BY FLORENT BLANC

Excerpted interview with Amelia Wilson, attorney with Davidson & Schiller, LLC, an immigration law firm in Chicago

BY ALEXANDRA STEIGRAD, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

[this story was originally published by Reuters on April 29, 2007, and ran in dozens of news outlets around the world, including Washingtonpost.com, Boston.com and NYTimes.com]

to the companion lead story "Muslim women in France 'regain' virginity in clinics"

A 19-year-old Moroccan student in Paris, who asked to be called Amel, plans to have her hymen resewn before returning home this summer to marry a man who, according to local custom, expects her to be a virgin.

This is her story, as told on the condition her identity not be revealed.

"I dated a boy when I was 15 and I didn't even realize what had happened," she said, referring to her first and only sexual experience. "I was very young. After we had sex, he became very possessive. I couldn't stay with him any more.

"I met someone at the beginning of this year. He's the son of my parents' friends. We get along very well, but because he's a family friend, I can't tell him about my past. That's why I decided to get this surgery.

"I decided to get it done here because in Morocco, it's not official. It's just done in an office, not in a clinic. It's done around noon or 2 p.m., or at night, or when the secretary isn't there, and you don't know who is going to do it."

"It's known about just by word of mouth. In general, it's done in Casablanca and all the doctors do it."

"My friend's cousin has done it. She said (in Casablanca) they just use a string," Amel said -- instead of surgical sutures -- to close the hymen.

"It's very expensive to get it done here, but it's better.

"Only two of my friends know that I'm getting this done, but my other friends from Marrakesh will all end up doing this too, I am certain ...

"Sometimes I joke around with them and say: 'One day when we all meet someone, we're going be in trouble, what are we going to do?' They say: 'It's no mystery. You don't tell anyone and you have the operation.' It's simple ... and it's a bit strange, I know."

In Morocco, she said, a girl can be stopped and questioned for kissing or even holding hands with a boy in public.

"Can you imagine if you aren't a virgin?

"If I told my parents that I wasn't a virgin, they would call me a liar, and as a result, everything I have ever done would be a lie (to them)."

"I have to do this before I go home. If my mother ever found out about this, she would have a mental breakdown. I don't want to have this surgery, but I don't have any choice."

April 2007

BY KATHERINE LING, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE
See related article: Love knows no boudaries - but U.S. immigration laws

When Healy King meets someone new in Belfast, her American accent often leads to a simple question, "Oh, American are you, what the heck are you doing here?"

Her answer is quite unexpected. America will not allow Healy to sponsor the woman she loves--a citizen of the United Kingdom--for a green card or citizenship.

"My partner cannot get into America," the 32-year-old native of Washington D.C., said she has to explain. "They won't have her. So I have to stay here because the U.K. will let me stay based on our relationship. People in America don't know that. People here don't know that."

American law does not allow U.S. citizens to sponsor same sex partners. Their heterosexual counterparts can. If same sex, bi-national couples want to stay in the U.S., it becomes a process of visa applications and the good fortune to have skills needed for employer sponsorship for a green card or the deep-pockets to afford a lot of schooling.

BY FLORENT BLANC
Excerpted interview with Aireale Rodgers Volunteer at the New Americans Initiative of the Illinois Council of Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) Feb. 9, 2007

Q: How did you get involved in the New American Initiative?

Aireale Rodgers: I started in high school about three years ago. I'm from Chicago from the southeast side, but I went to high school on the southwest side. A lot of the people who attended this high school were first generation Americans. Their parents are from Mexico. Just hearing their stories, I felt the need to do something. Since I'm African-American, it would seem that immigration would be so far down on the list of my priorities. But since it was such a big priority for my friends, I felt like I needed to do something to help my friends more than just help immigrants. It touched me in a different way. Before I entered college, I was doing an internship with the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), that works on the Southwest side of Chicago for immigrants rights. We registered people, who had just gotten sworn in as citizens, to vote. Once I got to Northwestern University, as part of its Freshman Urban Program, we went to a youth hostel in downtown Chicago, and then went around to different parts of the city to volunteer in different community organizations. I loved it.

Q: Since you have been involved in immigrant rights before the movement surfaced publicly in December 2005, could you give us your perspective on what happened and what is going on?

Aireale Rodgers: The New American Initiative had been going on for a while but when the immigration reform proposal came up in Congress, we decided that now was the time to do something bigger. For us, this congressional election [of 2006] was the biggest thing. We knew that in order for the government to take us seriously, we had to get out the vote. We had to show that we are no longer playing games.

