Abstract
Fatemah Sammoor was born in Ramallah and moved to Cleveland when she married at the age of 17. She has been living in Cleveland for 47 years. Her husband came to Cleveland at the age of 25 because some of his cousins used to live in the city. Fatemah has three daughters and one sons and many grandchildren all of them live in the city. She also has a sister and brother living in Cleveland and another brother in Chicago. She encourages her children to pursue education and keep up with the Arab language and traditions. He connection to the Arabic community in Cleveland is limited and only through the mosque. Fatemah like to visit Ramallah, but she feels the Cleveland is her home.
Loading...
Interviewee
Sammoor, Fatemah (interviewee)
Interviewer
Tayyara, Abedel (interviewer)
Project
Arab Community in Cleveland
Date
3-27-2017
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
29 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Fatemah Sammoor interview, 27 March 2017" (2017). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 345012.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1061
Transcript
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:00:01] This is Abedelraman Tayyara. Today is March 27, 2017. And with us. And today with us, Fatima. So we’re going to speak in English. So if you tell me about yourself, who are you?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:00:31] Okay. I am from Palestine. I born over there. I come over here to visit and live with my husband. And I have my kids. And, you know, thank God all of them go, you know.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:00:47] Okay, so where are you born? In Palastine?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:00:50] I born in Al-Bira, Ramallah. And I stay over there for 17 years. I go to school. I went over this school to 6th grade. Then, you know, my grandfather, he said, that’s enough, you know, schooling. And after that I stay home. We learned to do needlepoint and we designed something, you know, for the clothes. And we learn about the houses, how you cook, how you clean, how you take care of, you know, the family and, you know, that’s the life over the end. And I met my husband’s family with my family, and they agree about to get married. I was 17. I got engaged for almost eight months. He was in United States. I was over there, he was in Cleveland. And without see each other without know how they, we look, you know, then he come over there, we did the engagement and we three days, first day engagement. The second day we do special, you know, tuition for the henna. And the third day we got married.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:02:13] Okay, so you, you lived most of your life here in Cleveland?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:02:18] In Cleveland I live for almost now, 45. 47. 47 years. I live over here now. And only in Cleveland. Anyone? No? Bless us.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:02:29] So my question, I mean, like, you know, what, what do you remember about like growing up in beer?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:02:36] Yes.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:02:37] How you remember that?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:02:39] Truly I remember, you know, some people, the one, the old, the new one, I don’t know. Nothing. I remember. How about the mountain, the trees? How the people, they love each other. How’s the neighbor that, you know, take care of each other? It’s no problem, you know. And they have Laura, you know, good heart over there.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:03:01] Yeah. So do you have siblings? Like sisters and brothers?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:03:04] I got one sister and I got four brothers over there. All of them living there in Ilbere. I got nephew, oh, maybe about 40 or 40, 50 people over there, they got their kids almost, you know, I have over there from my family, maybe hundred something. I like to go visit, you know, soon. I get the money. I go every year after years and I go to nobody because I always, I go to my father’s house. I love to stay over there. I feel there, you know, they alive. Who lives in nobody. When I go there, when I go, I open it. I stay for three months. Then, you know, I come back. Just my brothers, their kids and their door knows. They always come to me and we stay every day. They come visit and stay with me.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:04:06] So do you like, you know, in comparison with the life today in Alberi and the days when you live there, which one you prefer?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:04:16] No, the old time.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:04:18] Why?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:04:19] Because you feel. You feel the life, you feel the loving, you feel, you know, I have it all in my heart, you know. That’s why I, you know, I miss over. I go over there just to feel the old fashioned I love, you know? You see the trees? You pick your elbows from the trees. They have fig tree. You go over there, you know, buy from the market. You have your own.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:04:45] Your own trees.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:04:46] Trees. And all of it around the houses, you know, you have the graves. You feel alive. It’s for me, you know, I feel life over there.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:04:54] Yeah.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:04:55] Because everything, you know, remember your mother, your father, your grandfather, how you live with the old, you know, so I feel alive. You know, what I see over there?
