Abstract

Fadi Karim (or Abdulkarim) is a pathologist living in Shaker Heights since 1979. He is a Lebanese and grew up in the city of Beirut. He first studied at the American University Of Beirut. He has four children all of whom live now outside Cleveland.

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Interviewee

Karim, Fadi (interviewee)

Interviewer

Tayyara, Abedel (interviewer)

Project

Arab Community in Cleveland

Date

2016

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

46 minutes

Transcript

Fadi Karim [00:00:00] Go ahead.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:00:08] August 7, 2016 I’m meeting today with doctor Fadi Karim. Good morning, doctor Fadi.

Fadi Karim [00:00:19] Morning.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:00:20] How are you doing today?

Fadi Karim [00:00:21] I’m doing well, thank you.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:00:24] So maybe we start if you tell me a little bit about yourself, about your family.

Fadi Karim [00:00:31] Okay. My name is Fadi Abdul Karim. I was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. And I moved to Cleveland after getting married one week after I got married in 1979. And we have been in Cleveland, Cleveland since, with the exception of a couple of years. In 84, 85, we were in Houston, Texas, for training. And then I went back to Beirut 85, and came back to Cleveland. And I’ve been since there with the exception of 2011, when I went back to Beirut for one year. So totally, we’ve been here almost 37 years.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:01:26] Okay, that’s interesting. So you grew up in Beirut. If you can share with me, like, you know, how it like growing in that city. I mean, we hear a lot about Bayou.

Fadi Karim [00:01:45] So I grew up in 1954, was born in 1954, and I lived in Beirut in 1979. Beirut in the fifties, sixties, and very early seventies, was one of the most peaceful and most beautiful countries in the world. I have one brother, and I grew up with my parents, living in my parents house, went to medical high school, elementary school, high school, and medical school there, all in the same street. And we had all our family with us. Beirut changed in the 74 plus because civil war started, which was on and off. And when I left in 79, it was quiet. But then in the eighties, when I wasn’t there, things really deteriorated. And so Beirut during the eighties and early nineties, during civil war, there were, you know, families against families, neighbors against neighbors. Beirut is, Lebanon is very small country. It’s about, I would estimate, maybe 150 miles in length and about 80 miles in width. So it’s very compact, very mountainous, and there were a lot of heavy weaponry and civil war going on. So there’s a lot of destruction. But for Beirut itself, the destruction was mainly downtown. And when the war ended in the early nineties, 93, 92, that’s where reconstruction of Beirut came about. And the reconstruction had to be in downtown for the infrastructure went on till late nineties. And then Beirut became one of the most beautiful cities again after they invested about $30 billion in it. Now it’s a booming city, all modern and very pleasant to live in, except very expensive, too.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:04:08] Yeah. So why you decided to study? To attend medical school?

Fadi Karim [00:04:14] So I went to medical school at the American University of Beirut after graduating from international College, which is a private high school right across this right in continuity with the American University of Bayou. It’s also an American institute, and I wanted to do medicine. And initially I thought I’d do neurology. And then by second year medical school, I changed to pathology, which is laboratory medicine. And since the program was not accredited in Lebanon, my intentions were to come to United States, to Cleveland, to study pathology and then go back to practice pathology at the American University of Beirut.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:05:09] And then, if you can tell us about, you know, about your work now and, like, the nature of your work.

