Sayadi’s Fight Against Injustice
ON THE JOB / The fog of work: What happened to Fremont mechanic Hamid Sayadi after 9/11?
“For his part, the man who first discovered the United States via frigid North Dakota 30 years ago says he still loves his adopted country. Ignorance, Sayadi says, can be cured. But the country needs to find its way back to its original dream, he says, one that’s perhaps grown obscure in the turbulent years since 9/11.”
America is a land of contradictions…so much injustice bred from xenophobia and ignorance.
If you ask me, immigrants like Sayadi are more American than all those “native” Americans who lash out at immigrants and impose upon them suspicion, hatred, and advocate for their persecution and removal. Immigrants, like Sayadi, give up everything to come to America and pursue their dreams in the land of opportunity. They buy into the “American dream,” work hard, save, raise and educate their children, contribute to the economy and society, and slowly move up, adopting America as their country and having a fierce loyalty and love for it.
If you ask me, that’s what being an American is. It’s not what race you are and where your origins are. It’s a state of mind and a way of life. And immigrants like Sayadi know what it is to be American more because they’ve fully bought into this dream and know what it’s like to suffer to achieve that dream.
I’m sick of racist and ignorant people who persecute immigrants like Sayadi because of his race and origins, factors he could not control. These harbingers of hatred know nothing of what it is to truly fight and suffer in order to be an American.
