Comment by Yabood | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Yabood | Hacker News Reader

Interesting read. In 2008, with the help of the US embassy in Baghdad, my family and I were admitted as refugees. An American friend of mine who I worked with back in Baghdad helped us rent a place in Reston, a small town in Fairfax county. The rent was $1250 for a small 2 bedroom condo. For refugees like us with over 20K in debt, the rent was extremely high, but we wanted to be in this area because there were a lot more opportunities compared to other places we could have gone to. I was 23 years old at the time, and within five years I went from being a support engineer, to a support lead, then a manager, then a director, then a CEO of a Bain Capital Ventures backed company to now attempting to build my own company. Compared to many other Iraqis I know who were admitted as refugees and lived in other areas of the country, I am doing better than most (career wise). Granted, I had lots of help, and was lucky to have had the chance to work with and learn from many bright people, but I truly believe that being here in this area is one of the top reasons I had more success than others. Obviously I am not saying this the best area in the country, but it's a pretty good place to be in and start from.

Gotta tell ya, Reston and NoVA is the land of A-rab opportunity.

(For those not familiar with Northern Virginia, ironically the only place I speak more Arabic outside of Arab countries than anywhere else, specifically in the United States, even after hearing NJ is Little Egypt.)

Anyway, cool story, man. Would love to see you write more about it!

I am surprised to hear you say that you speak more Arabic in this area than anywhere else in the US. I think MI, NJ, and CA have much larger Arab communities. At any rate, I think immigrants in general should move to areas where they are forced to learn more about their "new" country to better integrate than isolate themselves within these communities.

Well, I also had a long-term relationship with a Lebanese-American person. That might have skewed it. I also studied it as a major, which helped self-select my friends.

In Virginia, you meet many new immigrants. And in Bethesda area of Maryland and the surrounding area of DC, there are many established Lebanese families (gathering from the church events and more formal social events I was invited to).

Again, these are one man's anecdotes.

You might find this episode of This American Life interesting

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/504/h...

similar story of a refugee attributing his good fortune to chance

I'll avoid posting any spoilers

it takes at least a couple of generations to instill that sense of entitlement :)

Much more interesting than the original post, thanks for posting it.

I listen to This American Life podcast occasionally, but never heard this one before. I really enjoyed it, thank you. I understand why Emir consider's himself lucky, and I think that most immigrants do too. Maybe because we never thought it was possible for us to escape our war torn countries and have normal lives again. I really don't know, but I do feel lucky. By the way, checkout The Moth. I think you'll really like it.

> Reston

Watch out for the Ebola-infected lab monkeys :)

Welcome to the States, and congrats with your successes; your life story already sounds like something worthy of an inspirational (auto)biography.

Thank you. The time I spent with the US military as a linguist back in Baghdad is much more interesting. I might write it about sometime soon.

I'm sorry for what happened in Iraq. I'm glad you were able to get out of there and succeed here in the States.

Mate, if you're ever in Minneapolis, let me know - I'll buy you a drink (alcoholic or not) and show you the sights. I'd love to hear your story.

Thank you. I've been to Minneapolis a couple of times on business trips, and really liked it. My body couldn't handle its harsh winter though. One of the worst cold weathers I've ever experienced in my life.

It can be a little chilly, but nowhere near as cold as North Dakota! The summers are really nice, though.

Would love to buy you a beer and hear more of your story, should you visit SF.

I might take you up on that offer. Thinking about visiting SF soon to see if its time for me to move down there.

Please email if you do.

Congratulations!

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