Rida Hasan immigrated to New Jersey when she was a child. She recently moved to Houston, Texas where she is able to support her family with more economic security.
“One thing that got me through was, like, even when things got really tough, I would tell myself, ‘Oh, it’s okay, ‘cause this will make for a better story.’ And I really started believing in the story of my life. If that doesn’t, like, sound weird, I just, like, I stepped outside of the picture, and I guess I’ve been, like, very reflective in these last few years, and I just think about how all that will make for a better story. Like, no matter what comes out of it is what I am striving for, I can really mold my destiny– Like I can mold my destiny, and imagine if I turn something, like, really awesome out of this.”
ANNOTATIONS
Transcript: “Yeah, a lot of debt. I took out loans every single year.”
Learn More: Samantha Marcus, “Struggling with Student Loans? N.J. Wants to Make It Easier.,” nj.com, April 25, 2019.
Learn More [2]: Joe Hernandez, “New Jersey Enacts Two Laws to Help Students Repay Loans,” PBS: WHYY (blog), April 25, 2019.
TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by Mira Abou-Elezz
Newark, New Jersey
Interview conducted in 2018
Transcription by Kether Tomkins
Annotations by Brandon McKoy
00:00:00
Mic test, mic test.
Testing, testing.
Alright, my name is Mira Abou-Elezz. I am here with–
Rida Hasan.
She is meeting us today all the way out from Houston, back in her home state, out here in Jersey. We are in Newark right now, uh, conducting the interview. Um, before we talk about Houston, Rida, can you just tell me where you are from?
I am from New Jersey, I was born in Karachi, Pakistan. I’m the first of three children. Uh, both my parents were the first out of their families to immigrate from Pakistan, uh, straight to Jersey City. That was the landing ground, the landing ground, or where we docked our boat. And I lived in Jersey pretty much my whole life. We moved out of Jersey City when I was pretty young, like two years and then moved into an apartment complex in, like, the suburbs of Jersey, Sayreville. I was in Sayreville ‘til about the first grade. I have some memories and some recollection about my time there and then we were able to move into a house in Matawan, New Jersey, not too far from Sayreville and I'd been there ‘til very recently, or my family had the house until very recently.
Okay, so let’s start where your memories start, in Sayreville, could you recall your school experience growing up there?
Yes, um, I lived in Winding Woods, in Sayreville. Winding Woods is, um, like an apartment complex. I know a lot of people from there now, a lot of immigrants live there. There is a lot of– you go there now, you see a lot of Indians folk, Pakistani, a lot of Desi, there’s Arabs, and the black community. So the first school that I actually went to was called Head Start, and it was preschool for lower income families. And it was really nice, because they really took the time to make sure, like, any time holiday season came around, they would start raising money for gifts and stuff for these, like, under privileged kids. And even though I didn't celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving or anything like that, like, they always sent home presents. That was really nice. Those are some of my first memories. I remember having a few friends that were also Pakistani. I knew another Arab child, so yeah.
So you mentioned that you didn't celebrate Christmas, why is that?
I grew up in a Muslim family. My parents told us that, like, we did celebrate Christmas, but in a different way. So, like, as a Muslim we believed that Jesus was a messenger of God, as opposed to you know, as his son or the lord himself. And he is very revered in the Islamic religion so we’ll have, like, a [unclear], or blessed food, and say some prayers, you know.
You mean on Christmas day?
On Christmas day.
Oh that’s nice.
Yeah. We had our own family tradition every Christmas Eve. My dad was in and out of the city a lot. Um, he was a– him and my mom were starting a travel agency at the time but he was a limousine driver, so a part of that taxi cab, you know, lifestyle was to be in and out of the city a lot, so he noticed that Christmas Eve, the city was pretty empty. The rush had died down by then. So every Christmas Eve he would pack us in his Lincoln Town Car, and see the Rocke– the tree at the Rockefeller Center and that was our tradition, that’s how we celebrated Christmas.
That sounds like a nice, um, synthesis of where you parents came from and, you know, America where they eventually ended up living and raising their kids. Did you feel like it was always so seamlessly synthesized?
Mmm. Definitely not, I wouldn't say that it was seamless. There was definitely times– [phone buzzes] Sorry. I knew I was, like, the odd one out, and practiced certain things at home, certain rituals, certain traditions that I couldn't connect with anybody at school. When I moved to Matawan, our school district– So, Matawan is a little town, but mostly older white people. Like, all my neighbors were old white people. Um, we had Emily next door who was eighty years old, and had been living in her house for over sixty years. Neighbors in front of us, next to us, behind us, they’re all older white people. But our school district was Little Matawan, Aberdeen, which was the same thing but younger families, and then Cliffwood. And Cliffwood was known as “Cliffhood.” Um, so our school, like the students in our school was mostly white kids and black kids, and there was a couple brown people. It was, like, me, my brother, and then this one other girl who was half-Filipino, half-Indian. So I didn't have many people to, like, relate with. It was hard to explain, like, why I had to dress a certain way, or, like, why I couldn't wear shorts, like when it was ninety degrees outside. Um, I knew I was kinda different growing up. I would say it's more seamless now, it took my parents some time to create a mold, and, like, kind of fit that mold, as Pakistani American. They learned as we grew up.
