A retrospect for refugee students by Shabnam Faizy
We’re standing in the hallway at NWACC (Northwest Arkansas Community College).
You’re holding your enrollment folder in one hand, your eyes scanning everything, the signs, the people, the kind of place where everyone seems to know where they’re going except you…, like any of it might give you answers, but all it does is make you feel overwhelmed.
The registrar looks at me and asks how she can help.
And for a second, her words take me back, to a moment that still lives in me.
And I say,
“I’m from Canopy.”
You’re looking around at the ten other students standing beside you. Each of them speaks a different language. You don’t understand what they’re saying, but you know exactly what you’re all searching for:
a place to belong.
a place to begin.
And in that moment, you remind me of myself.
I was seventeen, sitting in my high school classroom in Afghanistan, about to take my final exams and graduate.
Everything felt so close – cap, the gown, the future I’d imagined since I was a child.
And then, everything changed.
It didn’t happen with gunfire or explosions.
Everything collapsed all at once.
The Taliban came, the government fell, and the president fled the country.
There was no warning, one day life felt normal, and the next, it was gone.
School. Home. Safety. All of it disappeared overnight.
One day, I was planning my future.
Next, I was forced to pack a backpack, one that had to be small enough so I could crawl through a ditch to reach the safety gate, where an American soldier pulled me out and into the military base, while my family crawled behind me.
A backpack I never expected to carry and just like that, I became a refugee.
We arrived in the U.S. with nothing but questions and a suitcase full of uncertainty.
I didn’t speak English, the only language that you could communicate with here; I didn’t know how to explain myself in a place where no one understood me.
People often asked, “Why are you so quiet?”
It’s a question many refugees get asked, as if silence means we have nothing to say. But how could I explain what it feels like to lose an entire life overnight?
How could I explain the guilt of leaving when others had to stay behind, especially the girls in Afghanistan who can no longer go to school or work, whose futures were stolen overnight?
Or the fear of starting over from scratch, in a new world where you don’t know where you fit, or if you ever will?
And yet, all I wanted was what you want now:
To belong.
To start.
To finally breathe.
I know how tired you are, of being strong, of being silent, of starting over.
I know that quiet ache in your chest that just wants to hear someone say:
“You’re allowed to be here.”
And you know what’s one thing about being a refugee?
We’re always looking for something.
Looking for answers. Looking for direction. Looking for a sign that says: You belong here.
Right now, as you stand in front of the registrar, hoping she’ll tell you what to do next, I see it in your eyes: That feeling of searching.
Of needing someone to show you the way.
I’ve felt that too.
When I first arrived in the U.S., it was Canopy that helped me begin again.
Canopy was the organization that resettled my family, enrolled me in high school, brought me school supplies, and walked beside me on my very first day of school, showing me the classrooms when I didn’t know where to go.
Even after I graduated, I didn’t stop looking at them, not because I needed help, but because I wanted to give back.
They showed me what it meant to belong.
And now, I want to give that same feeling to other kids and teens — kids like you — standing beside you today.
Now I work at Canopy as a Youth Services Specialist, the same organization that once helped me.
Today, I brought you and your ten other friends here to NWACC.
You remember when the registrar asked me how she could help, and I said,
“I’m from Canopy.”
Yes Those words felt familiar because two years ago, I stood in this same place.
Not as a staff member, but as a Canopy client. A refugee. A scared student. The same words I said two years ago, when I was here for myself.
Only now, I say them for others.
For you.
I graduated from this college just yesterday.
And as I stood on that stage, I thought about everything it took to get there,
how I arrived in a new country with nothing but questions, how I kept searching, kept going, even when I didn’t know the way.
That diploma wasn’t just a certificate.
It was my answer to the question I’ve carried for years:
So, if you ask me – what does it mean to become the person you once needed?
It means showing up, even when you’re scared.
It means standing beside someone else, just like someone once stood beside you.
It means giving others the sense of belonging you once prayed for.
And it means looking at you, right here, right now, and saying:
You’re not alone.
You’re just getting started.
And you belong.
Shabnam Faizy is a young scholar living in Northwest Arkansas. Originally from Afghanistan, she and her family were resettled in the Ozarks by Canopy NWA in 2021 during the American Withdrawal from Afghanistan. After recently earning her associate degree from Northwest Arkansas Community College, Shabnam is set to begin her studies in International Relations at George Washington University in the fall of 2025.
Responses