Iraq

My good friend Sarmad Ali recently left New York to visit his family in Baghdad for the first time since he first arrived in the United States in August 2004. Since then, his life has been full of astonishing (and sometimes amusing) triumph: he graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism with a Master’s in journalism with me in May 2005, got a job as a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, and now has a green card and…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the new Iraqi law to censor the Internet is airing today. It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams): NYC – 3 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 8 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 12 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg Boston – 4 pm Eastern – WGBH –…

Big ups to my man Sarmad Ali, for this fascinating blog post about Iraqi communities in Michigan. WSJ: As we drove through Detroit’s suburbs, we passed movie theaters and subdivisions, large strip-malls and sleepy neighborhoods. We stopped at Ryan Palace, a restaurant named after the street it is on in the city of Warren. The entrance was painted light blue with glazed bulls and dragons to make it look like Babylon’s Ishtar Gate. Arabic tabloids were stacked near the door.…

Sarmad Ali writes: Throughout my entire year at Columbia, I was scared of almost all other ethnic food, especially sushi, which I found weird and repulsive. “Eating raw fish?” I would say to a friend in disgust. Just before graduation, a close friend from California said he would like to have me try sushi with him before he went back home. Not wanting to disappoint him, I went with him to a sushi place. He ordered for both of us…

This is from my good friend and Columbia classmate, Sarmad Ali, who has written a follow-up piece to his story from last February. I wasn’t there in Baghdad; I couldn’t be there. I am an Iraqi citizen caught between two worlds. I’m a guest in the U.S., where I have lived since 2004, studying and working for this newspaper. But I have no U.S. travel documents. And my Iraqi passport has been invalidated. More unsettling, more disruptive than the possibility…