I’m interested in moving from Sayreville, which was more a majority immigrant community to Matawan, which you said– which in your immediate surroundings, was older white families.
It was slightly different.
What were the major differences that you noticed?
When I moved to Matawan, a lot of my friends, especially in elementary school because that's– middle school and high school is when these different smaller towns pooled it together, and we had one big middle school, one big high school– but the elementary school I went to, was mostly people from Matawan. White families. My friends were all in multiple extracurricular activities, and that is something that, like, I hadn’t experienced, and I didn't really have the opportunity to do the same. I’m talking dance class, softball, swimming lessons, you know. My parents were way too busy setting up their business, working to put food on the table, you know. Extracurricular activities meant having somebody drop and pick you off, and pay the fees for these schools, and we were trying to, like, get by, I guess.
How did that make you feel?
I always thought it was– growing up, I always thought that I couldn't do these things because I was Muslim. Rather than because we didn't have the money for it. That it came from– that's what I thought, oh ‘cause my culture won’t allow it. I didn't think it was an economical thing, it didn’t occur to me until later in my life that there were other Pakistanis, other Muslim families, where their kids were allowed to, “allowed to,” in quotes, do these things, but these families were from way better backgrounds, economically.
So when did you start meeting other Muslims, who are doing the things that you thought Muslims were not allowed to do?
College. Actually, even in college– even in college, I noticed at more of a difference of the lifestyle that some of my friends or peers were living. The economical part didn’t even really click. I noticed a difference in lifestyle that
00:10:00
some of my friends were living, the economical part didn’t even click. Maybe because we were all sharing a shared campus or dorms, and we are eating the same food, kind of. In that, like, college hustle, trying to make shit work. It didn’t click until I got married. Yeah, that was a big eye opener for me. When I married my ex-husband now, and moved in, and, like, saw the way his family lived, and the conversations they were having on the regular. My ex-husband was an engineer, his dad was also an engineer, and his dad went to school, actually in Cali, and his grandfather was an engineer too. So it was, like, you know, like a generational thing, and they all pretty much been better off than, like, my family. My dad was a– he worked at a factory that my grandfather owned. It was a textile factory, blue collar worker, you know, rode his bicycle to work everyday, like, we heard these stories, but, you know, it didn't mean anything to us, everybody did that. Then you had families, like my, um, like my ex, and they’ve been better off for generations, and I remember sitting around, we were visiting my in-laws, just a regular weekend. And we were sitting around with the family, and talking– somebody just mentioned that they were gonna go to Hawaii, like later in the year. And how, like, one by one they were just like– oh, like, my father in-law, for example, he was, like, “Oh, when are you going? Oh, November? Well let me see if I can clear my schedule.” And minutes later, cleared his schedule and booked tickets for the whole fucking family, you know, and I was just, like, taken back. That's crazy, I did not grow up in that kind of environment, like, where a thought– a thought like that can become a reality in, like, minutes. That’s when I realized the power of, um, education and, you know, where you come from economically, and how much of a difference that can make in the quality of your life.
So we’re talking– your ex-husband was also Pakistani– so we are talking about you know, the difference between his family back home, and your family back home before the migration, before America even happened, and how that had kind of, like you know, kind of replicated in the States. Could we talk a little more about your parent’s family, back home?
Mm-hmm. Definitely. Um, my dad and my mom both come from, like, very humble beginnings in Pakistan. Um, my dad used to joke about his riverside home. And my mom and my dad would laugh about that. Turns out that the riverside home, or the riverside view from their home was actually just, like, a dirty stream, [laughs], you know? And at one point, my dad had a dirt floor in their house or hut, or whatever they lived in. I still can’t really imagine what it looked like, but to have a dirt home– I mean a dirt floor, that says a lot. Um, my grandfather has a textile factory and he had– it was a, like, family business, and during the late eighties and nineties, they were getting a lot of business making undergarments, and, like, really mostly undergarments, jackets, jeans sometimes, and my dad was the oldest of, I forgot how many brothers, I think there is a total of six of them. But he was the oldest. He had his head on a little– tighter than the rest of his family. But my mom’s side of the family and dad’s side of the family were related. They are far relatives, but they knew each other, and my mom and dad had a thing for like years before they got engaged, and mom’s side of the family wasn't too happy, because my uncles, my dad’s brothers, had a little bit of a rep to be out in the streets and, like, always up to no good. And my mom’s side of the family was mostly girls, and my mom being the oldest, and my grandfather had a good respectable job– um, he worked as, he was, like, the chief of transportation in the city of Karachi.
