Luck Goes to Those Who Deserve It

This doesn't really have much to do with editng...but it does have to do with journalism.

I am currently in Journ 480, Literary Feature Writing with Walt Harrington. In the midst of some undergraduates and graduates, there is one Iraqi exchange student in the class. The student is also a woman in her mid 20s.

While the rest of us found subjects for our ~3000 word pieces, she was using herself as her hers, writing a memoir of her transition from Iraq to America. We finally were able to read it yesterday in class, after knowing seemingly nothing of her writing process or even anything about herself.

Her memoir was eye-opening. She had worked for a radio station run by women in Iraq that lacked funding and respect. She had worked for Hussein's son, translating English movies and television shows into English. She had worked for an organization that helped disabled soldiers. She graduated from Baghdad University, majoring in English. She also suffered from polio as a child and had a severly misshapen spine.

Lynn Holley heard of the radio station she was working for and decided to raise enough money to bring one aspiring journlist over to the University of Illinois. She was chosen. Walt Harrington then met her and offered her the chance to receive a Master's degree in journalism here at the university.

Reading her memoir was completely eye-opening. While she does admit that American children are selfish and have no respect for their parents, she also is in awe of the genuine curiosity and care of the students here, the way the univeristy and the U.S. cares for disabled people, the way women have a chance here, and the concept of freedom. She even says that Iraqis are much more selfish than Americans when only caring about people are are strong. The sick, the disabled, the women...all are treated as nobodies.

She has felt tragedy and seen horrors most of us have and will never see. Her 16-year-old brother was kidnapped and never seen again. Her father warned her many times to not speak in public because she might be killed. Yet she still became not only a woman, but a disabled woman, who received an education, helped with the war efforts, worked as a journlist for a sort of underground radio station.

She had been so lucky to have the opportunity to come here. But she is so deserving.