Fadi Karim [00:05:18] And so pathology is one of those practices, like radiology, we don’t interact usually with patients face to face. We work in the labs. Most people think of pathology as autopsies, but I only did that in the training. Haven’t done autopsies for. For more than 20 years. Plus there are two kinds of pathology. There’s the. What’s called anatomic pathology or surgical pathology, and there’s clinical pathology. Clinical pathology relates to everything you know about blood bank, microbiology, virology, chemistry, like getting a blood test for cholesterol, and molecular pathology, mainly genetic testing. So that’s the laboratory pathology, which I don’t do. I’m familiar with it and interact with it daily. But the main pathology I do is called anatomic pathology, or surgical pathology and cytology. Surgical pathology is basically being right there next to the operating room, looking at specimens as they come out of the operating room and informing the clinician as to the findings so that they can proceed with the surgery or any patient that has any tissue removed, any biopsy removed for anything, whether it’s a skin lesion or it’s a major lung resection for cancer. All of any tissue removed from the patient, biopsy or big tissue comes to pathology. We examine it grossly, we look at it. We take sections of it. We prepare slides. We look at slides. We issue reports as to the findings. We stage the patient. We do all the special studies that are needed for any sort of hereditary or personalized medicine. We present a complete report to the clinician, and they discuss it with the patient, and they decide on management. So pathologies involved in almost 80% of patients analysis. And the other thing is cytology. There’s a gyn. Cytology is basically somebody has to read the pap smears and the pap test. So when a woman goes for annual exam and gets a pass test or hpv testing, so somebody has to read all these pap tests. So we do that in the lab, and we also read in cytology any cells, such as what’s called needle aspirate where they aspirate, for instance, a breast lump or a lung mass or under ct scan or under physical exam, we look at that, and also any fluids, such as lung fluid, abdominal fluids, you know, cerebrospinal urine, any fluid that doesn’t have tissue in it. We examine that, and we also render an interpretation.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:08:29] I want to ask you about, you know, your involvement in the community here in general, and then specifically with the Arab community in Cleveland, to what extent you are involved.

Fadi Karim [00:08:42] So since we don’t have, thing we had in Lebanon, don’t have here is immediate family. So the Arab community becomes your family, basically. And, you know, the Arab community, we started together in 1979, so we’re all recently coming to the states, and we’re all residents and had modest means. And then gradually, people worked very hard and Arab community grew. And now, 37 years later, the Arab community is very diverse. We’ve kept close contact with our people that we initially started with, and our kids and their kids now second and sometimes third generation, are excellent friends. We have selected people that are close to us, and so this is part of our social life.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:09:48] Close to you socially or professionally?

Fadi Karim [00:09:52] Actually, since I’m a physician, most of the Arab culture people that I know are physicians just because we trained together in different specialties. But we were in the same hospitals or in town. So most of them, I know them socially, and I know them professionally and professionally. I interact with them to various, various degrees, depending on how much they overlap with my specialty.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:10:25] So in your opinion, what are the, I mean, if you’re involved with different, like, social classes within the Arab community, what are, like, the main challenges, like a typical Arab living in Cleveland has to face in this city?

Fadi Karim [00:10:45] I think the Arabs face challenges among themselves more than among living in Cleveland. So the same political things that were happening in the Middle east carry over here. So during the Lebanese war, most of our Lebanese friends, we had, you know, different opinions on what’s going on and different philosophies, but we all buried that because that’s more, our friendship is more important than any politics. So I don’t think in any situation we had any conflict between each other reflecting what was going on back home then, now here, same thing happening. You know, the Syrian community might be divided just like they divided back home. Lebanese have an opinion on that. And so when we meet and we talk politics, obviously we are very different. Religion is not an issue because when we grew up in Lebanon, religion was never an issue. And so all our friends and family members, etcetera, were of a diverse religious affiliation and with intermarriages and everything. And even the war, which was under the heading of religion, that really much less to do with religion, but mainly politics and, you know, and different ideologies in the name of religion. So we didn’t have any of this, you know, religion thing. And so we come here, and each one keeps his faith, and everyone is very respectful. And so that does not interfere with any of our friendships. Friendships are basically built on people who, you know, grew up together here with kids, were close to each other, and continues. That’s what the main foundation.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:12:43] Yeah. I want to ask you about the role of Arabic culture language in your life.

Fadi Karim [00:12:49] I mean, right.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:12:51] How you see that.