But yeah, they were both pretty stubborn. My mom was, like, pressed on getting married to my dad, and I think she threatened to commit suicide or some shit like that. Like really dramatic. My mom, she’s a cancer, she’s, you know, into drama and stuff. So they got married, my mom got her bachelors, I think in fine arts, and my dad barely passed high school. Um, got married, my dad won a lottery visa that they opened up in Pakistan at the time, um, this was, yeah, early nineties. They needed blue collar workers to work in the United States. So my dad was lucky enough to win that lottery, and shortly after they got engaged, um, and married. My dad made a couple trips back and forth, he eventually got my mom and me, and moved to Jersey City. Jersey City from what I hear, the story my parents tell are crazy. Like, I didn't think my mom really knew what she was getting herself into. It was a big, like, culture shock for her, and the quality of life that she was living in Pakistan was way better off. My mom said she lived with me, and she was pregnant with my brother at the time. Um, mind you, she’s like twenty-three years old, yeah, twenty three years old, has a baby that’s, like, three to four months old, and pregnant with my brother. They lived in a small bedroom in Jersey City, and right after the bedroom, there is a bathroom, and then the kitchen. So, like, anytime you want to go into the bedroom, you have to pass through the bathroom to get in the kitchen, and then there was no other room, there was no dining room. So you eat in the bedroom, go through the kitchen. Um, there was rats, there was rodents, I remember my mom telling me, once it rained really bad– this was after my brother was born, he was born in Jersey City. They had gone–
Do you know what year?
This was definitely 1993. Yeah, my brother was only a few months old, and after they came back from their little, like, grocery trip or, like, stroll around the block while it was raining, they came back and the roof caved in over my brother's crib. Yeah, luckily he wasn't in there. So, like, that gives me an idea, and a gist of, like, the conditions that my parents were living in– Oh, and my dad also rented out that one little room, he wasn't sharing it with just my mom, like, with two other of his friends, one was like a resident, um, and something else.
So, like, you know what I mean? Kind of a tough-ass life. Jersey City, there was a lot of Pakistani and Indians. You know, it seems as if a lot of people, um, start off there, chain migrations, you know what I mean? Like, they have their grocery stores set up, and Halal markets and stuff. Those are my only real memories of Jersey City. We have gone back, like, my parents drove by to show us the little house they used to live in, which is kinda surreal. Um, then moved to Winding Woods. And to make things work, or, like, to get by– I’m back tracking a bit to Jersey City. I love this one story, where my mom tells me, like, this is how they would pay for groceries. My dad would drop off my mom and me, while she was pregnant, off at the grocery store, and during those fifteen, twenty minutes my mom was doing groceries, my dad would drive around the block and look for an older person who would need help with their groceries. And you know, whatever money they would tip him with, like the five dollars or whatever, that would be what they would buy the groceries with. And groceries were like one pepper, a couple onions, you know what I mean. So I thought that was pretty cool.
That’s a real hustle. So these are memories that you have are based on stories you have been told.
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Um, and then the memories that you have of Winding Woods and beyond, are ones that you made for yourself and those look a bit different than the stories from Jersey City.
Yeah.
In what ways?
Um, we had our own room at this point. My brother and I shared a room for a while, even when we moved into Matawan. Um, had a kitchen, living room, cable, um, space to play, like, we were able to go– we were babies in Jersey City but–
And was this because the travel agency became successful?
So my mom was, um, more educated than my dad, and she had, like, a big role in getting us to where we needed to be, like, if it wasn’t for my mom– like, my mom helped set up my– or their business at the time. She would be the one to stay at home. One thing that I just want to put out there, like, if you’re going to take anything away from the story, is that my parents were hustlers. Like, they definitely know how to work. My parents always worked, and they worked hard, like, when we first moved to, um, Winding Woods in Sayreville, one of their first jobs was delivering papers. So I would be in the back– this is also a story that I've been told– I would be in a car seat in the back, um, my brother as well, and my parents would both be in, like, the car, roll down the window in the freezing cold, and chuck papers in people's driveways. As many as they could, and by the end of the night, whatever they had left over, they would dump out. And also, my dad was working for Virgin Atlantic as, like, a private chauffeur, and he was working, like, he had a limousine license. And that was, like, a thing, and it's still a thing– a lot of Pakistanis, a lot of Indians, when they first move to this country, especially this part of the country, New York, New Jersey, they start off driving, there’s this whole taxi cab culture. You go to smaller Pakistani restaurants in New York City, or like Jersey City, and you see all of the taxi cab drivers sipping their chai, or– I think that it makes them feel like home, you know, in a completely foreign country.
And so you would say um, your parents had that niche community here?
Mm-hmm. Oh my God, we were so– they– our community having a little, and my parents are not– I was not only born and raised Muslim, but Shia Muslim, so being a minority within a minority, um, we all got really close. Or, I feel my parents, and others from Pakistan, from the same community, they kinda like were drawn to each other, And that was our family before the rest of our family immigrated.
You said it made them feel a little bit more, like, at home. Did these people who you considered your family provide resources for each other?
I don't think, um, that these communities really provided for us, like, in a financial aspect. But it definitely was a safe haven, a home away from home. A lot of people immigrated at that time, the early nineties. And my parents were able to find friends of friends that they knew from, you know, from back home or whatever, were able to connect off that. They all seemed to have children the same age too, like, we were– my parent’s friends all had kids that were our age, and we all, like, grew up together, so yeah. Um, it wasn't even just a religious institute, it was more than that. It was our community center, it was our home. Some people would even celebrate their birthday there, you know. And it also, like, gave my parents and others, like, ease and comfort, where we were, um, still able to learn something about the culture. And I think that's really important to first generation or, um, immigrants and then them having their kids here being first generation. To have some kind of knowledge of, you know, where we came from or who we are. Yeah. So.
