Dissident Assimilation: How our speakers have adapted to American culture and life
Growing up in the U.S., it's easy to take our protected liberties and freedoms for granted. Complaints in the media about rising college tuition prices and healthcare costs seem to signal widespread dissatisfaction with the country’s systems and statutes. I’ll admit, as a college senior staring down the barrel of my newly minted student loan debt, I share some of those feelings. After all, who doesn’t want free college? I recently interviewed a few of our Dissidents, however, to see what they had to say about assimilation to American life. Their answers provided me with new and insightful perspectives.
Angesom with high schoolers in Pomona, California
Angesom Teklu, who escaped the authoritarian regime in Eritrea, commented on the incredible security that results from being in a country with checks and balances on its government. “Eritrea does not have a constitution or parliament, and the judiciary is not independent,” said Angesom. “This means that the President has almost unrestricted power.” This unrestricted government posed such a threat as to drive Angesom out of his home to seek sanction in the U.S., where power is less centralized. He said, “America values and protects liberties and individual rights, such as freedom of speech, assembly, and the press. As an Etrean forced to leave my country and move to the US, I am grateful for the safety and stability that I have found in this country.” I was humbled listening to Angesom describe how he left behind everything he ever knew to gain liberties that I have always had.
We tend to rationalize stories like Angesom’s, reasoning that foreign countries are inferior — American pride is a powerful impulse. And yet it’s incredible how this arrogance mingles with the discontent that prevails in the mainstream American consciousness. Blind to the privileges and freedoms we enjoy, we insist we deserve more. Meanwhile, men like Angesom sacrifice everything to get a taste of freedom.
Tahmineh Dehbozorgi, our Dissident from Iran, left what she described as a “comfortable life” in order to experience the greater opportunity for women in the U.S. In a newsletter for Our America, she said, “as a woman in Iran, I could not pursue what I wanted. There are no social freedoms, absolutely no individual rights or liberties. I wanted more from life.”
After moving to America, Tahmineh started attending law school where she began sharing her experience with classmates. She wrote, “I would tell other students, ‘you have no idea what it’s like; I come from the other side, where the government has all the power over your life. We have free college and free healthcare, but at what cost? I had no control over my life.” When given the choice between comfort and individual liberty, Tahmineh prioritized her personal freedoms. Like Angesom, she too was willing to sacrifice.
Both Angesom and Tahmineh’s testimonies clash with our cultural dysphoria. Enjoying as we do the opportunities of a free country whose statues ensure a promise of life, liberty, and property, it is our responsibility to recognize and protect our liberties, not trade them in for free handouts from our government. Concerns about student loans and healthcare prices are legitimate – I have them myself. But our Dissidents' life stories demonstrate that freedom is more important than free things, and the liberty we have as Americans is all we need to succeed.