Fadi Karim [00:12:52] So Arabic language in Lebanon is kind of different because we grew up speaking English and French from kindergarten. So there’s no Arabic division. Your parents put you in either in English or a french division. And so all the sciences, everything was in English or French. Arabic was for literature and maybe history. And during your high school, you had to switch and learn four years of English if you’re in the french division, and four years of French if you’re in the english division, vice versa. So everyone grew up speaking three languages, plus the whole country speaks three languages automatically. So Arabic wasn’t as strong Arabic as we can put it. And even now, the Lebanese, called Arabic, if you watch tv or anything, is a hybrid of Arabic, English, and French. It used to be French predominant. Now it’s English predominant, taking over the French. And so even on tv, any newscasts, anybody, the words interchange. In contrast to my friends from the Arab world, such as Syria, they grew up learning Arabic and grew up learning medicine in Arabic. So it was more difficult for them to translate that Arabic to English here. For us, we grew up in a country that all the sciences were in English, so we had no problem with anything. So it comes here to the Arabic language. You’d like to preserve the Arabic language for your kids, but for my kids, we were not strict. So my kids understand now, they’re all in their mid to late twenties and early thirties. They can understand everything in Arabic, colloquial Arabic, not literature, former Arabic. They can understand any conversation to the extent possible. When they both go back to Lebanon, however, everybody talks to them in English. They cannot speak Arabic. They can speak one or a couple of words, couple of sentences. But we were not strict with them. Other families that were very strict as they were, only answered them in Arabic, won that till they went to elementary school. And then the kids switch to English, so they answer you in English but at least many of them do speak Arabic. So kind of different. And our kids now regret. They say, we wish you taught us Arabic. They are upset at us for not being more strict with them and teaching them Arabic.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:15:47] So if you mentioned your kids, can you tell us more about what they studied or what they’re doing in their life?

Fadi Karim [00:15:55] So I have four kids, three boys and a girl, and my oldest. They all grew up here in Cleveland. They were all born in Cleveland, except for my third was born in Atlanta because that’s the year I went back to Lebanon in 85. So we came back through Atlanta. And so they all grew up here. They all grew up in Cleveland. They consider Cleveland as their home. They all grew up in the same house. We’re still in the same house. Now. First we were renting, and we were renting an apartment, renting a house. But since 1989, they all grew up in Shaker. They went to elementary, middle school, high school, and shaker. Most of them went to public school. Only my first and parochial school. My first two, my son and my daughter, they went to catholic school right next to Arausen. And then everybody moved to Shaker except for my oldest. He went to a private school, boys school. It all varied depending on the kids, but anyhow, none of them live here. They went to. Went to Ohio state. One went to Pittsburgh, then Washu, and one went to case western reserve. So now my oldest is a lawyer in Boston. My daughter is a geriatric physical therapist. She’s in West Virginia. My third is in Seattle. He’s a computer engineer. And my youngest is now in San Francisco. He has a doctorate degree in industrial and organizational psychology. So none of them are here, but.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:17:58] All of them grew up in this house.

Fadi Karim [00:18:00] They all grew up in this house, yes.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:18:04] Okay, I want just to go back to the, like, early years, when you arrived in the United States and specifically in Cleveland. So did you face any difficulties? If you can talk about certain difficulties.

Fadi Karim [00:18:21] So, coming from Cleveland, people used to ask you if there’s a cultural shock all the way from did you have televisions to cars, etcetera. Actually, Beirut was more advanced than anything else. Beirut can compete with any European or American city any day. So, no, we had no culture shock. We had every amenities and everything far in abundance than here. Cleveland in the seventies, early seventies, was naughty. Had a lot of issues downtown and security and all that. And so Cleveland, over the years, has boomed. And so now Cleveland is a whole different city for the past several years. Amazing city. And it was nice bringing up family in Cleveland. Because it’s not a huge city like New York and yet not a small suburb. And I think all my kids love Cleveland, and my wife really is very appreciative. And so, you know, Cleveland is very nice. I don’t think we had difficulties. Maybe the first three weeks we were here just buying a car and getting our paperwork organized to settle down, and we got introduced to extended family. My father’s cousin, who my father only met him when they were 15 for two weeks in Lebanon. Otherwise, he doesn’t know him. And my father’s cousin, we communicated. We got introduced to him. He lives in Bay village. He’s second generation American and now the fourth generation. At that time, they were like family to us. So he and his wife were like, they were like our parents here, and for my kids were like their grandparents, so that helped a lot.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:20:22] But how about your siblings? Are they here living here or in a, back home in Lebanon?