BY FLORENT BLANC
(See related story "From Africa to Europe Alone: Unaccompanied Minors in the Canary Islands"

Present in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, since 1976, this foundation which goal is to promote democracy and economic development, recently released a graphic novel, or bande dessinee in French, about the risks of illegal emigration.
Entitled "Clandestine emigration, the deadly adventure", this 12page story, which scenario has been drafted by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and approved by both the Senegalese Association for Decentralized Cooperation (ASECOD) and the Senegalese Ministry of Education, has been designed to educate school children. The illustrations are the works of famous Senegalese cartoonist Malan "Kabs" Sene.
The idea, according to Dr Ute Gierczynski-Bocande, in charge of the civic education programs at the Foundation, is that the children will resist educate their families but also be prepared to resist the temptation to leave for a not so glorious European El Dorado.

BY JACK C. DOPPELT, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

When Ramadan Khattab left Ramallah for Paris in 1999, it was his first trip to Europe. The Palestinian's English was better than his French, though he'd spent only four years in school and learned no English there. He'd crossed borders before, usually to Jordan or to Israel. His stay in Israel had been his longest away from home; a stretch of 14 months in two Israeli prisons when he was 18 years old, for throwing stones at Israeli troops during the First Intifada.

This time he was leaving Palestine for Europe, thanks to a music scholarship he received to study at a conservatory in Angers, 200 miles southwest of Paris. Seven years later, he can be found often playing bass with the Classique Metropolitain, a diverse group of musicians, inside the Metro station at Chatelet in the heart of Paris.

BY KATHERINE GLOVER, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

After three years in the United States, 25-year-old Mohammed went back to his home in Baghdad, Iraq, to live with his mother and younger brother and sister.

He thought with Saddam Hussein gone, everything would be better. He didn't realize the city had fallen into violent chaos and his U.S. ties would put his family in danger.

This is the story of Mohammed's time in Iraq and his struggle to get his family safely to Syria.

He has asked that his last name not be used for the safety of his family.

To listen to the story, click on the screen.

BY MAKIKO KITAMURA, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Click on picture to enlarge

Momar Ba is back where he began, with little more than a harrowing story to share. He is alive but still desperate. He has traveled from his native Senegal to Germany, Switzerland, Tunisia, and most recently, Spain's Canary Islands, each time hungry for work.

The father of eight children, Ba saved up $1,200, selling used refrigerators to pay a smuggler. That allowed him to join about 20 other Senegalese in early September on an eight-day boat trip from Dakar to the Canary Islands.

"I was willing to sacrifice my life to get on that boat to go to Spain," the 34-year-old Ba said in his apartment in the working-class Dakar suburb of Parcelles Assainies.

BY ERIN GOLDEN, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Abdul-Malik is not a typical Irish Gaelic speaker. He isn't elderly, rosy-cheeked, or particularly fond of wool sweaters, and his Muslim faith prohibits him from stopping at the pub for a pint of Guinness.

But for the past several weeks, the 32-year-old man has spent Saturday afternoons inside a classroom on Chicago's Northwest Side, repeating seemingly nonsensical words and navigating the sometimes confusing grammatical structure of the Irish language.

And he isn't alone. The language that many think is dead -- or alive, but an ocean away in the sheep-dotted hills of rural Ireland -- is thriving, especially in Chicago.

BY ARIEL ALEXOVICH, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

[to the companion story, Liberty? Equality? Fraternity?: A Moroccan's place in the French order]

Meryem Laachi's phone bills are astronomical.

In an average week, the twenty-two-year-old fields calls from her parents and sister in Morocco, and from her brother in Minneapolis, all on the cell phone she bought near her university in France.

Like her older siblings, Meryem left Casablanca to go to college in France, not so unusual since French is the business language of Morocco, a former French protectorate. Next year, however, she'll graduate. Meryem will decide whether to follow the footsteps of her older brother, Nabil, who moved to the United States, or her older sister, Safaa, who moved back to Casablanca, or forge her own path, possibly staying in France.

In an average conversation with Meryem, she jumps around from topic to topic, explaining why it would be great to pursue all three countries. An internship in America, a banking job in France, she wants to do it all. But still, part of her heart leans towards going home, although her head tells her that a better life can be found in a wealthier Western country.

Some children who grow up in poor countries dream their whole lives about leaving. That's not how Meryem feels about Morocco. Even though she witnessed her brother's and sister's moves to French universities, up until the month before Meryem herself was to start college, she thought she would follow her own path and stay in Casablanca, studying finance at the elite Institut Superieur de Commerce et d'Administration des Entreprises (INCAE), Morocco's best business university.

