Khalid Hammad walks with his youngest son Mohammad while Zahra prepares lunch in their apartment in Las Vegas.
Before Las Vegas, the Hammad’s were living in Jordan as Syrian refugees. Majority of their family remains in Syria.
Zahra does her best to be present and assimilate to American culture while speaking basic survival English. I met Zahra during her English class, and it was an immediate bond.
She is vivacious and eager to make friends, longing to make Vegas feel like their home. They have four children all under the age of 9 who picked up English almost instantly.
Their oldest, Wahlid, has the responsibility of translating for his parents. He lives in the tension of remembering life in war torn Syria while trying to fit in with his neighbors and classmates in the valley that come from a vastly different background.
He is a little man. However, his age absolutely shows when giggling at Arabic cartoon network while consuming Reeses while his mom and I prepare lunch.
(When at their house, they spoil me with the best food I have maybe ever had, truly... I also have learned to not war like two days in advance 😂)
The kids giggle and play and imagine and it’s genuinely infectious. The day before I visited, their parents tried Mexican food for the first time, and the kids said in an unifying chorus that tacos, pizza and hamburgers are their favorite food.
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