Fadi Karim [00:20:32] So I have one brother. He lives in Switzerland. He’s been there for the past four years. Plus he’s a naturalized swiss city citizen, and his kids are Swiss. He speaks German, Arabic and French fluently. He’s. And he’s basically Swiss. And so that’s. I’ve only one brother. And my, as for my, my wife’s family, she has two, two brothers and two sisters. Two sisters. One is in Atlanta, one is in Madison, Wisconsin. Lives six months here, six months in Beirut. But basically, she lives in Madison and has taught for 30 years there at the school. Her two brothers, one of them is in California and Malibu, is an engineer, and one of them is now in Dubai and moving back to Los Angeles. So when I go back home, really, my parents are deceased and her parents I stay. When I go to Lebanon, I stay in a hotel. I’m basically a tourist. I have no family except old friends that I try to communicate with. I’ve got two cousins that I’m close with, but otherwise essentially a tourist. Living in a hotel and behaving like a tourist.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:22:07] Yeah. So you mentioned your wife. How did you meet? Where, how.

Fadi Karim [00:22:14] So my wife and I go back a long way. We met when I was 15 and she was 13, and we met at the youth social group for the church, although we belong to different churches, but it was mainly her church. A friend of mine invited me to come along, and so it was like a dancing party. And I met my wife then at a young age, and we’ve been together since, you know, maybe most of the time, almost the time. And so after ten years, from 15 till 25, ten years of being boyfriend, girlfriend. And in Lebanon, we got married. I don’t remember even proposing. And so we got married in Beirut, and then the next day, we were at the American embassy getting a visa, and by the third day, we were traveling to Cleveland. So she still says, where is the honeymoon? And I say, Cleveland is the capital, honeymoon city of the world, which he doesn’t buy.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:23:32] Yeah. I want to ask you, but, you know, if we compare the Arab community here with other communities, like other immigrants, in terms of success, do you think that the Arab experience in Cleveland, it’s a story of success?

Fadi Karim [00:23:50] I think for the most Arabic community of Cleveland is definitely a story of success, depending. The people I know have all been physicians, almost highly educated people, and so they were very successful. They worked 24 hours a day. They’re very determined. They get along well with everybody. And so the people I know have been extremely successful socially, financially. The other Arab, all the Arab community, they’re moving here. You know, whether they have a store, whether they have a barber shop, whether they have anything, they’re very successful because they’re very dedicated. They’re very hardworking. They’re very sincere people, and so they work hard, and they treat everybody with a lot of respect. They have no racial problems. And so we didn’t grow up, grow up with any, you know, discrimination or anything because it wasn’t part of our culture. And so people like them. And so I think they’re very successful, each in its own way. Yes. I don’t see them being a burden on anybody. In fact, they’re all self sufficient.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:25:15] Yeah. So do you think that they contribute a lot to the cultural life, social, political life of the city?

Fadi Karim [00:25:23] I think they contribute a lot. I think culturally, just to start with food, for instance. When we came in, pita bread, and anything Arabic or Lebanese wasn’t even known, and now it’s the health fad, and everybody wants it, and they flock to the Lebanese and Arab stores on the west side. Culturally, they contributed a lot through their work. You know, they’re very dedicated people. They’re successful, and so they contribute financially and. Yeah. And, I mean, there’s a culture here that’s very nice, but.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:26:13] Okay, very good. So I want to ask you, like, you know, do you still, like, consider yourself as an immigrant? In many senses, yeah.

