Admitted As a Refugee

For an indefinite period of time…

Twenty nine years later I look at the country that became my new home, and don’t recognize it somedays. But hope is on the horizon.

Becoming a refugee

In 1988 when I was a 10 years old school kid, living in Baku, Azerbaijan, a conflict started between Azerbaijan and the neighboring Armenia, over the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region. The conflict quickly escalated, and a war began. A war that has continued, on and off, for 30 years, culminating in a new war exploding in September of 2020.

My family was Armenian and quickly realized that living in Azerbaijan wasn’t safe for us anymore. At the time, the Iron Curtain was collapsing and USSR was allowing its citizens to emigrate. My father didn’t hesitate, because to him USA was the obvious choice to take his family to start over, so he went to Moscow and applied at the US embassy for political asylum

“America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere” — Ronald Reagan

He was accused of being a traitor to USSR by some family friends, and my grandfather assured him that Baku, an international oil rich metropolis, would never allow any violence. In September of 1989 the situation has become so unstable in Baku, that we…