It seems like a really invaluable thing to get from– when you let go of everything you know, and start over in a totally new place. So tell me about elementary, middle school and high school.
My dad always wanted to live, like, within our means, right. He was the– I guess you can say, sole breadwinner of– or provider of our home, even though my mom was, like, hustling the whole time too. She was babysitting, like, four kids, while she was watching me and my brother. But my mom always had the drive to push further, and so, I think it was 1999 when we bought the house, the house in Matawan. Um, my dad wasn't really all for it, but my mom really wanted– she was like a believer, like, yeah, let's take this step, and leave the rest to God. Religion played a big role in getting us through the years.
So, we got the house, and at the time, the travel agency was going really well. This was later nineties. So, they really wanted a house that, um, they can run their business from [phone chimes]. So we found a house not far from where we live, but the selling point was that it was on the highway– we lived on highway 34, Route 34, and they wanted to turn the garage into an office. Which they did. Um, okay, so the travel agency business– not just ours, but, like, across the board plummeted so much, like there was no business especially after 2001, after September 11th. So that only gave them, like, three, four years of good business while we were living in the house. Yeah. So my mom, she would run the business from home, while my dad was doing, like, his limousine business. It was normal for us to have, like, two house phones. One was a business house, one was the house phone, and my mom and my dad still had pagers at the time. So when my dad wanted to get in contact with my mom, he would page her and then my mom would call him back. Mom was always working, um, because a lot of our clients– or a lot of their clients were foreigners, most of his clients were Pakistani or Indian, you know. They would be working, like, around the clock, so, like, business phone is on twenty four seven, like, house phone is on twenty four seven, like, you cannot afford to lose any business. And around this time, now that I think back to it, one, I wasn’t really– my brother and I were not really involved in talks about finances, my parents really wanted to, like, not burden us with that, and never, like, make it seem like we were struggling. I really got everything I wanted when I was younger, but around this time is– I just remembered, I guess I was, like, really noticing that my dad wasn't around. ‘Cause I remember, like, crying about it, at, like, a sleepover. I was talking to my three best friends, um– these friends were the only friends I was allowed to, like, go over to their house, and like sleepover because they were Pakistan and Shia Muslim, and that's when I started having sentiments about how I really like my dad, and I wish he was, like, around more and crying about that.
How old were you then?
I was probably, like, nine, ten years old. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess that's how it affected me and I just knew my dad was working all the time, and I, like, missed him. And I just remember mom was, like, always working too.
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There was never, like, free time or anything like that you know.
No vacations?
No, our vacations or family trips, were the [unclear] tour group, and for those who don’t know, the– in addition to going to [unclear], which is an obligation if you’re a Muslim, like, at least one in your life. Um, Shia’s also give a lot of importance to visiting the shrines, um, and these holy sites of the Prophet’s family. And that's, like, all over the Middle East. Like, Iraq, Iran, Syria. So they would plan a summer trip to go visit all these places, it was a business trip, right, and they would take my brother and I with them, and we would finish off those trips, like, with uh, I don’t know, three weeks to month in Pakistan. So that was, like, an every summer thing. But we would always talk about going to Disney World, and that was, like– even though they had the means at the time, or like the connects in the travel agency, to have done something like that, like, go for cheaper fare, they just didn't have the time.
It’s just not you and your brother, you have another sibling, right?
Yes, my little sister is eleven now, going on thirty. [Laughs]. I'm sure anybody that has, you know, a younger sibling or child, you know, what they are Generation I, Y, but they’re on a whole different level. A whole different level. But we were in a very different, like, time in our life, when she was born. Um, she still saw and got to experience some of that, but there was a whole different era it seems, like, before she came, or– yeah, before she was part of the picture. I was fifteen when she was born. So okay, one major thing that I left out, throughout all of this, we had family visiting us constantly. So my parents were the first ones to get out, and they are both the eldest siblings in their families. So my mom was, like, mama figure, you know. Anytime anybody needs anything, any kind of advice, like, help, whatever– financial help, relationship, whatever, they turn to Aapa. Aapa means older sister.
Um, and then my dad was [unclear], right, like not even just, like brother, [unclear] is– sab means, like, mm, I may be interpreting this wrong, but like master, kind of.
I don’t know if I’m translating this right, like, master, you know? So same thing with my dad. Everybody turned to him for any kind of advice or help. And my parents, they made it their life mission, pretty much, to get their families over from Pakistan. Even, like, knowing that their life is gonna be a struggle, but you have to understand Pakistanis– especially Shia Muslims, were being persecuted, and are still are all over the world. But a life of struggle, and hardship is better than, like, you know. Like anytime you step outside of the house in Pakistan, like, you don't know if you’re coming back, especially for, like, the men, because they are more in, like, the public eye, I guess.