Fadi Karim [00:26:24] This is a difficult situation. Let’s put it like this. For my kids, they don’t consider them. They don’t consider themselves immigrants. My kids consider themselves fully American born and raised here. They have no problem saying that they’re of Lebanese or Arab origin, they can voice their opinion. They’re as fully assimilated in the system. They have no, they will not go back. You know, they like to visit Lebanon and their, they’re happy being there, but this is their home. For my wife, she has, she’s fully integrated here much more than I am. So she built her home here, grew, her children grew up here, everything. So she doesn’t have the emotional attachment that I have to the extent to back home. For me, I’m torn, you know, I’m just basically, my work is here, my family’s here, kids is here. I love being here. I also love being home. So even put me, took me 1015 minutes in Beirut. I’m very happy. So. But.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:27:38] What do you exactly missing? Like, you don’t find here, you’re missing when you see attach.

Fadi Karim [00:27:43] Yeah, because when I go back, I grow back as a tourist. So that’s a whole different situation. I’m go back to live. There might be a different situation, you know, so I don’t know, I miss just the, I’m very, I miss the streets, I miss the food, I miss just being myself and I just feel like I’m more. So do you think more myself, basically.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:28:10] But, you know, like, you know, sometimes you think like, I’m asian, I grew, I mean, they’re still haunted by their up, like, memories from their childhood.

Fadi Karim [00:28:20] No, I’m not haunted by any memories except good memories. So when I go back, I bring back the good memories. Yeah. So, like, my daughter was with me in Beirut four months ago in December, and she’s like, dad. And I know, I remember every building and every street and every corner and every shop and was telling her about everything and she thinks I’m over romantic or whatever, but, you know, it’s basically right now the reality. I went back in 2011, I took a sabbatical year and left my work at case, and I went back and worked in Beirut for one year, but it was a one year commitment and actually it was by myself. My wife and my kids were still here and they would visit me and I have nothing but good things. People say, like, oh, why did you come back? You couldn’t tolerate it. None of that is true. So it’s fine.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:29:22] So you like that?

Fadi Karim [00:29:23] Yeah. I lived for a year and I was, you know, was pleased. But, you know, it’s hard to go back. You can’t, you know, for me, you can’t bring, drag your kids back and your grandkids now back. You can make them proud of their heritage, but they did not grow up there. This is their home. So they have to be proud of their home here and they have to have all their emotional attachment to here.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:29:54] Yeah, but, you know, when you went for one year to 2011, you said, I mean, do you think that things change drastically, that you even you could not recognize certain.

Fadi Karim [00:30:08] Oh, yeah, no. Beirut? Oh, yeah, definitely. So Beirut is as obvious young generation, basically, most of the population is younger than 30, so they are living it up. They party. It’s crazy city. And for the older generation, Beirut has lot of, you know, basically people like appearances and show off and cosmetic surgery, and they would never be seen unless dressing up the latest fashion or going to the fancy restaurants or driving fancy cars. Even if they’re in debt, they will do that. It’s very superficial culture. It’s just all in appearances.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:30:56] So how was the culture?

Fadi Karim [00:30:59] So it was very different. Very different. Plus, the city is changing. There isn’t a single original building that’s not being altered, demolished, with skyscrapers coming up, starting to look like Dubai. Except the difference is there are mountains and there are. So when you scratch the surface and look at the original people and the close friends, they’re still the same. But when you look around, things have changed a lot. You like it this way, like the way I am. My kids and my wife think it’s very superficial and they’re not happy with it. I brush it off, I ignore it. And so I don’t like that. Dwell on it. But it is. It is very different from that aspect. It’s like the people went through 20 years of war, and for the past ten years, 15 years, they just went crazy, basically with no inhibition and nothing and a lot of money, and it’s a different place.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:32:03] Yeah. I want to go back to your involvement in the Arab community here. Do you belong to any cultural clubs, Arab culture clubs?

