Tukwila's student poets reassure new refugees: ‘You aren't alone’

Lost friendships; bewildering new schools; family pressure to succeed — those are some of the hallmarks of the teenage refugee experience that sisters Nila and Ada Safi can now describe in heartbreaking and hilarious detail.

They came to Tukwila from Afghanistan in 2019. And they found a poetry workshop that helped them delve into their own journeys. Now they have words of encouragement for other newcomers.

June 20 marks World Refugee Day. According to the United Nations, at the end of last year there were more than 100 million people forcibly displaced around the world. This day is meant to honor "the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country."

N

ila Safi just graduated from Foster High School in Tukwila, and her sister Ada Safi just completed junior year. Nila wears flowing clothes in soft colors, while Ada has on a bright pink baseball cap, plaid shirt, and hoodie.

They are two of seven siblings.

“Three sisters and three brothers,” Nila said. “And I’m one of the oldest.”

But to her chagrin, her younger sister Ada is now taller than she is.

"I’m like the middle middle one," Ada said. "I have three younger than me and three older than me."

Foster High School in Tukwila is one of the most diverse high schools in the country. In 2019, Nila walked through the doors there, newly arrived with her family from Afghanistan.

“The first day, oh my gosh, you have to take a math test and an English test. And I told the teacher, ‘I don’t even know,’ but I just took the math test because the numbers are the same. But in English — it was so bad,” Nila said.

She said she would keep all the stress inside during those first days, until she got home.

“I remember … literally like crying every day after school. How hard it was, because I didn’t know how to speak English. I didn’t know how to ask for anything.”

Foster High School offers a poetry writing class for immigrant and refugee students. The sisters said eventually that class helped them connect their old and new lives.

One of the metaphors Nila writes about in her poems is of a box where all her memories are stored.

“I can’t really talk about them openly because I get so emotional,” she said. “It’s memories of my middle school friends, and memories with my grandparents.”

She said it’s still hard to talk to her beloved grandfather on the phone these days, because everyone misses him so much that they all start crying.

In her poem “My Memory Box,” Nila describes “working with my grandpa/ under the pink sky to grow Mustard flowers / to give to friends and teachers.”

One of Ada’s poems, “Remembering My Best Friend,” is dedicated to Shabnam, the friend who “made me live every moment of my life” in Afghanistan, she writes. Ada said that included “sharing a lot of the same experiences, doing a lot of funny and dumb things together, and then once I moved here, I really missed her.”

That sadness is evident in the poem: “My friend who flies me to the purple skies of friendship / My friend that I never wanted to say goodbye to / My friend that I never wanted to lose.”

Writer Merna Hecht has co-taught the school’s poetry workshop for the past 10 years. They have published anthologies and organized live poetry events.

She said poetry is a very good fit for these newly arrived students. For one thing, many of them come from cultures that celebrate poetry. Poetry also allows them to work in translation from their home language. Hecht said these students have a lot to say.

“Most of these students from all these different places around the globe have a kind of maturity, given that they’ve had to leave their homeland and leave people that they love," she said.

Sisters Ada and Nila said that journey is on their minds a lot.

“The one thing I regret the most is that I did not even fully say goodbye to my friends,” Ada said.

“Yeah, same," Nila added. "I regret this a lot and every time I think of this, I get super emotional. I’m like, ‘Why didn’t I even say goodbye for the last time?’ But we just stayed home, we were locked up at home for six months before we came to America.”

They had been in the U.S. just a few months when the pandemic hit and their schools closed. Nila said her family had no idea what to make of the school district’s instructions to get computers and pursue online schooling. She spent those first months drawing in her room. But once she figured out online schooling the next fall, Nila said she was able to study English, and life started to change.

“When I went back to school, my English was really good, you know? And it was fun,” Nila said.

Nearly four years later, the difficulty of what they went through inspires laughter as well as tears.

Nila describes furiously resenting her relatives who were already adapted to life in the U.S. as she struggled to get her bearings.

“There was just a lot of family pressure because our people here — the people who came before us — their English was so perfect!" Nila said. "And my dad was like, ‘Look at them!’ And we were like ‘What? What should we do?’ And we were just trying our best."

Ada was in middle school when she arrived. She said the younger you are, the easier it generally is to embrace your new life.

“Just see it as: You’re on an adventure, finding yourself, learning the language — it really makes your life exciting!” she said.

Nila said if there’s one message she can give to new refugees, especially young people, it’s that you’re not alone.

“I know our experiences might not be the same, but the feeling is the same,” she said. “And it’s OK — you’re going to get through it and one day you’re gonna be so proud of those moments, just like we are right now.”

Both sisters hope to study medicine, and to return to help people in Afghanistan, someday.

On Saturday, June 24, Foster High School in Tukwila will host a free celebration of World Refugee Day. It will feature food, performances, and student poetry displays. Broadsides of poems where students celebrate their cultures and traditions through food are also on display at the Spice Bridge — Global Food Hall next to the high school. And anthologies of the past two years of student work will be available to order.