“I could feel their pains, fear, anger, sadness, and desperation during the interviews.”
-KBOO producer, and host of “Radio Beyond Borders,” Miae Kim
Hi, this is Aaron Henkin, curator of the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week on this podcast it’s my privilege to feature a stand-out radio story from one of the hundreds of NPR stations around the country. And this week, we’re visiting a community radio station in Portland, Oregon, called KBOO. Award-winning producer Miae Kim started there as a volunteer several years ago and nowadays she’s the host and founding producer of her own program: Radio Beyond Borders. Its mission is to open up the airwaves to the voices of immigrants and refugees whose stories are often ignored by the media. This week we’re giving a listen to a piece called “Voices of Iraqi Americans on War and Peace.” Here’s a brief Q & A with Miae about the project…
What got you to thinking about pursuing this radio project of looking at the Iraq War through the eyes of Iraqi Americans?
As an immigrant from South Korea, I believe that immigrants and refugees are caught in a crucial place in this globalized world. I think they can build bridges between their homelands and their current home because they have lived in both places and have direct connections in the two worlds. And I realized the voices of Iraqi refuges and immigrants are often missing in the media although they have been directly affected by the war because their families are still in Iraq. I realized that we couldn’t fully understand the real face of the war without hearing from Iraqi Americans who are conflicted about their new homeland. Many still feel a bond to their old homeland, Iraq, which was invaded by the U.S. government. So about two months before the 3rd anniversary of Iraq war, I decided to pursue this radio project called Voices of Iraqi Americans on War and Peace.
How did you choose your three speakers?
I was looking for Iraqi Americans who are against the war since the theme is war and peace. But it was very difficult to find them. At the beginning, I couldn’t find them in Oregon where I live although I contacted so many people and organizations. I found an Iraqi woman whom I would have loved to interview but she politely refused because she was worried that her participation might affect her brother in Iraq who was trying to flee to the U.S. So I decided to find Iraqis in other states. Soon I found Enas Mohamed and Sureya Sayadi. By talking to them on the phone before the interviews, I just knew they were the perfect speakers for my project. I drove to Washington and then flew to California. In the end, I also found Luay Alhachami back in Oregon. The three speakers’ stories were just so powerful that I didn’t look for any more. Later, I was introduced to some more Iraqi Americans for interviews but they were supporters of the Iraq war because it was a way to remove Saddam Hussein. I agonized a little over including them in the piece, but I decided to stick to my original plan and theme: war and peace.
I wonder what you might be able to tell us about what these people’s lives are like here in the US… when they came here, and why?
The three speakers were all refugees in other Middle Eastern countries before they came to the U.S. Sureya Sayadi was adopted by an American family from a refugee camp as a teenager in the 1970s after a Kurdish uprising failed. Luay Alhachami took part in an uprising against Saddam Hussein as a young man after the Desert Storm. He escaped from Iraq after the uprising failed and came to the U.S. in 1992. Enas Mohamed, a former Iraqi anesthesiologist, fled from Iraq and came to the U.S. in 2000 after she refused to cooperate with Saddam’s punishment of deserters. Mohamed is the only one who came to the U.S. with some of her family, leaving her mother and brother in Iraq. Both Sayadi and Alhachami came here without any of their family members. Their lives have been very much affected by the war and turmoil in their homeland. I could feel their pains, fear, anger, sadness, and desperation during the interviews. They have also experienced racism toward Middle Easterners and Muslims in the U.S. Mohamed who wears hejab (head scarf) as a Muslim woman said an elderly man threw a stone at her in the street.
Your speakers do a very effective job of opening our eyes to the idea that normal Iraqi citizens — bystanders to the conflict — have had their everyday lives completely turned upside down by the fighting.
I wonder what you learned from interviewing these folks that surprised you the most…
“There will be no civil war. But there will be chaos. No civil war because I know we’ve lived all our lives one hand. Kurdish, Arab, Sunni, Shiite, we all are one hand and at the end we are all Iraqi citizens and we support each other.” said Enas Mohamed in the piece. Because I have frequently heard that sectarian violence is destroying Iraq and Iraq is heading for a civil war, I was most surprised to learn that my speakers deny this possibility. They don’t buy that the U.S. should stay to prevent the civil war but they see the U.S. invasion and occupation in Iraq as the cause of the chaos, the destruction, and the prevention of peace.
This radio piece has no narration from you — it’s constructed entirely out of the comments of your three subjects… and you’ve given us a great example of what can be achieved with thoughtful cutting and juxtaposition. I wonder what you can tell us about your technique when it comes to considerations of rhythm and pacing — what are some of the challenges to getting an ‘in-their-own-words’ story to work?
Many of my radio pieces are un-narrated stories. I think that it is a truly powerful way to allow my subjects to talk directly to the audience and to make beautiful and emotional connections with them without my interference. After I interview people, the first step for me is to listen to all my interviewees individually. I try to feel and understand each speaker’s feelings, emotions, thoughts, and opinions. Then I play all the speakers together at the same time from the beginning to the end using multi-tracks to try to create one story according to the theme of the piece. I always hear brilliant stories from each individual because I truly believe everybody has an invaluable and unique story to tell. But I usually have to cut out many of those actual stories either because I have limited length of time or because they don’t go with the flow with other people. So cutting wonderful parts is difficult because they can be one fantastic story if the piece is only one person’s story. But the most essential part in cutting and juxtaposition is harmony. So I listen to the mixed piece again and again with considerations of rhythm and pacing until the piece sounds like one great music.
….KBOO producer, and host of “Radio Beyond Borders,” Miae Kim. You can hear other stories from Miae online at The Public Radio Exchange, where producers from around the world share their work. Write your own reviews and help decide what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.
[...] Voices of Iraqi Americans on War and Peace from KBOO as showcased by the Public Radio Exchange [...]