“That’s why we come here,” she says. As she anticipates her 2016 graduation, Theres is philosophical about what’s next. “I’m really open to anything, because I feel like everything


that’s happened here kind of worked out for me,” she says. “I’m just hoping that something I enjoy is going to come my way, and then I can go from there.”


Seeing the World from a College Town:


Mortazh Alhassan Mortazh Alhassan, 30, wasn’t as surprised by the large


portions at American restaurants as some of EMU’s other international students have been. Portions were large in his home country of Saudi Arabia, too.


“But since 2008,


everything got smaller because of the economic crisis,” he says. “That happened everywhere, even in my country.” The massive job


losses suffered by the Saudi working class, Mortazh says, was one of the factors in his decision to leave his country and study in the U.S. He had already earned a two-year degree and was working as a mechanic at a steel company, but he believed more education would mean more job security. Mortazh confided in his wife, Maryam Alnazr, that he dreamed of pursuing a bachelor’s degree in the U.S. “She started encouraging me, and supporting me, and


then I resigned from my job and came here,” he says. He’s now majoring in mechanical engineering. So what was his biggest adjustment? “When I moved here, I stayed almost a year and a half away from my wife,” he says. “She was studying there for her bachelor’s degree, and we decided when she finished, she


would come here.” Last April, she finally joined him. “It’s lots better,” he says with a broad smile. Mortazh arrived in the United States in late November 2013,


experiencing cold and snow for the first time. “I got out of the airplane in Chicago and thought, no, no, no.


I’m not outside. That’s probably a refrigerator or something,” he says. “I hadn’t seen any cold weather like this in my whole life. A couple of weeks after that, they had the worst storm ever in the United States!” Mortazh started at Eastern in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program, to improve his English before taking mainstream classes. He found speaking easier than writing, in part because he had to master a new alphabet. To support his efforts, he spent less time reading and watching TV in his native Arabic, opting instead for movies in English. He’s made progress, but still hopes to improve further. Now his wife, who has a degree in accounting from King


Faisal University, is in the English intensive program and hopes to move on to


graduate school. The importance of education is


something Mortazh takes very seriously. He says his parents insisted that their children—


all 13 of them—be educated, but that it is not mandatory in Saudi Arabia. That’s clearly a concern for him. “Most people there want to take their children to school, but


a small number don’t. Who is going to protect those children?” He has friends back home, he adds, who can’t read or write in their own language. “This is where the problem comes from,” he says, speaking


slowly to make his point. “I know there are a lot of bad things going on in the Middle East, and that’s just because of the education. People who are doing terrible things, they are not educated, so they’re easy to brainwash.” Like Theres, Mortazh enjoys the activities EMU has to offer, and says it’s very different from back home, where students do


Eastern | WINTER 2016 29


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