Fadi Karim [00:32:14] So there is the American University of Beirut alumni, and that is a huge community, and we, we belong to that. And so they have social events all the time in Cleveland, and then there are all sorts of Arab social events sometimes that come in that we don’t like, belong to any structural organization other than the alumni of the American University of Beirut. But I belong to some professional societies, such as part of the International Academy of Pathology, Arab Division. So this is a group of pathologists in the United States who are all of Arab descent, and there’s a yearly conference in one of the Arab countries. And I’ve been involved in every aspect of that. I’ve been to every country, presenting lectures and making workshops, Dubai, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Syria. Yeah, to name a few that. I’ve been there with the Arab division there for a week, putting educational courses and interacting with the pathologists there and helping them out.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:33:40] Yeah. But did you present, like, did you have like, a conference here in Cleveland area?

Fadi Karim [00:33:47] We have, because with diverse subspecialties, we don’t have any conference related to the specialty area. But in Cleveland, I present part of my work at the Cleveland clinic. Basically conferences, but not anything specific. I’ve been giving a lecture recently to several churches and whoever wants to listen, and it’s called Lebanon in the Bible. And basically Lebanon is discussed more than 70 times in the Bible. So I go over Old Testament, New Testament, every area, and I show Lebanon then and Lebanon now, and people are really fascinated by that. And so I am proud of that. I would like to present another talk about, you know, crossroads between Islam and Judaism and Christianity. Talk about Lebanon, Damascus and Jerusalem. And I’m trying to put that together.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:34:57] Right now, like, you know, which brings me to another question about, you know, what you do in free time. I mean, obviously doing these important lectures and about culture and history, but what other things that you like to find this balance between your profession and your spiritual, cultural life.

Fadi Karim [00:35:20] So we’re involved with our church, but it’s an American church, protestant church, and we are involved in the community, as in, there’s always events or dinners or weddings or things in the Arab community, and we got a lot of American friends. My wife much is a social person and. Sorry, what was the question?

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:35:50] In your free time?

Fadi Karim [00:35:52] In my free time, so I don’t have a particular hobby. I be always being pushed before I retire to develop a hobby, and I don’t have a hobby. So I tried playing cards with my Arab friends who are now once a month, go and play poker and bridge, and I can’t understand any cards. I tried joining them. I couldn’t. Tried playing golf. I don’t like it. So I don’t have any much of hobbies. I like to bike. I like to walk. Sometimes I take kayaking, but there’s nothing like I am dedicated to. So when I’m done with work, I just basically settle down and relax and don’t do much activities.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:36:45] Yeah, we’re coming close to the, this interview. I mean, I want to ask you from your experience, like, as immigrants, Arab immigrants, I mean, what is your.

Fadi Karim [00:36:57] You.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:36:57] Know, someone want to, wants to come from the Middle east somewhere, an Arab. What do you.

Fadi Karim [00:37:04] So I was reminded day before yesterday when somebody from the American University of Beirut wanted to apply to a training program here. And his CV had his middle name, which is Muhammad, and it had it in big letters. And somehow I instinctively told him to put his middle name as m because I felt like these days, if he sends that CV out for a job, as much as it pains me to say that, and I told him, and he knows that I’m saying that out of total respect and out of total love to him, that he may be discriminated upon. When I moved here with my name, Abdul Karim, obviously almost implying a muslim name, that’s what people associate. So people couldn’t tell the Abdul whether that’s in my middle name, my hyphenated name. And so it was very difficult. And probably people still think I’m Muslim, but people thought I’m Muslim even in Beirut, and that’s fine. And I never corrected anybody. And I still receive all sorts of wishes for every holiday, even now, from my Lebanese friends. And I respond courteously and respectfully and have all the respect for them. But it reminded me that when we came to Abdul Karim, when it came to my kids, we dropped the Abdul from the. From the citizenship and they became Kareem. So it was easy for them to be. Well, his name is William, so it’s William Karim or Rania Kareem, then Abdul Karim. And gradually all the Abdul Karim had become Kareem here. And that is the. But I kept Abdul Karim and I keep it in all my publications, my professional presentations. And I don’t know what people think. I never worry about it for a second. And I just.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:39:14] Yeah, because this is unusual, actually, because Abdel Karim, I also, when I, you know, saw it first time, I thought you were Muslim. So how you got this name, last name, if you.

