Sisters Hanan (left) and Huda Alsadah both attend CSU, Chico. Photo by Thomas Del Brase.
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A Bridge Between Cultures
Why Chico is home to Middle Eastern students
By Kim Weir
It’s all about family—personal family ties as well as the increasingly complex interconnections of the larger human family. That’s what draws so many students from the Middle East to California State University, Chico.
“We have a long tradition of students coming to Chico from the Middle East—from Egypt, Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran—starting in the 1950s,” says William Dantona, director of the American Language and Culture Institute (ALCI) at CSU, Chico. This well-established U.S. English language instruction program serves all international students but began in the 1980s as the Saudi Arabia-sponsored Aramco ESL Program.
The predominant countries of origin for Middle Eastern students change over time, however, based on cultural, economic, and political factors. Many Iranian students attended CSU, Chico prior to 1979, when the Shah of Iran was deposed, for example, and now there are no students from Iran due to the complete break in diplomatic relations that followed the U.S. hostage crisis.
Most Middle Eastern students now in Chico come from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in part due to the generous new scholarship program brokered by President George W. Bush and Saudi King Abdullah. Of 75 current students in the ALCI program, 33 are from Saudi Arabia. Another 50 students from Saudi Arabia are regularly enrolled CSU, Chico students. As many as 21,000 Saudi Arabian students are expected to enroll in U.S. colleges and universities between 2005 and 2009, Dantona says, most of their educations fully funded by the Saudi government.
Political considerations as well as population dynamics inspired this new Saudi Arabian scholarship program. The kingdom’s government hopes to expose the country’s brightest students to American educational and cultural traditions, according to Associated Press news coverage, and the U.S. State Department sees the exchange as a way to build ties with future Saudi leaders and young scholars at a time of unsteady relations with the Muslim world.
“This is a critically important bilateral relationship,” said Tom Farrell, a deputy assistant secretary for academic programs at the State Department. “It’s an opportunity to increase understanding of Saudi Arabia for the United States and of the United States for Saudi Arabia.”
The demographics of Saudi Arabia magnify and also transcend political concerns. The kingdom is one of the world’s youngest countries, with 75 percent of the population under age 30, and 60 percent younger than 21 (Saudi Arabia’s population is estimated to be more than 21 million, excluding resident foreigners). The country cannot provide higher education for so many young people, so sending university students abroad is the best available short-term solution.
Yet the reason so many Middle Eastern students attend CSU, Chico has much to do with multigenerational ties of family and friendship. Chico has attracted kudos in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East because of the consistent presence of Middle Eastern students on campus.
“Our Middle Eastern students—certainly many of them—have parents or aunts or uncles who came to school here back in the day,” says Dantona. “They know Chico. They know it’s an excellent university and a safe, friendly place. Parents feel comfortable sending their sons and daughters here, and most students, once they arrive in Chico, are happy to stay.”
Voices of Middle Eastern students
Mohammad Khridah comes from Saihat, a city of about 70,000 population in eastern Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf near the countries Bahrain and Qatar. He and his sister, Hawra Kharaidah, started their U.S. studies in Michigan, but his sister’s friend was in Chico and Hawra wanted to transfer, too. That meant Mohammad also had to come—to look out for his sister—because that was what the family expected.
The move pleased them both. Khridah, a student in communication design, discovered several friends at CSU, Chico from his hometown. Still, there were adjustments. He found it difficult to eat here at first, because there was no halal (permissible) meat in Chico, a problem easily solved with organized shopping trips to Sacramento. At first, he also found it uncomfortable to attend classes with young women and to interact with female instructors—with any women other than relatives.
Hanan Alsadah is from Qatif, a city of about 140,000 inhabitants near Saihat. A student of accounting and management information systems, she started her U.S. studies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she noticed that people “talk funny.” A side benefit of being a student at CSU, Chico, she says, is “the California accent.”
In Louisiana, Alsadah discovered that although she could read and write English well due to her Saudi schooling, and understood the language in American movies, speaking English was still a challenge. She was surprisingly lonely, too, and didn’t particularly like the weather. So as soon as possible, she transferred to CSU, Chico, where two male cousins and her married sister were already happily enrolled. A brother in Saudi Arabia may soon join them in Chico.
Because there is general awareness about American culture in Saudi Arabia, Alsadah says she didn’t suffer much culture shock. Society is more conservative back home, with no same-sex schools even at the university level, but she had no problem adjusting to a coed campus. Understanding different cultural norms concerning family was a larger challenge.
