By Ava Menkes
Carmel Delshad, a Palestinian-Egyptian-American, grew up in Florida after Sept. 11, 2001, feeling alienated by classmates who looked to her as an expert during discussions of the attack.
“I was very conscious of the way the mood shifted, even in my own circle at school… After 9/11, I was one of very few Muslims in my school, and I just remember growing up feeling very different, very weak, well, just not fitting in,” Delshad said.
Delshad grew bothered by what she continued to see on TV: predominantly white news anchors talking about Muslim identity and beliefs. She entered the journalism industry because she wanted to represent her community, to feel like “they’re being seen.”
After graduate school, Delshad worked with NPR and WAMU in Washington, D.C., where she connected with refugees who had resettled in the Virginia and Maryland area, including Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis. She wanted to tell stories of Muslims in the United States that captured their humanity and avoided dehumanizing frameworks focused on national security.
“I was just sort of wondering, what is the effect of all this rhetoric on people who’ve been sort of sold the American dream, and a lot of [refugees] worked with American forces on top of it, right?” Delshad said.
President Joe Biden initiated a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2020 and 2021. The Biden administration then launched Operation Allies Welcome to give 76,000 evacuated Afghans humanitarian parole to enter the U.S.
Now, Delshad said, American journalists have the opportunity to cover Afghan refugees in ways that honor the range of their stories, humanize them and provide the public with the information needed to understand the lifetime impact of this war.
Interviews aren’t transactional
Sanya Mansoor, a journalist who has covered state politics, criminal justice, religion and South Asia for TIME, said journalists should not feel entitled to refugee voices. Instead, she suggests journalists take a two-pronged approach to building trust with Afghan refugees.
The first is to not pressure sources and the second is to find a way to include their voices, even if that means interviewing refugees on background or interviewing people who work with them closely.
“I think the first, such as building trust, is even trying to reach out or include their voices in the story, as opposed to telling a story about them without even interviewing them, and maybe only interviewing foreign policy think tanks and veterans and people who think of Afghanistan primarily through a military lens,” Sansoor said.
Delshad echoed Mansoor, saying she would make informational calls ahead of time by reaching out to a resettlement agency, the caseworker involved or hold an off-record meeting with the source.
“I’m not here to extract information from them in a really inhumane way. I want them to feel respected in the storytelling, and I want them to feel like they’re not being used in any way, and I think that’s an issue (for) a lot of journalists – it’s very transactional,” she said.
Don’t assume you know your audience
Matthieu Aikins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has reported from Afghanistan and the Middle East since 2008 and investigated civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes, said it’s important to explain the larger context of refugee lives.
For Afghan refugees, that context includes the significant role the U.S. government has played in their lives.
In 2001, former President George W. Bush’s administration led an international coalition to invade Afghanistan and dismantle Al-Qaeda when the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden. At the height of the war, more than 130,000 NATO troops were on the ground. The war in Afghanistan coupled with Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 were a part of the “Global War on Terror.”
Following 9/11, Islamophobia rose in the U.S. Think tanks, activists and bloggers established a network known as the Counter-jihad social movement, which stirred fear of Islam. Islamophobic think tanks made $42.6 million between 2001 and 2009, according to a 2013 report from the Center for American Progress. A 2019 report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that $125 million has been funneled to Islamophobic groups through foundations and donor-advised funds between 2014 and 2016. In 2023, CAIR took in 8,061 anti-Muslim bias complaints, the highest number it has recorded.
“Too often these stories treat a refugee crisis as something that’s happening in isolation. But there’s no such thing as a refugee crisis by itself. The reason why people become refugees, [is] because of other crises they are fleeing – wars, actual disasters, poverty. I think it’s absolutely our job to make those connections as journalists,” he said.
Delshad said that American audiences may not know the starting points for Afghan refugees.
“My aim for all of these stories, regardless of what community it was about, was to tell a story of people who are part of the same community as everybody else, but also shed light on the newness of them being in the U.S., but also the human condition and what effects American policies have had on their home countries and why they’ve left. I think that’s a responsible way of showcasing what’s happened after 9/11 all these years later,” Delshad said.
Language choice and misrepresentation
When Delsahd noticed Muslims being “othered” by news organizations, she remembered feeling “one inch tall by the coverage.” So she made sure that the language in her work was both clear and inclusive.
Aikins said you want to use language that’s accurate but also understandable for your reader.
“It’s not our job to try to push one kind of political stance with our use of language, but rather use something that is descriptive and accurate and neutral and understandable to our audience,” he said. “I think it’s much more important just to speak truth to power, and also, at the very least, make sure your stories don’t have a negative impact on the individuals that you’re writing about.”
To do this, Delshad said journalists should make sure they’re accurately portraying the economic and social situation people are in. Language is important, especially given how complicated the U.S. system of immigration is.
Typically, an economic migrant is different from a refugee or asylum seeker because they leave their country for financial or economic reasons, not persecution.
Refugees resettled in the U.S. have rights and access to assistance, including eligibility for medical and cash assistance, nonprofit support and loans for travel to the U.S. They may legally work and are permitted to apply for green cards after one year of living in the U.S.
Asylum seekers do not have the same rights as refugees once in the U.S. They cannot apply for permission to work in the U.S. at the same time they apply for asylum. They also aren’t eligible for federally funded benefits and can be deported.
“We want to be transparent and truthful with our audience, but also not use language that’s harmful because … these terms are very organic in a way, and they change with the times. We would never say, for example, illegal aliens,” Delshad said.
Additionally, Aikins said journalists can misrepresent Muslims when they’re depicting them solely as security threats, as well as when they’re portraying them as “these passive innocent victims.”
To prevent this misrepresentation, journalists should tell Afghan refugee stories in more detail and complexity from their perspective, he said.
“The truth is, refugees are human beings, like all of us, and they’re complicated. They have all sorts of different motivations and experiences. They are capable of doing good things, bad things,” he said.
Delshad said she wants her listeners to learn why Afghan refugees left home, and why they are our neighbors. Ultimately, Delshad wants people to know that refugees aren’t here for “fun,” but because “they were promised safety.”
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