So it’s, like, uh, Shia immigration, similar to refugees, it’s actually escaping a place of war.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Definitely. My aunt and uncle, in 2002, this was just a few months after my uncle’s wedding, which was right before September 11th, it was, like, around that time, like, everyone knew about this black list, that these target killers had, and it was prominent Shia leaders. Their whole ideology is, how do we kill off, like, because you know, they believe like– Pakistan was founded with a very beautiful image in mind, like, liberal, you can practice whatever you want. Actually, in the sixties and seventies, there were clubs in Pakistan, and it’s described as, like, Pakistan’s golden era. The Pakistan International airlines were one of the leading airlines in the world, at the time, what do you call it, JFK and Jackie Kennedy were like paying visits, and there were parades. Things were good until the 1980s. When Zia-ul-Haq became president and he tied to Saudi Arabia. Um, and during his presidency, there were about two-hundred madrasas in Pakistan. And these madrasas teach, like, it’s, like, funded by Saudi Arabia. And they have mostly, like, Wahhabi teachings. It was about, like, twenty years that he was president, I have to double-check on that. But from what I recall, it was around twenty years. Towards the end of his presidency, he had, um, opened up two thousand. So these kids, raised as Pakistanis, grew up with these teachings, ended up becoming, like, serial killers, or target killers, by the time they were in their twenties, right? So that was around early 2000s.
Under the influence under the madrasas, which were teaching Wahhabism, which is, like, um, militant, uh, Sunni ideology?
And they believes that it’s their job to purify Islam, and anybody who doesn’t, or who is not in line with their way of thinking, they, um, want to clean up the mess, that mess, or, like, break up that community, break them down. And how do you do that– by killing off the leaders of the community. So that was the blacklist, um, and my grandfather was killed, um, by them. The guy later, he was found, I don't know if he, like, admitted to it, because they do do that in pride, like, oh look, these are all the people that we killed. He was killed, and it was the signature move, where like somebody on a motorcycle drives up next to your car, and there’s two people riding one motorcycle– that's why they banned double [unclear], or, like, two people on a motorcycle, because there were too many killings because of it. So the guy on the back would be the one with the gun– one gunshot to the head and one in the neck, right. So after that, like, my mom filed for my younger aunt and uncle to move to America. But, like, on a refugee visa, because immigration otherwise just takes years. Like my other aunts and uncles all came eleven to thirteen years after my parents first applied for them to come over. That’s why we need immigration reform, like really bad. The process is just too way to fucking long. You know what I mean. By the time my uncles and aunts moved to America, they already had families and kids that, you know, who are now experiencing– like, I feel so, like much more at an advantage to go– really having going– to have gone through the entire school system here in America. Um, whereas, like, somebody having, like my cousins, having identity crisis, trying to find themselves when they are older. I mean, they have all, you know, kind of found themselves very gracefully, and I’m proud to, like, kick it with them, and go out with them, and before that, it was just fucking weird. Anyway. You know. This is all leading back to the fact that I had family constantly, always coming in and out of our house. Like, in Winding Woods, at first, it was just, like, my grandparents. They were the first ones to– because they were the parents of the appliers, not the brothers and sisters. They were able to come to America, and visit us and shit, but then yeah, around eight or nine years old, is when my first uncle came and he
00:40:00
was a handful and lived with us for, like, years, and throughout that time, I had a whole nother set of aunt and uncle and, like, four kids come live at our house. So I thought it was, like, normal. One family would move out once we would, like, set them up. Or my parents, you know. They wanted to make sure their siblings didn't have to go through early, early struggles that my parents had to go through, so my parents, like, set up our little home like it was a two family home. And one family would, like, live in the basement, and we would all live upstairs. I always shared a room first, with my brother, then with my aunt, and then one time, it was my aunt, my grandma, and me in a ten by ten, which is still a lot better off than some stories that I hear, like, six kids in a room. So Alhamdulillah, thank god, but still, our beds were touching. I had a stowaway bed, that was, like, always tucked away through the day. But yeah, our beds would touch. I thought it was normal to live with thirteen, fourteen people. That’s just how I grew up. Then it wasn't ‘til, like, later, especially when I got married, people really value their space. Like, we really compromised our space, and, like, my brother and I never complained about it, I think that was something that we learned from our parents. They weren’t really complainers, they were always very generous with their time and space and resources, or just a fraction of that. Benjamin Franklin has this one quote that I fucking love. He goes, “Guest and fish start smelling in three days,” and I really saw that, like, at my in-laws. Like after a few days, you can tell that things were stressful for them, or having to cater to somebody for, like, I mean, not me. But when they would have other family members come stay. Like three days is a lot, and a week is, like, we are really doing something for you here. And, like, I had my parents that would have like–
Constantly. For months on end.
Yeah, sometimes years.
That was your normal.
Yeah, it makes me think, like, now how that affected, like, my psyche. Because there are studies that say, like, there was a study on rats, the more rats you put in a confined space, the more anxious they were. Like, we as beings need space.
For our mental health.