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:05:06] Yeah. And then your. Your husband, why he came in the first place to Cleveland before you got.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:05:12] Okay. He came, you know, it’s like they do some kind of baby. How, you know, like even when you win something, they give you baby to go to state. He got the beaver there. Then he come over here, visit immigration. Immigration. Beaver. Yeah. And he come live over here. He stay for a while, you know.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:05:37] Do you know what year was that when he came to United States?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:05:42] I think it was 70. I think about maybe 19, 75, 74.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:05:50] Okay.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:05:50] He was, you know, when he came.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:05:52] How old was he when he came?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:05:54] He’s, I think about 25, 20 something, you know, between the 25 to 30, you know. You know. Then he come over there. He got engaged to me.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:06:09] Yeah. So why he came to Cleveland, like, you know, instead of going to Michigan or to other place?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:06:17] He got some family here. He has cousins.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:06:20] Okay.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:06:22] Yeah, he have some cousins. That’s why I say, you know, we have the people. They remember each other. It was a small, you know, city then. Everybody knows. Who’s that? That’s his cousin. His first cousin, second cousin. When he came here, he found his cousins, you know, they live. They used to share a house with. Together. You know, they come without a wife. All of them. They each one have his room. They share the. The cost of the house. And each one got married. And he rent his own house and, you know, he moved.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:06:55] Yeah. So. So you came here when you were 17 years old?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:07:00] No, almost 18. Something you know.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:07:04] So you stayed after you got married one year?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:07:07] No, I stay over there. I was almost till he do my baby. Maybe six, seven months he did the baby. Then I came.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:07:19] So when you came here to Cleveland did you face any difficulties?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:07:25] No. Because you know he’s everything you know to me. He showed me everything and you know he left me busy. He used to work at nighttime and you know I used to stay home. Then my husband, he buy his own small stores, the corner store. Then I start to sit in it in that time till he come from work he stay with me till we build ourselves little bed.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:07:54] Yeah. So you moved to this house?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:07:57] No, first I moved to 25th was 27 of Florine. I moved over there the house. Then I stayed over there for six months. She used to be live with me my sister in law with her husband two days live with me. Then I got pregnant with my daughter and she had pregnant and you know I moved to Fulton was the hospital. I don’t know the name the hospital. Lutheran. Lutheran crosses it from there. I stay over there for almost one year. Then we moved to 128 Lorraine. Then we find small stores over there. We start to work in it. That’s the way I learn English from the neighbor and the customer.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:08:55] This is how you learn English?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:08:57] I learn English from the customers and the neighbors. And I used to watch a lot of stories from, you know the way they talk. I used to listen, you know. Then I learned from them.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:09:09] Yeah, but you know how about like friends when you came here like we.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:09:15] I got, you know easy to make friends. I like to talk, you know even with the American, you know, my neighbor they’re very nice they sit down with me. We talked and I used to speak English broke, you know. Still there is correct and say no this way. He said not this way but you.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:09:34] Did not have Arab friends.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:09:36] They were too far from me and I don’t drive and he was working in dead time at night time. Then he come morning sleep. We have no car. Before we used to take the buses, you know after I left then we moved 240 east side Lake Shore. I stay over there for eleven years then my husband died. After he died I moved over here. I live over here now. Is that theory? Theory is almost.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:10:19] So what do you remember about. You know when you moved here? That was in the seventies in 88. 88. Okay, so what do you remember about the Cleveland at that time?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:10:35] It’s really. I live in the east side before in hundred 40. Genie. Genie. It’s Bretna of Bretna over there we have a store over there. I still have it, the store. And I used to help my husband then he did some paper for his brothers. The brothers, they come over here, do work. I moved to the west after my husband died. He died in 1987. When he died then, you know. And I want to live with my daughters over there. I buy, you know, the house, then I come with my daughters over here.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:11:22] So how many children do you have?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:11:23] I got three girls and one boy.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:11:26] Okay. And all of them living here?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:11:28] All of them live in here in Cleveland? Yes. Or close to me? All of them, yeah.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:11:32] That’s good.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:11:33] Yeah, all of them close to me.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:11:35] So I mean, what they’re doing in life.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:11:39] My daughter, she, both of me, they used to work in the small kids school, head start school. They work. My daughter, she used to work in catholic school, metro, she work over there and she finished her college after. She have her kids too.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:12:02] And which college?