“In Saudi Arabia,” she says, “we think as a family and eat, travel, and live together as a family. But here in America, people think as individuals.” The standard American expectation that students leave home and otherwise fend for themselves by age 18 was baffling, because in Saudi Arabia, students live at home until they marry.
One key stereotype about America, the country’s high level of violence, has been dispelled by Alsadah’s own experience. “From watching U.S. television, I thought there was a lot of crime in America,” she says. “I watched a show about rape on college campuses before I came to the U.S., and it made me afraid to come.” She has discovered that most places and most situations are quite safe, to her great relief, though she remains cautious.
ALCI director William Dantona (right) with some of the students who were in the program this past spring: from left, Murtada Ghawas, Hawra Kharaidah, Huda Alsadah, Abdullah ALKhathlan, and Abdullah Binmansour. Photo by Thomas Del Brase.
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Huda Alsadah, Hanan Alsadah’s sister, also plans to become an accounting major once she completes her English language study through ALCI. Married with a toddler-aged son, she studied computer science, nursing, art, drawing, and photography before coming to America. She jumped at the chance to come to the United States, she says, “because I wanted to extend my knowledge to everything.”
As far as what she most appreciates about the United States, there is no hesitation. “Freedom,” she says. “I like life here in America.”
Even students who don’t have family connections to the University soon find that Chico becomes a second home. Murtada Ghawas, from the small town of Al-Hasa, near the Gulf in the province of Al-Mubaraz, knew next to nothing about the school or town before arriving here. His embassy chose the University as an appropriate school for him. Not knowing other students in Chico, he was anxious about coming.
“But when I came here, I saw there were other Saudi students, and I felt quite comfortable,” says Ghawas. “Now I’m a Chicoan!”
Ghawas is also a soccer player, and a good one, so when he matriculates from ALCI into the University as a regular student, he hopes to join the intercollegiate men’s soccer team. He plans to study computer science.
Like other Middle Eastern students, Ghawas likes the climate in Chico, similar to his hometown in Saudi Arabia but not as humid. High on the list of things he will miss most when he leaves are American music, his new friends, and parties—especially parties that include women, something not possible in Saudi Arabia.
Abdullah ALKhathlan, Ghawas’s friend and ALCI classmate, also comes from a small city, Khamis Mushait-Tendaha near Abha on the southwestern side of Saudi Arabia, and also was placed at CSU, Chico by his embassy.
“Before I came to America, people told me it is a dangerous place, that it’s not safe to go out at night,” says ALKhathlan. “But that’s not true in Chico. And most people here respect other religions and are friendly.”
Both ALKhathlan and Ghawas enjoy the more relaxed social expectations of the United States. ALKhathlan explains that in Saudi Arabia he would be expected to finish school and take on the social duties that accompany manhood by age 21. In the United States, however, “it’s still possible to be a student at age 26 or even 30.”
Embracing similarities
Samir Nissan is a professor of accounting in the CSU, Chico College of Business. He earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern California and a PhD from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. He also studied at Harvard Business School and at Northwestern University. A U.S. citizen born and raised in Iraq, Nissan has lived in the United States for most of his adult life. In the spring of 2001, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan.
“The U.S. is very appealing for Middle Eastern students,” he explains, noting that most governments in the region are dictatorial, without basic freedoms that most Americans take for granted.
“For me, coming to the U.S. was one of the most life-changing experiences imaginable,” he says. “The bookstores! To be able to go into a bookstore or a library and just read—especially read about the Middle East and about Islam—would be impossible in most parts of the Middle East.
“So when Middle Eastern students arrive in the U.S., it’s truly an opportunity to learn. I’ve been here for many years, and I’m still learning about my own culture.”
Yet Nissan emphasizes that Middle Eastern cultures, and by extension, Middle Eastern students, have notable differences.
Students from the Persian Gulf States—including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—tend to be the most culturally homogenous, he says, emphasizing family closeness and religious and cultural traditions.
Palestinian and other non-Gulf students are not as focused on religion and traditional culture, according to Nissan, and are fascinated with the West. In general, they eagerly embrace Western culture and values. Students in Jordan, for example, are reserved in public, yet women and men can socialize freely. Students from Iraq and Iran are “very diverse” and similarly “open to the West.”
Yet even students so clearly impressed with the West also tend to be critical, and Nissan believes this tendency creates misunderstandings in the United States.