BY NATASHA ROTSTEIN, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

[A version of this story also appeared in The Moscow Times on Sept. 20, 2006]

[to the lead story, The Sound of Chechen music and related stories, A Chechen copes through Sambo fighting and Chechnya's war legacy]

Every night during the first war in Chechnya this family slept in the same bed. Mother and father separated by their daughter and son.

If a bomb hits the building, we'll die together, they reasoned.

Nine years have passed since those dark days when they witnessed dogs eating people and snow black from debris. They buried 23 family members.

The family - 56-year-old Kuri, his wife Nina, and their children, 26-year-old Kerim and 23-year-old Heda - moved to the Netherlands in November 1997.

For their safety, they asked that their last name and town of residence not be included in the story.

BY RANA ROSEN, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE
[to lead story Go west young Indian nurses]

Purushotan Jangir

The 23 year-old nurse says he has much to pray for. "I have a lot of responsibility in my family," he says. "I am the elder person in my family and have two brothers, three sisters and my father is no more. I want to give high education." He hopes for better pay in the U.K. But it isn't just the money. "I want to care for the poor and ill. I want to help the weak and handicap person. I have a helpful nature."

Because of the pressure he has to support his family and his future, he looked into many professions. He considered engineering and business. Jangir says, "I will join the nursing profession for many reasons. The first one is money. Second, you get a lot of respect. I heard people give a lot of respect abroad. Third one, you help the poor and needy people." His community in Rajasthan treats him with the respect of a doctor, he admits.

Although he has already had several marriage proposals, he plans to spend two or three abroad before he takes a wife. He wants to be more established in his career first. But he's not sure that he will be abroad for the long haul. He doesn't believe everything he hears. "If behavior is not proper, and there's not respect for nurses or people from abroad, then I can't stay," he says. "I will come back to my own country." He treats people kindly and wants that reciprocated. Money cannot be the only important matter, he says.

Jangir is too discreet, so his fellow student Jogender Singh, 28, explains why nurses from Rajasthan are mostly men. "People don't allow females to go outside to get a job; that will humiliate their families," he says. "Slowly, slowly they are understanding that Rajasthani girls should get a job, but not out of the area." Jangir added that Rajasthanis don't encourage their girls to do nursing; people don't think it is a good path for women. "Kerala is different because it is the most educated state," Singh adds. Jangir says education is needed in Rajasthan. The families don't think nursing is safe for women, because they leave the home circle and go abroad. But this thinking is slowly changing. They did see how lucrative the career was for the women from Kerala who came to work at hospitals there. So they sent their men to join in.

[to lead story Go west young Indian nurses]

June 2006

BY TARA E. McLAUGHLIN, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

[to the lead story History of the Armenian Genocide from One Generation to the Next]

He didn't plan to spend his life lobbying European Union officials. He had a PhD in physics and worked for the National Office of Aerospatial Studies and Research in France.

In his spare time he wrote stories for a monthly publication for the Armenian Diaspora. But for Laurent Leylekian, who is now the executive director of the European Armenian Federation, the stories he collected inspired action.

He grew up hearing about the Armenian heritage, especially the genocide. Like most Armenians in their Diaspora, Leylekian was schooled in names, dates and statistics.

"As a child I was aware of being Armenian without the knowledge of what that was - like folklore," Leylekian said.

But for Leylekian, whose family migrated from Turkey to France, the deepest impressions were made by his ancestors.

"When I was 20, and grandfather 80, I listened to stories," said Leylekian.

His grandfather was unable to recall life before the genocide, at about ten years old, Leylekian said. He and his two sisters, one older and one younger, were taken in and hidden by a Turkish family until the war ended in 1918. It took several years before the he and his eldest sister made it to France.

"It seems they arrived naked - but it's probably not far from the truth." Gold coins sewn into the buttons of the clothes on his back helped him acquire food and shelter, Leylekian recalled of his grandfather's tale. The youngest child was adopted by a wealthy Armenian family in Bulgaria.

Leylekian's grandfather passed away in 1993, and shortly thereafter he turned to political activism. "It is a strange trigger, the death of a grandfather," he said. He began writing for the Armenian Diaspora publication in 1995 and when he was asked to head the Brussels headquarters of the European Armenian Federation in 2000, he accepted.

In this position, Leylekian has lobbied for Turkey's recognition of the genocide. The government of Turkey maintains that the estimated one million Armenian deaths between 1915 and 1917 were the result of civil war, not a state ordered eradication of the Armenian minority in Turkey.