From Stateless to Global Citizen

I promised, some time ago, that I would occasionally share stories about my journey. My hope and goal is that I am sharing information that will encourage learning and be an inspiration to all of you.

Many know the basic story my journey of immigration to the United States. Few know that I carried a refugee document most of my life. My parents would never say that we were refugees, but we were. They were refugees in 1948, and again in 1967.

I saw my father go through war for the third time in his life, in the 1990s. As an adult, I reflect back and do acknowledge that we had a refugee life all of our lives, but my parents never made us feel we were refugees nor did it ever feel that way to us.

But it faced us when we had to travel anywhere, because as refugees, we had to go through a multi-step process. First, we had to go to the embassy that issued us the refugee documents to get approval and to add the country to which we wanted to travel. Once we paid for the stamps on the refugee documents -- which no countries accepted as a passport -- we had to find out if we would be allowed to travel to the country that issued it in the first place. Pretty hard to do when that country no longer exists. Next, we had to go to the embassy of the country we wished to enter, so we could apply for a visa.

This really came to a head for me as I was trying to leave Kuwait to go to college in Canada — but I ended up in the U.S. instead. I initially had to go to the Egyptian embassy to add Canada to my refugee travel document. Then I had to go to the Canadian embassy to apply for a visa.

Since there were no direct flights, I had to get approval from the Greek embassy for a Via-Visa — a visa that said I could fly into a Greek airport, but couldn’t actually enter the country. I was traveling somewhere else, “via” the Greek airport, so I didn’t have to go through immigration, but Greece had to be added to my travel documents. Once I got the visa from Greece, and the visa from Canada, I was able to apply to buy a ticket -- otherwise no airline would sell me a ticket because I have no proof that I could travel to or through these countries.

Having gone through all of that, I feel very blessed today, as a U.S. citizen, to be able to travel to almost any country in the world (aside from the COVID restrictions, of course), and to walk through Customs with only a few questions. In the past, I was faced with a barrage of questions.

I share this with you because so often, people question, Why do I need to do this? Why do I have to justify that? The reality is that as Americans we are blessed in so many ways, able to do what we want when and how we want, without anyone asking us why we are doing it. We need to think about how can we leverage that to help us move our ideas forward.

I share this as well because I’ve been blessed since I became an American citizen to travel and touch people in over 61 countries — and that is the blessing of going from a stateless refugee to a global citizen.

BEFORE YOU GO

We see our blogs as opportunities for dialogue. Please share your thoughts as comments.

1. What can you do to reach the world, as a citizen of a country that allows you to be a global citizen?

2. How can you impacted inspire the people around you with the ability you have as a global citizen?

3. What tools have you used to further your global connections?