Thursday, March 28, 2024

Iranian immigrant hosts Thanksgiving in East Dallas for refugees



Volunteers serve turkey. But that dish isn’t the principle course, as a result of most refugees right here have by no means heard of it.

DALLAS — For too many Americans, Thanksgiving is a vacation typically taken for granted.

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“Today, when I drove here, I started crying and said, ‘Thank you God for today,” mentioned Leili Momeni, 48, an Iranian refugee.

She and dozens of different refugees from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China loved Thanksgiving collectively at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in East Dallas on Thursday.

Volunteers serve turkey. But that dish isn’t the principle course, as a result of most right here have by no means heard of it.

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“Eleven years ago, when I changed my religion, they took me to the jail when my daughter is 16 months,” Momeni added.

But the tales shared across the dinner desk are ones it is best to hear.

Iranian police, Momeni mentioned, saved her locked up for every week in 2011 after they found she transformed from Islam to Christianity. She fled Iran a month after she was launched and got here to Dallas.

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But her 90-year-old mom and 10 siblings stay in her house nation – and stay in hazard.

“I don’t want to post any picture or anything about Thanksgiving [on social media] because I know our people are in a really, really hard situation,” Momeni continued.

In September, Iranian ladies determined sufficient was sufficient. They stood as much as a lifetime of oppression with protests in the streets. In response, the Iranian authorities reacted with a brutal crackdown.

“My sister said we cannot get out or they take us to jail, or they hit the people in the street. We’re not going far. We’re just going to buy something or to eat and come back home,” Momeni mentioned relaying the dialog along with her sister.

Another Iranian immigrant got here up with this concept for Thanksgiving after being compelled to flee herself.

“We didn’t know what Thanksgiving was about. And it was extremely difficult. We were lonely. Our family was back in Iran. We couldn’t be with them. The challenge was we could see all the parties, gift-giving and celebrations and we just were not a part of it,” mentioned Rev. Samira Izadi Page with Gateway of Grace, a Dallas non-profit that connects congregations with refugees.

Page escaped Iran in 1989.

For the final 12-years, Page has hosted this vacation for refugees like herself.

It’s greater than a meal. This is about belonging. And acceptance.

“They are extremely, extremely lucky for them to be able to be here in this country because there are millions who want to be, but can’t,” she defined.

And that’s one thing to be grateful for.

“That’s something to be thankful for. Yes,” Page mentioned.



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