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This interview between Maya Assaker and Rima Assaker discusses her life as a child and into adulthood, regarding her experiences in Beirut, Lebanon before and during their civil war in 1975. When she was eight years old, her family finally left their country and immigrated to the DMV in the United States. Rima focuses a lot on her perspective as a child in war, and later shares what it is like to try and assimilate to US culture as an obvious foreigner. She describes how her two cultures clashed. She highlights the importance of finding a sense of community and being proud of one’s culture.
This interview was conducted as part of an undergraduate final project for the University of Maryland, College Park course HIST 428M (Spring 2021). This course was led by Professor Anne Rush of the Department of History, College of Arts and Humanities, and was sponsored by the Center for Global Migration Studies.