Yeah, for my mental health. So it made me think about, like, growing up, and how that might have affected me. I always thought I was a pretty confident person, it wasn't – it wasn’t until later that I met up with some of my friends from high school, ‘cause moving away from home was, like, major.
And this is college.
Yeah, this is college. After college– up until college, I never stopped outside of my home, my three friends the way they were brought up was similar to mine. You know, I didn’t really have any– I was definitely sheltered, I didn't really have open conversations with people outside of my religion, or race, you know, until it was college. ‘Cause in classes, like there’s only so many– I wasn't allowed to go to people’s houses. So after college is when I met up with some of these people from back home, that I went to school with, like, me and my one friend went out to a bar once and saw some of these kids, and them telling me how I was right, like, kind of poke fun at me. Like, okay, this was always Rida, carrying a big stack of books, scurrying from one class to another. I never really understood how people had time to, like, socialize in between classes. I always felt like I was rushing from one class to another and barely making it. So yeah, like, different people have pointed out that I was like a nerd, right. And it makes me think, yo when I'm in a crowd, I do keep my eyes down. I didn't realize that I was kind of anxious or get social anxiety, but I do a little bit. I would still say that I'm a confident person, but I feel it sometimes. Oh, and I was also diagnosed with Crohn's, when I was eleven. And that’s been a major part of my life. It is an autoimmune illness of the digestive system, they don't really know the cause of it, it can be stress, it can be anxiety, it can be your diet, it can be genetics, it can be a combination of those things. I’ve noticed that I internalize my stress and it takes– it affects me. I see the direct correlations with, like, stress outside, you know, that I face, and then, like, how I feel, like, with Crohn's. I'll have more flair ups, it’s always around finals time when the weather starts to get colder.
It’s like external stimuli manifest in your body.
Yeah. [Laughs] I was traveling from Houston to Jersey, like, a couple years ago and I was sitting next to this one lady who was a doctor, and she was reading a book, so I asked her about her book. She told me that she's doing this study on how your gut reacts to your– what you eat can change the way you think. How, like, the hormones in your brain are also found in your stomach. I told her a little bit about Crohn’s, and I told her, oh, it wasn't until I went away to college that I started feeling a little bit better, when I experimented with alternative medicine. And I was, like, yeah, doing more yoga and I was, like, eating better, and she was, like, it could also be the fact that you moved away from your home, maybe something was stressing you out in your home, that made you feel better when you stepped outside of it. And that made me think about how I grew up. Yeah.
That's really interesting.
Mm-hmm. A child getting sick is stressful for, like, any family. It's even more stressful when you don't have the time to attend to their needs, yet as a parent, you do everything that you can. You sacrifice in other areas of your life, to make sure that your child is good. Like, my parents did the best that they could. They took me to, like, whatever doctor other doctors referred us to, taking me to the hospitals, and cook for me, stuff like that. Diagnosed with Crohn's at eleven, I was in the fifth or sixth grade. I was pretty sick. I went from being eighty something pounds to sixty something pounds, and I was sick throughout most of sixth– I mean, most of middle school and most of high school. Seventh grade, I was really sick, I did most of my work from home. Like, all my teachers were very accommodating, they gave me books and everything I needed at home, we kept in touch through email and phone. In and out of the hospital. Later in my life, based off of research, I wasn't really getting the best treatment throughout, like, my childhood, and that's based off of the doctors and the facilities that we had access to. Having government funded insurance, although my parents did what they had to do, to make sure I was taken care of, I later realized that my treatment wasn't given that much thought, the doctors would just recommend whatever medicine would profit them the most. I noticed a stark difference in the way I was treated, and how I was cared for, once I got my own insurance, through, like, my first real job, when I was a sales rep, or Customer Experience Specialist, as they would say, at Verizon Wireless. I had really good health insurance.
When was that?
That was my senior year at Rutgers,
00:50:01
and like throughout my marriage. So it’s just, like, holy crap, this is what bedside manners are, like, these doctors, like, I was told a lot throughout my life, Crohn’s opens up a lot of complications, you know, so often times you need a team of doctors to treat whatever complications it is you’re going through. I never knew what that looked like, you know, until I had this insurance. I saw that instead of telling me, “Oh, we don’t know what’s wrong with you, why don’t you try this, this, and this,” and all of those methods failing, these doctors taking a step back and contacting other specialists, and approaching me with different treatment options, and calling me, instead of me having to hound them down to make an appointment, these kinds of things. It kind of pisses me off that we all don’t get equal treatment, like, as human beings, because of economic reasons. Yeah. Um, I really just started that job, because this was after I had my nikah done. And the nikah is, like, the Islamic wedding. At that time, I was still a senior at Rutgers, my dad would give, like, me an allowance, right, like a little bit of money so I could buy food and stuff, throughout the week, but after my nikah, he assumed that my legal husband now was taking on the responsibility, and my husband at the time also wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility, and made it clear, like, “Oh you know, I didn't know I was financially responsible for you now.” Even though I didn’t bring up the allowance thing at all to him, this is just getting a bit personal. He would say that the weekends he come see me and, like, take me out to dinner, like, you know what I mean, this should have been a really big red flag, but this was also my first relationship, I learned a lot through the process. It was awkward for me, ‘cause it didn't want him to look bad to my dad, and then I didn’t want my dad to look bad to him, so I just, like, took it upon myself to start a job. So that’s when I first started my job. I didn't really like it. I don't, like, like selling things I don’t care for, I don’t like filling quotas. There’s, like, so much more.
