A Different Kind of Humidity
A College Student Recounts Her Experience as a Refugee in Florida
By Naz Hussein naz_hussein@hotmail.com
Photo Credit: Nushrat Nur
Naz Hussein is a rising senior at the University of Florida. Hailing from an Iraqi-Kurdish background, she has a passion for humanitarianism, storytelling, and the written word.
I remember my last night in Beirut like it was yesterday.
I was fourteen at the time and a true daydreamer, with a vast imagination acquired through long nights of reading. My creativity blossomed into full fruition: I was always writing stories or crafting narratives within my head.
But whenever I thought of the future ahead of me— where I would be standing in two days— my mind drew a blank. I had no idea what America looked like, let alone south Florida. I didn’t know what my surroundings would entail: what color my bedroom walls would be, what shape the bathroom faucet would curve into, or what hues the scenery reflected.
Corniche, a seaside promenade in Beirut, bustles with all kinds of people. Families crowd in the center, teenagers bike or skate, and fishermen extend their poles towards the water.
What I knew were my friends’ familiar faces as we strolled around Hamra chatting the day away; I knew the local bakery across my home with fresh bread. I loved Beirut and its winding roads, chaotic traffic, and historic buildings. I relished passing by the Corniche and watching my hair stick up from the humidity, a love-hate relationship I had with the Mediterranean sea.
I was born and raised in Kirkuk, Iraq until 2006, when the sectarian violence erupted. The situation had become precarious by the day: children of doctors disappeared frequently while the kidnappers demanded ransom. Mama was a well-respected pharmacist, but she was a single mother. This further endangered her. Mama had already witnessed several car combings near her pharmacy, which she miraculously survived.
After we emerged uninjured from a bombing that shattered our house, we decided to leave. We hopped back and forth between Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, seeking a new home. After multiple attempts to obtain residency, we finally landed in Lebanon. And although Lebanon was only an hour flight away, it felt like a one-eighty degree change. Adjusting to the new dialect, as well as the other languages spoken there, was a huge challenge. It took me eight years to fit in and grow acclimated, but the moment I found a stable ground, I became uprooted again. Constant displacement seemed to lurk in my shadow, two steps ahead.
Fast-forward thirty hours at various airports and the longest flight I had ever taken — I arrived in Miami with a dizzy head and a low spirit.
The first thing I noticed when I stepped outside was the humidity. Unlike Beirut’s, the Florida air suffocated me. It shrunk me down and made me tinier than 5”3. Once inside the taxi, I stuck my head out the window and inhaled the foreign oxygen.
This place was going to be my new home. I repeated that to myself again and again, but a cinder block descended onto my chest. My heart constricted, and the weight of my sadness enveloped my throat. A cry was stranded there and I couldn’t swallow it away.
The taxi made a turn into the compound we were staying in.
New home.
It looked like a tiny apartment with one bedroom and a bathroom that somehow leaked cockroaches.
We had to sleep on military, foldable beds with inexpensive mattresses that collapsed in the middle of the night. The living room was decorated with worn-out loveseat and a scratched circular dinner table. The kitchen was tiny and infested with flying bugs. The next day, my older sister was admitted into the ER. She had fainted and Mama didn’t know where else to take her. The bill afterward was a big blow: nobody had told us about emergency prices.
The truth is, nobody should live like that.
But I internalized it for a while, sluggishly accepting the situation, deeming it necessary to move on. Yet, the person responsible for us, our assigned case leader, had stolen our “welcome money”. He bought old, thrifted furniture and took the rest of the $1,000 that the organization gifts each refugee family. He once brought his daughter along, who was my age, and she glared at us with disgust. Another time, he raised his voice at Mama and thought he could get away with it. Mama fearlessly retaliated.
“Just because I’m a woman and alone, doesn’t mean you can disrespect me,” she said.
Life afterward was a new reality combined with extensive escapism. I heavily indulged in books, TV series, and films—anything I could get my eyes on. They helped me cope with my jarringly different world, where the buildings were no more than two stories high. The roads felt never-ending and relentless, stretched out widely across several miles. Of course, I had to get accustomed to a new metric system, to new laws, and to a flatter landscape.
John Prince Memorial Park, Lake Worth, Florida. Photo Credit: Nik Lytie
One place helped me preserve my sanity: the park. I loved going on walks and treading the smooth trails; I loved running on the grass and watching the sunset. It gave me hope, and back then that’s all I needed.
Mama, on the other hand, was dealing with entirely different dilemmas of paperwork, public offices, and legality issues. We couldn’t function within society until we received our social security card, which took a month. Even so, my family was itching to leave the apartment. I could tell my brother, underneath his positive demeanor, was growing restless. My sister retreated into her shell, unwilling to leave her old life behind. We blamed Mama for ripping us away from Lebanon, but we didn’t fathom how the country trapped us. It wouldn’t grant us Lebanese citizenship, grant job prospects, or allow us to work anywhere. We had no future in Lebanon. Even if we graduated from university, we were doomed. At the end of the day, we were Iraqis with Iraqi passports, and to international eyes, that was at the bottom of the list.
My experience, however, has made me prouder to be an Iraqi woman. I am most thankful for Mama and her sacrifices. She risked her safety as a single mother and moved across the globe with broken English. She understood that we had to leave and take refuge elsewhere because the Middle East no longer protected us.
Now, six years later, I have grown to love Florida.
I have found stability in its fruitful opportunities and comforting sun. Within its lively streets, I truly realized my identity, creative passions, and the meaning of unconditional love. This has shaped my vision of what I always want to embody as I pave my own path forward: open-minded, empathetic, and committed to justice.
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