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:12:05] Tracy? Yeah, she finished over there. The other daughter, the one down now, she went to school. She finished four years college about two years ago. The other one, she’s still working in, you know, the kids, the small kids. My son, he had the store that his father owned when the east side, he opened it. And now he’s inside the store. He got married and he have his own kids in his house they live in over there. That’s the life.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:12:41] So the other question I want to ask you, like, you know, from your family back home, anyone came to visit you?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:12:51] I got over here, let me see, one sister and I have three brothers.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:12:57] Living here in Greece.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:12:58] No one sister live in youngest town. I got two brothers live in Chicago and I have one brother live here and I have their kids live around here too.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:13:11] Okay, so you have.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:13:13] I have the family here too. Big family here too.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:13:16] Okay, so you are the like the oldest?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:13:19] I am the oldest, you know.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:13:21] Okay, so a few brothers and sisters and you visit them always?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:13:26] I visit them, they visit me, whatever, you know, they always touch each other, you know, with the phone. And we have something, you know, they mad kids or, you know, I go visit summertime they come visit too.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:13:38] Yeah. So like your parents, did they come to visit you?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:13:44] No, no, the old fashioned, they don’t want, you know, they leave. I try, I try, I try. They know, they say, no, they don’t want to come. Yeah, because of the airplane and the land. And this time, you know, they don’t leave it behind. My father, his land, his life.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:14:08] So when you lived there, you worked in the like, agriculture?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:14:13] Yeah, but anything I could do, you know, yeah.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:14:16] Like, you know, what type of.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:14:19] Okay. Tomatoes, onions. We have green beans, we have bees, and they have olive, you know, trees. They crop once a year, you know. And my family, they have all kind farmers and they used to have. My father, he used to have goat. He used to have almost 100 goats in the house. And our house, it’s old fashioned. In the bottom, it’s like a big, long cave. They put the animal in it, the tub, we sleep and we eat in the, you know, like second floor for us.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:15:06] So you used to eat everything organic?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:15:09] Oh, yeah.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:15:11] Without knowing it.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:15:12] No. My father used to go to the goat, take the milk from it, and then she took it off. We never boil it. We never do that. Just put in the cup and drink it. And we never get sick.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:15:25] Yeah. That’s the healthiest.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:15:26] Yeah. And we used to go to the, you know, to the farm, you know, get the onion, the tomatoes, squash, cucumbers. Just. We used to, you know, technique with the napkin and we eat it.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:15:40] Yeah.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:15:40] And my father, he lived 107. He never went to the doctor. He just died old age. And when he died, he was walking. He never got sick or something.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:15:52] So he continued to work under the.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:15:54] End of his life. The day he died, the day before he was in the land.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:16:00] Now I want to ask you, after living here more than 40 years, what do you miss about, or do you miss anything about?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:16:10] Truly? I miss. It’s the family, you know, I like to go over there for the family. Just over here. I live more than over there. I know some people here more than I know over there. You know a lot of people over there. I don’t know them. Just over here. I know a lot of people.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:16:26] Yeah. So sometimes when you go to visit, do you feel that you are a stranger over there?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:16:32] No, no. I feel like always, I live over there. I relax my mind relax. I remember, you know, you know, the mother, the father, it looked like I never left them, you know, I love over there.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:16:51] Yeah.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:16:51] And over here for my kids and this to. I like, after I come over here, same thing, you know.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:16:57] So the other question I have, you know, like, most Arabs living here and they’re having kids, so they want their kids to keep up with their tradition, religion, language, how, like, you know, in your case, you know, having children here, how you try to encourage them, you know, to keep up with their.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:17:21] I talk to them first things I say to them. It’s not for me, it’s not for you. Just, you know, like, you know, for God, you do something good. God reward you something better. I told him this one wrong. This one right. This one you do, this one you can do, and it’s their choice. Just thank God, all my kids still living, it’s like old fashioned. My mother, she teaches me, I teach them, and thank God still, they’re my daughters that teach their kids same way. Spec, listen, don’t put your voice up. Don’t. Somebody older than you don’t say nothing, hurt them feeling or something, you know.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:18:08] But this is part of the, like, you know, Arabic.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:18:11] Arabic, yeah, Arabic.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:18:12] Not necessarily religion.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:18:14] No, that’s. No, it’s. Some of them, it’s religion, you know, like, you know, don’t give lay games outside. Don’t live by yourself outside, you know?