So it was really just a job to secure you at your own, at your first point of financial independence. What happens in your life after that?
I’m able to provide by myself. I was still pampered, like, I always had a roof over my head. Money is freedom, so I was able to do whatever I really wanted.
Did you come out of, um, school with any debt?
Yeah. Yeah, a lot of debt. I took out loans every single year. I’m getting text messages these days saying, hey give us a call back, you might be eligible for, like, student loan forgiveness. I don’t know, that shit over the phone makes me uncomfortable, like, to give my information away over the phone, can be a victim to some kind of scam. Like God forbid, they steal seven hundred dollars out of my bank account. It's not even like I'm sitting on a lot right now. [Laughs] When things started going south in my marriage, I knew that I had options. I knew that I didn’t have to stay because I had nowhere else to go. Like, I knew I could make it work. Having worked a job, gaining that financial freedom, that opening up other possibilities– I just knew. I guess that’s one thing what the job taught me. Is, like, I might be spending my money one way, but I could spend this money, like the way she’s spending. You know, on rent, or on a room that she shares with somebody. After my marriage is when I kinda just, like, ran away. I knew I had a home in Jersey, even though my mom had moved to Houston. My parents were having some financial troubles, so my mom found a job in Houston and started a life there.
Jersey is pretty tough, so I can imagine that Houston might have been a bit easier.
Yeah, definitely. My mom talks about– she’s just amazed. I can’t believe it, that I don’t know what took me so long to move. I found a job with better benefits, and better pay, easier work, less expenses. Yeah, we were really struggling in Jersey. I may have not noticed it because everyone else was struggling in Jersey. Like where I come from, it’s rare– most people have a humble car. Humble cars being like Toyota Camrys, Fords, no foreigns, really. In Houston, it's different. People have the time– it’s true, your expenses are less, you get more for your space– I was talking about space earlier, and what that does for your mental health. And the sun is shining most of the time. It’s monsoon season right now, so it’s kinda grey, but it’s still warm and it makes the world’s difference. So yeah, Houston was a good change for my family. I tried to make it that one year, that one year I was there, when I left D.C., when I left my husband, to make something out of myself, like, in Jersey. I really did not want to move to Houston, but that shit was hard, like, I was so pressed to not going to Houston. ‘Cause, like, my worst fear was being, like, a thirty-something divorced woman living with her mom. And I just assumed there weren’t opportunities for me in Houston, doing, like, searches on the internet, and stuff. And I just wasn’t finding any jobs. When my dad passed away at the end of that year, I was in Jersey trying to make it, I came to Houston without any hesitation. I knew that, like, I tried to make it for a year, and I just was barely– if we didn't have the house, I would not have money for the rent, I would be homeless. And I was kinda– for a little bit, I lived out of my car. I didn't second guess it, I was just like, alright, I'm gonna go to Houston now. Like, I’m blessed to have my mom be there for me. I have nothing really holding me, back in Jersey. Nothing really came out of that year.
What was it like the first night you slept in your car?
Cold. Yeah, I was kind of, like, kicked out of my house. Like, my dad and I were beefing that night. I was definitely a different person when I left my husband, and came back home. I was going through, like, a roller coaster of emotions. Like, I was on this whole, “I’m going to be an independent woman, no man can tell me what to do, or, like, I can go anywhere I want, like, as I please.” And so my dad just had just, like, had it with me one night, and I was leaving to go somewhere and he was like, “Alright, if you leave, you’re not coming back.” It’s not like I had nowhere to go, but I, like, I really had nowhere to go. I did not have money for gas, so I couldn't, like, really venture off too far. I just, like, went around the block, to my favorite place in Matawan, it’s, like, the lake, Lake Lefferts. And just, like, posted up there, and slept in my car, it’s fucking cold. I had to turn the heat off at times throughout the night, so I can get back home, you know, when things settled. I don’t know, that shit was hard. That was a dark time in my life, and I think that month, my car broke down and it would have cost three thousand to get it fixed. So I was in Jersey for a year. Six months, I had a car, I was back at Rutgers, and the next six months, like, I didn't have a car. My dad didn't have the money to pay for it, like, mom was like– at the time, didn't have money to pay for it, because she had moved to Houston. I think, um, that was the darkest point in my life, like, living in suburbs of Jersey, not have a car. Yeah, ‘cause throughout all of this, I’ve remained grateful for having that. I can only imagine for somebody that didn't have those blessings– and these blessings that I have, I didn't do anything to deserve them, so, like, a girl just like me could be in the same situation, worse off, you know, having a mouth to feed, or mouths to feed, two, three children, not having the support of– or, like, not having a college degree, not having the support, like how she must make it. I know it would have been really tough, like close to impossible, for me to pay rent in Jersey. It's hard for young people.
