Six Words Fresh Off the Boat by Larry Smith

Author:Larry Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2017-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

I Stayed and I Raised Myself

By Ikram Goldman

I was born and raised in Israel by Christian Arab parents. I went to private schools, and English was my third language. Being able to speak English meant access and superiority in a country that suppressed Arabs.

When I was thirteen, my mother fell ill suddenly and needed cancer treatment, which only a hospital in Chicago was able to provide at the time. (Subsequently, a hospital in Israel became the number one treatment center in the world for exactly the cancer that brought my mother to America.) My mother, as sick as she was, did not want to leave my brother and me behind. It was partly because we were young, but also, I later realized, because we spoke English and she didn’t.

We flew KLM from Israel to the United States, and the seats were huge! At least that was what I remembered from that time, until I flew back to Israel twenty-five years later with my twin boys, and the seats were miniscule. I remember wondering how my mother did it with two kids in tow.

When we first landed in New York to be transferred to Chicago, I was blown away by everyone at the airport. It was full of people from every part of the world, but the one thing I remember they all had in common was that they all spoke English. I remember turning to my mom and saying to her in Arabic: “Mom, everyone here speaks English!”

The plan was to go back to Israel. But my mom passed away shortly after we arrived, and I realized I didn’t want to leave. I stayed and I raised myself.

Ikram Goldman owns ikram, a women’s clothing store in Chicago. She is known, among other things, for dressing former first lady Michelle Obama.

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