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:18:34] So, yeah, the other question, I mean, I have. So how about the Arabic language? Like, you know, did you.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:18:42] I try to teach my language. They understand just our thoughts. Sometimes they say strong, we laugh the word, they say it, you know, just they understand everything, you know, they could speak Arabic too. I hope their kids, they teach their kids the language, just they have school now, you know, they go to school, Arabic school, and they learn the Quran. They learn something.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:19:11] Yeah, but, you know, did you try all the time, for example, to speak in Arabic to the kids?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:19:19] Is it supposed to. Just sometimes I learn English more, I talk to them English more because, you know. Yeah, we like to speak the boss language. If they go back, you know, with their cousin to could speak to them just, you know, sometimes the English, they speak more.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:19:38] Yeah. And this is how you learn English more.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:19:41] Yeah.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:19:42] So the other thing I want to ask you about the, when you came here in the late eighties, I mean, did you have contacts with the Arab community?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:19:55] No, it’s, you know, after my husband died, the woman Shino go like, where is the man? Part stuff like this. I gave my life to my kids. I stayed with my kids. I was young, and I don’t want them to move or to run. I can leave them behind. If I go, they go with me. And most of the places you can have the kids, you know, always, you know, with me.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:20:31] Okay, so. So, yeah, thank you. So you. So you cannot tell me, like, you know, how the Arab community, I mean, we have now a big Arab community living in Cleveland, but I think when you lived there, here in the seventies or the eighties, it wasn’t that big.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:20:54] I don’t know about community. I know, go. Even my kids did not go just where we go to the mosque. I used to take them in hand, just other committee. I never. But, you know, I never go.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:21:09] So this is the only mask was in Cleveland?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:21:12] No, it was one Detroit. 88 or 89 Detroit. The street still over there? That’s the first one.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:21:26] That’s the first one.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:21:27] That’s the first one.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:21:28] Okay. I think it’s now mostly African American.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:21:33] Yeah, I think, yeah, I think Pakistan or something. They go over there.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:21:37] Yeah. So, I mean, we coming closer to the end of this interview, I just want to ask you, like, you know what? Like, when we think about the Arab community now and we have more Arabs, like, what are your thoughts about the future of Arabs here in Cleveland?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:21:59] True what I’m thinking, you know. Anyway, it’s my thinking. It’s like, not like them. I like them, you know, to put, you know, like, you know, teach the kids, you know, how they act, how they do, or open some places, you know, for fun, for the kids to go to talk. Just, I don’t know. They mix up between Arabic community and Arab community. You know, they. When you go over there, it’s like American family, you know, they’re doing it just, you know what I’m thinking? I don’t like the boys and the girls together. I like the girls, you know, separate from the boys. And even the men’s, you know, they. Okay, like, the men’s go together. The wife, they go together. Just put all of them together, you know, it’s too much headache, too much problem with them, you know, it’s. It’s my way, you know, it’s too much freedom, and I don’t like too much freedom, you know.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:23:04] So the other question, do you. Do you think to go back home, like, to be there?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:23:09] Yeah, it’s for myself. It’s me. Myself, I like to go visit, just, I like to stay with my kids.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:23:18] Okay, so you want. This is your home?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:23:20] Yeah, it is my home now because that’s my kids, my husband, you know, it’s my home. Just like, you go vacation or something. I like to go over there.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:23:28] Yeah. And then do you like living in Cleveland?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:23:32] I love to live in Cleveland. I went to Chicago. I went to New York.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:23:36] You lived in New York?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:23:37] No, just to go visit to my families, you know, to go visit your dish over here. I’ll, you know, let’s stay here.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:23:44] Yeah, but how about, like, the weather here?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:23:48] I love the weather over here. It’s, you know, it’s so when it’s cold, it’s not too cold. No, it’s hotness. Not too hot. It’s almost close to our land over there. Just too much snow over here.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:24:01] Yeah.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:24:03] And I used to it, yeah.