So now, living in Houston and looking back at your lived experience in Jersey, what do you think are some things that could help. Could have helped your situation and can help people in that situation today?
Be grateful. Even in the toughest situations, chances are there is– no matter how bad your situation, there is somebody who has it worse. So just be grateful.
What are some things that helped you get through?
Being grateful, trying to find the silver lining in things. Being hopeful, knowing things will turn around. So when I started a job, that's when I decided that I didn't want to be in the relationship I was in before, and I didn’t have to be. Like, a lot of things that I had believed in before, I felt like I was stripping down layers of, like, all these things that I thought I believed in, and I started questioning everything, and kind of, like, everything that I stood for and thought I was striving for just came tumbling down. I just started questioning everything, throughout all the turmoil in my life, I realized what was worth living for. Happiness. I started gaining a new perspective on, like, how life could be. I, like, realized what was worth living for, what made me happy, how I wanted to spend my time. You can say, like, I found my dream. Like the possibility of being in the music industry, or the fashion industry became, like, a real thing for me. I always had an interest in it, and I remember, like, growing up, even in middle school, like when my mom, she was like, “Hey Rida, maybe you should be a fashion designer.” I knew at that time that that wasn't, like, really an option. Yeah, like, I just knew she was, like, joking, because all throughout my life, she was like, “Rida, you’re gonna be a lawyer, and [her brother], you’re gonna be a doctor.” You know what I mean? So, like, anyways, those possibilities started opening up to me, and you could say I started chasing my dream. One thing that got me through was, like, even when things got really tough, I would tell myself, oh it’s okay, ‘cause this will make for a better story. And I really started believing in the story of my life. If that doesn't, like, sound weird, I just, like, I stepped outside of the picture, and I guess I’ve been, like, very reflective in these last few years, and I just think about how all that will make for a better story. Like, no matter what comes out of it is what I am striving for, I can really mold my destiny– Like I can mold my destiny, and imagine if I turn something, like, really awesome out of this.
It’s like taking control of your own narrative and your life story, which you have not a lot of control over. That’s cool.
I'm, like, proud of myself for being optimistic throughout all of this. I think I get that from my parents. Through some of these times, like, I’ve had friends, you know, like you or, like, family friends that have seen me grown up, comment on how we’ve handled these couple years. And another thing, we’ve never have been a family that, like, talks about our issues. You know, like no matter what we were going through, my parents were always, like, pleasant to be around, people still looked to them for support, you know, and saw them to be the ideal couple or whatever. Maybe I inherited some of it, I’m not sure, but, like, being positive and really believing in, like, everything happens for a reason, has helped me gotten through. You choose your reaction, right, but you don't always choose what happened to you, but your life can be how you want it to be, based off of how you react off of certain things. I see life more as, like, a test now, the whole, like, red pill blue pill thing. I’m able to step back and say well, if I choose A, this could be the result of it or the consequences of it and if I choose B, it's crazy, ‘cause everyone has the power to do that. I didn't see that really growing up, my parents were very reactive. [Laughs] Emotional. We are in a lot better space now. I feel like a change in my mom, living a more comfortable life at home, like, money really isn’t an issue right now, and that’s never been the case. Space isn’t an issue, food isn’t an issue. You know, like, life is more comfortable, like, I see my mom's mind, like, opening up to different perspectives, and, like, finding creative outlets to express herself. It's nice. Our conversations are a little different now.
Economic situation has an effect on so much more than just your money.
Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.
And how in a lot of ways that you can't really see that until you’re out of it.
Mm-hmm. It’s enslaving when you don't have it. Even if you have it sometimes, if you don't have control. [whispers something unclear]. Really, like, I wish money was a conversation, and I wish I knew how to handle it more, make it work for me rather than me work for it, you know.
I feel like that's a huge disadvantage and it's not something that we are taught in any type of school.
Yeah.
Um, if there’s anything else you want to mention?
Money is freedom. It can open up a lot of doors for you. I think we should be having a lot more conversations about money, and how to manage money, and how to make money work for you. And as a community, be more about– be realer about the issues that you face. ‘Cause that is the problem in our communities. We’ve known these families for years, but we give a lot of importance on how we come off, and nobody wants to come off needy or desperate. But it doesn’t need to be that way. So if we were, like, realer about our problems, we could come up with solutions with the resources that we have to help our community succeed, and rise and it benefit everybody. As women, I think we need to give more importance to when women getting an education, and there be a little less importance to who you are going to marry. That's one thing that I learned. No matter what kind of relationship that you’re in, like, it’s not promised that that person is going to be there tomorrow. Whether that means the relationship itself is not a great one, and is falling apart, or like, your partner dies, what happened to my mom. So anything can happen, and it’s important for us to, like, secure ourselves financially, so you don't have to experience that hardship.
Wow. [Both laugh]. Thank you so much Rida. Really really insightful.
You’re welcome. It was my pleasure, thank you for having me. I hope you got something good.
Definitely.
Okay, cool. I’m, like, not a focused person, I go off on tangents a lot.
You dropped a few gems here and there.
That’s all it’s about, right.