“Somehow, people in America need to get comfortable with this,” he says. “People from the Middle East may deeply admire U.S. culture and society but also despair over specific policies and actions. And in the Western tradition, they feel empowered to say so.”
“When people are critical of the U.S., it doesn’t mean they are subversive,” a point Nissan emphasizes. As an American born and raised in the Middle East, a minority Christian in his native Iraq, he is saddened to witness—repeatedly—this gap in understanding, which includes the deep disappointment that people from the Middle East often feel at not being included in political conversations.
“They acquire the culture of the West, but then find that the West isn’t entirely comfortable with them,” says Nissan.
Being able to reach across the divides that separate individuals as well as nations is the fundamental point of international education programs, suggests Dantona of ALCI.
“It’s been my experience that conflicts between nations begin to break down when people get together,” he explains, sharing his own experience facilitating Peace and Conflict summer camps for Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, for Greeks and Turkish Cypriots, and other polarized groups. “I’ve never seen it fail. When individuals from disparate groups get together, they begin to work it out. People realize that they have a lot more in common than whatever may separate them. Stereotypes begin to break down when applied to individuals.”
Between family connections and a good support system on campus, it’s likely that many more Middle Eastern students will be calling themselves “Chicoans” well into the future.
Venturing Out into the World
Notable among Middle Eastern alumni of CSU, Chico is Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, the United Arab Emirates’ Minister for Economy and Planning. In November 2004, Al Qasimi became the first woman in the country’s history to assume a cabinet position, appointed to manage the UAE’s newly merged economy and planning portfolio. She previously served as chief executive officer of Tejari, the Middle East’s premier electronic business-to-business marketplace, and continues as a member of Tejari’s board of directors.
In 2001, Al Qasimi headed the executive team responsible for instituting Dubai e-government initiatives throughout the public sector. Her education includes a BS in computer science from CSU, Chico and a Master of Business Administration from the American University of Sharjah.
“I see myself as a change agent for youth to seek technology as a vehicle for development, for women to aspire to serve our society to grow and prosper. For the world to seek better understanding of Muslim and Arabs culture,” she says in her biography.
Forbes.com has recognized Al Qasimi as one of the “women to watch” in the Middle East. She has received numerous awards for personal achievement, including the 2005 Premio Minerva International Award for her outstanding contribution to politics and economics, the 2004 Entrepreneurship Award from Great Britain’s House of Lords, and the 2004 American Business Award from the American Business Council of Dubai and the Northern Emirates.
Saad M. Alarify (BS, Industrial Technology, ’79; MA, Industrial Administration, ’81) of Saudi Arabia, whose son Abdulaziz currently attends CSU, Chico, speaks highly of his years in Chico and the “excellent reputation” of the University. “I came from a conservative family, and a country that had just started to develop. Coming to Chico—beautifully located in one of the best states of the U.S., near San Francisco, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, and Reno—was on its own an education for me. Seeing the civilization, the buildings, roads, and telecommunications systems, experiencing the freedom.
“In a sense, my personality was formed when I was in Chico as a teenager. De- veloping independence was a must, being away from family, and I learned about different cultures and also developed skills that were very useful in my career.
“In 1981, I joined the Saudi Fund for Development in Riyadh, managing government grants and loans to poor countries, and in 1983, I moved to the newly established Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a diplomatic organization, as an attaché in the economic affairs department. Today, I work in the GCC secretariat as counselor, deputy director of the Electricity and Water Department, and I also participated in establishing a family company, Shamalat International.”
Alumnus Ammar Rafie (BS, Industrial Technology, ’84) attended CSU, Chico along with a brother, sister, and several cousins, and received a Master of Business Administration from the New York Institute of Technology. Rafie also pursued professional training in Japan. After working briefly in Saudi Arabia, he settled in his native Jordan. Married with two “beautiful, healthy daughters,” he has worked nonstop in the industrial sector and currently works in top management at a publicly traded company.
“Studying at CSU, Chico helped boost my career,” Rafie says. “I learned that hard work, dedication, seriousness, and discipline have no substitutes.”
About the author
Kim Weir is the author of a number of travel books, including Moon Handbooks Northern California, and an active member of the Society of American Travel Writers. She received a BA in environmental studies and analysis in 1977 and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing in 2007 from CSU, Chico. She is an enthusiastic member of the Chico Sustainability Group and helped launch the Ch*Eco Film Festival in April.
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