The Dreams That Bring Us Here

It is a quiet Thursday evening in the fall of 2015 at the Dara Medical Center in Brooklyn, where I’m volunteering as a medical observer. The Center is almost empty. At the far end of the corridor, I see an elderly man wearing a black sweater and eyeglasses. His face is pale; his eyes and hands are creased and wrinkled.

“Where are you from?” he asks.

“I’m Palestinian,” I answer.

“Pakistan?” he replies incredulously.

“No, no, not Pakistan, Palestine—Felsteen,” I say, pronouncing the word as most Bangladeshi people say it.

All at once, the man speaks to me in Arabic. His accent makes me think that he might be Moroccan. His name, he says, is Sarab.

“How did you come to speak Arabic?” I ask.

“I’m from Bangladesh,” he says. “I worked in the Gulf for a long time and learned Arabic there.”

Thus begins a conversation like many others that I’ve had with my patients and coworkers at the Center—a conversation that uncovers our shared, but diverse, experiences as immigrants here in the US.

Being an immigrant is tough, as I know from personal experience. In December 2013, I immigrated alone to New York City, where I endured cold weather, financial strain and the isolation of being away from my family.

I’m often asked why I left home. I answer, “I’m a physician who is trying to get a medical-residency spot in the US.”

My story started when I was born in a refugee camp in Ramallah on the West Bank. From an early age, I felt a need to get out of the crushing daily reality: being treated as a third-class citizen, a refugee in my own place of birth. I knew that the only way out was to slowly educate myself. For years, day in and day out, I read anything and everything I could get hold of, be it Japanese literature, American literature, Jewish literature or Arab literature. Anything and everything.

I managed to get a scholarship to study medicine at a top university in Jordan, a neighboring country that felt further away than it looked on the map.

During my six years at Jordan University of Science and Technology, limited finances kept me from visiting my family often. After graduating, I started as an intern at Ramallah Hospital (now Palestine Medical Complex). Working there gave me a sense of homecoming—but within months, that feeling faded. The work culture was male-dominated, and because unmarried Palestinian women are not allowed to live on their own, I had to move back to my parents’ house, although there wasn’t room for me.

I then enrolled in the international public-health school at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In order to get to school those first few months, I had to cross the Qalandia checkpoint, on the West Bank between Ramallah and Jerusalem. The checkpoint’s turnstiles, barriers and security personnel create long waits, uncertainty and frustration. It was stressful.

Then, in a stroke of luck, my scholarship covered my housing in the dorms right next to the Braun School of Public Health. Not having to commute was such a relief.

The international public-health program was intense but enriching. I met students from all over the world. I was the first Palestinian physician to enroll in this program, and sometimes when I visited my family in Ramallah, I felt like a stranger. I wished I could show them that there are amazing human beings from other cultures and nationalities.

After completing my international masters degree in public health, I moved to New York City in hopes of doing residency training in the US. My medical observership at the Center is a step in that direction.

The Center has four exam rooms and a main waiting hall. One room is for the cardiology consultant, one is for the internist, one is our lab, and one is the room where I check patients’ vital signs and take a brief history.

The main hall has a television and a stand where they serve butter cookies and Tango orange juice. Sometimes the medical assistants play songs on the radio. I thought the songs were Indian until an assistant told me that they were Bangladeshi. For the first time, I realized that Hindi and Bengali are two different languages. To me, Bengali sounds like Urdu and Hindi; some people think it sounds more like Spanish.

Working here, I’ve started to learn some Bengali words, so I can communicate better with my patients. Everyone on the medical team is friendly and cooperative. Toward the end of the day, they gather in the main hall to drink chai tea and eat samosas or mughlai paratha. It feels like the family gathering that I’ve yearned for since moving to the US.

The women on the medical team wear colorful clothes—often, the traditional salwar kameez, a long, loose-fitting top and matching baggy pants—and most wear head coverings as well. In my khaki pants, with my head uncovered, I stand out—as I did in Ramallah. (In the West Bank, most women wear hijab and long-sleeved maxi dresses.) I’ve always stood out as someone who identifies with everyone, regardless of their backgrounds.

Sometimes the Center is filled with young immigrant women who wear mehndi, henna designs on their hands. As I’ve learned during our conversations, mostly these women have been brought from their homelands by their husbands, to care for their families.

“It’s hard to integrate in this society when you don’t speak English. English is my main barrier,” says one woman who’s come in with right lower abdominal pain.

Our conversations usually end with a woman saying, “It must be hard for you to be alone here.”

It is very hard, but I’m driven by my pursuit of a residency spot—a goal that requires enduring the harsh realities of immigrant life. My struggles mirror those of the patients I see daily, and our shared experiences reflect the courage and resilience of immigrant communities.

My patient Sarab looks pale. He has iron-deficiency anemia and has undergone colonoscopy and upper endoscopy—having his esophagus, stomach and upper small intestine examined with an endoscopy camera.

His endoscopy results are negative. After reading his blood-test results, the doctor tells him, “You need to start taking iron supplements.”

Sarab sits, elbows resting on his knees, and looks at me, clearly waiting for my opinion.

“Oh, well,” I say. “I suggest that you also eat spinach, as it has a good quantity of iron. You can add lemon to it—the lemon’s vitamin C increases the iron absorption.”

“I like spinach,” he says to me, smiling. “I like this idea, doctor.”

As the evening progresses, the medical assistants light Bangladeshi incense sticks; for a short while, their fragrance makes the Center smell like home to our Bangladeshi patients. Sarab continues to talk with me in faltering, broken Arabic interspersed with English.

He says that after his many years of wandering from one country to another, New York City has become home for him.

“Here, if you work hard and are willing and obedient, you can become the person you want to be,” he says.

There’s a beauty in his words. They reflect the quintessential American dream—the belief that hard work, determination and cooperation can lead to success and self-realization. For centuries, this sentiment has inspired countless individuals here, native-born and immigrants alike. It captures the optimism and opportunity associated with places like New York City.

I’m starting to feel apprehensive about the time; I need to go and check the other patients’ vital signs. Wordlessly, Sarab understands.

As I prepare to move on, he wishes me success.

“Bhalo theko,” I answer, in Bengali. “Be well.”