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:24:05] I mean, after all these.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:24:06] Yeah, I used, you know, I used to this weather.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:24:08] Yeah. But like, do you like summer better than winter here or.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:24:14] No, it doesn’t matter, you know, I used to. It’s a summer or, you know. Yeah, you know, I go and thank God for my kids, you know, if I can drive. They drive.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:24:23] Yeah. Yeah. So you drive. You learn to drive.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:24:26] Oh, long time. I drive.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:24:28] Okay, good.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:24:29] Yeah, I drive. Almost, almost 34. Almost four years. 35 years.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:24:35] So what your advice for some Arab new immigrants coming to Cleveland? What is your advice?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:24:43] Our advice? To think up for themselves. They work, they spend all the money. They think about the money, you know, third of its vent, third of its sale, third of its bottle bids. Not always fun, because that’s the life, you know, one day you have good life, second day, you don’t know what’s happened to you if said, you know, go to the street or ask, beg for money or something. I wish they could think about tomorrow before they think about today, you know, this way they know what they do and learn and go to school. It’s better than, you know.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:25:22] Education is very important, like going to.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:25:24] School, to school, to school. I think most important to learn what you want to do, because the schooling, it’s with the best things you learn. If you have money enough, you don’t want to work, okay. But just learn in case something happened, you could work, you could find job for you, what you learn. And thank God they have some courage to help for learning.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:25:46] Yeah.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:25:47] Because, you know, that’s the help. And it’s really, it’s working for the other kids that can’t afford it.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:25:52] Yeah. And then, so do you think the, like the story of the Arab, Arab community in Cleveland, it’s a successful story, in your opinion?
Fatemah Sammoor [00:26:04] It’s really, that’s why I say, you know, I’m a go, just say, you know what I heard? I wish the community to save some money to help the kids to go to school, to open something for their work, do something about the kids, you know, instead of going to the bar, instead going to, you know, to some coffee or something, you know, just think about their kids. It’s like what I’m thinking about kids, I have to think about your kids.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:26:33] To help each other, you know, like as a community.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:26:36] Community to help each other, you know, somebody in trouble, stand with them, somebody hungry, feed them, you know, to take each other, not just, you know, to do some money to go have fun. Always you get fun. Just, you know, your life and your future. You know, get it always you have to do something with it.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:26:59] Yeah.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:27:00] And that’s why, you know, that’s when nobody listen that you were their way.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:27:04] Yeah. So you never were engaged like in. I know that, like there’s a bit Hanina club and.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:27:12] No, I don’t like the stuff like this.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:27:14] Yeah. Like, you know, I mean that’s one of the, they try to organize themselves.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:27:20] Like in they do that but just, you know, I mean they do something good. Okay. Somebody need money for the college. Like, you know, I can’t afford to take my two kids to school. I can pay money for them. Okay. Like my other one, he have a lot of money to spend first time for the stuff. Why don’t go two days in week to the restaurant? Give this two weeks money for somebody else to help each other, okay. Like you see somebody go to the college two years and he start to work because he needs some money and he’s good in school. Okay, come on. Here. 1000, 2000. When you work, give me the money back. Just go to go to school, learn something. But just, you know, that’s why, you know, I hope somebody do that.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:28:17] Yeah. So I will ask you like for the last thing you want to say in this interview what you would like.
Fatemah Sammoor [00:28:24] All right. Like I like to see everybody happy. Everybody in doing good for their neighbor, love each other. They have goodness in their heart. You know, before I’m thinking about myself, to think about my neighbor and, you know, I don’t care who’s my neighbor. He’s Muslim American, he’s from anyone. Just what I like to, for myself, I like to my neighbor. Maybe, you know, when I get in trouble, my neighbor stand beside me. That’s, you know, the things, you know. And we have some people good like this. Not all of them bad or something, you know, just, you know, we have some people good, we have some, I hope everybody good because the life.
Abedelraman Tayyara [00:29:11] Okay, thank you a lot.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
