending with another facet of warfare ? one which presses together two countries they call home.
“America has given me tremendous opportunities, like an education,” Daulatzai said. “But there is something very wrong that money my family is paying as taxpayers is being used to bomb my people. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Yasameen Faizy, a third-year mathematics and economics student and a member of the Afghan Student Association, said it is difficult to live in a country that is at war with the country in which she was born.
“I care for both sides,” Yasameen said. “It really hurt me when I heard about the World Trade Center, and it also really hurt me when I heard about the attacks on Afghanistan. It’s not like one of them mattered to me more than the other.”
Her sister, Nargis Faizy, a fifth-year history student, said that though she lives in America, she will always refer to herself as an Afghan-American.
“I am an American citizen now, and I am very thankful for that, but I will also always be proud of being an Afghan,” Nargis said. “It doesn’t set me apart. ([In] America in general, a lot of people refer to themselves as Mexican-American or African-American; we are just part of this big salad bowl that makes up America.”
In addition to worrying about friends and family in the states, Yasameen and Nargis are also fearful for their aunt in Afghanistan. They have not heard from her since the beginning of the year due to difficulty in getting letters across the border, and because phone lines are down.
“It isn’t even so much the fact that she is part of our family; it is the idea of everyone there being in danger and the idea of innocent lives being taken,” Yasameen said.
For Daulatzai, her concern for the Afghan refugees before Sept. 11 has multiplied as reports come in that millions will not survive the upcoming winter because of food shortages and improper health care.
“The attacks on Sept. 11 were terrible and incredibly unfortunate, but a death in Afghanistan is worth just as much, and I feel like people are forgetting that,” Daulatzai said.
“I’m not proud to be American, Afghan or Pakistani and I’m not even proud to be a human being these days because of the things that human beings are doing to each other,” she continued.
Instead of dwelling on the situation, Daulatzai said she wants to channel her feelings into action that will help Afghan refugees by starting a relief program and focusing on issues of women’s reproductive health.
“Whenever I go back there and see the poverty, I recognize my privilege, and instead of feeling guilty, I want to do something with my privilege,” she said.
Like Daulatzai, fourth-year history student Mahboob hopes to use his privileges to help those living in Afghanistan.
“I am very fortunate to have the lifestyle I have; it’s difficult to see others who don’t have the basic things I have,” Mahboob said. “It makes me feel like I have a responsibility to use the good things I do have here to help others.”
Mahboob said he experienced what the Afghan refugees are facing when he and his family were forced to live in a refugee camp in Pakistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion.
Since the attacks, Mahboob has been involved in telling people about the plight of Afghans in order to raise money and social consciousness.
With some students struggling with the double impact of having two of their countries at war with one another, some said they feel supported by their peers and others in the community.
In the midst of panicked phone calls to Afghanistan and tuning in to news stations 24 hours a day, Yasameen and Nargis said it was comforting to hear friends and neighbors checking up on them, including high school teachers from several years ago.
“I have never felt endangered here, and I have never felt like an outsider here,” Nargis said. “I have never gotten that feeling before, and I don’t have it now.”
As people begin to learn more about suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden ? who is not an Afghan ? and the Taliban, the ruling government in Afghanistan, Nargis said she finds herself explaining the situation in Afghanistan a lot more than she used to.
“Before the attacks, most people didn’t even know where Afghanistan was,” Nargis said.
Daulatzai said most people don’t realize that although Afghans have suffered tremendously for more than 20 years, the suffering has made them stronger in their faith in God and in their resolution to survive.
“It’s not that I go to Afghanistan to help them; they are the ones that help me,” Daulatzai said. “Despite their suffering, they have such strong values and such a strong sense of character ? you can’t capture that in an article.”