Fadi Karim [00:39:30] So basically we go back to the 18 hundreds the Abdul Karim have. I don’t know how the name came. Abdul means servant, and Kareem is generous, a servant of the generous, which is God. The family started in 1800. That’s where history I have. And they were at that time Eastern Orthodox or Greek Orthodox. Two brothers who were ministers were priests, and one of them converted to Protestantism way back then in the late 18 hundreds in Lebanon. And he didn’t like the fact that in the eastern orthodox churches there are statues and icons and pictures because he said there shouldn’t be any pictures and they should worship only God directly. And that’s the first commandment. And so he split. He became protestant. And since then there’s a generation of Protestants. Most of the. My grandfather was the head of the presbyterian church in the Middle east. Even when I was in Cairo, people recognized him. Well known in Syria, well known in Jordan, everywhere. And so he was the head of the church, extremely liked person. Three of my aunts married to protestant ministers. So I grew up. I remember any other thing. So it’s, yeah, but my first name, Fadi, is basically Redeemer, which refers to Christ. And so it’s kind of in the, in the Arab world, it’s kind of, nobody knows. And I never explained and I never thought about it, but it’s true. When we were in Morocco, we were with the, with the tourist guide and he at noon, wanted me to go in the mosque and pray with him and, and I said, please go ahead and pray and I’ll wait for you with my family outside. And he insisted and insisted and I said respectfully, you know, go ahead, please pray for us and go in. And then finally I had to tell him that I’m not Muslim. And he got extremely upset that because my name is Abdul Karim, I’m denying my faith and I’m not. And so anyhow, I’m sure, you know, it’s not, I’m sure people, when they see it, whether. But, you know, I have, I’m, I am very, you know, I worked hard and I have numerous publications and book chapters and books and editors and so my specialty people know my name and so I don’t like, wink about it.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:42:36] Okay, so the last thing I will ask you about, you know, final thought, you want to, things that you want to say because, you know, as, you know, this is like, as a part of the project about the Arab community.

Fadi Karim [00:42:51] I think it’s very important that in retrospect that the kids in second generation keeps excellent roots, including speaking their language. They should have been much more strict about that. So they should know. They should definitely visit their homeland. Absolutely. I have no, I don’t understand, like my in laws, through my son’s in laws who are originally Lebanese, my next door neighbor whose mom is Lebanese, that they never go back and I don’t know why, to Lebanon. And that I think is extremely important because once my kids went back, even in the nineties when the war was just over, they don’t remember destruction or anything. You know, it’s all in the way you present it. And now, you know, once they went back several times and they only go back for a week. So it’s like, you know, a week and a half as tourists, then they come back with a whole different perspective. Nobody can say anything about their culture, about their country in any way that they’re like, oh, there was a war in Beirut. Beirut is destroyed. Or it, you know, it’s all unsafe or anything. They know very well that it is safe and there’s no war. It’s very well built and people are very friendly and it’s very safe. So that is very important if you don’t do that step. But it’s, this is very similar to any American who never traveled out of the United States, you know, once they travel. But it’s important. So it’s important that they speak the language. It’s important that they transmit that to their kids. It’s. Which is fading away, obviously. It’s important that they visit and they maintain their culture. And, you know, in a way, when, when my son is studying psychology, then said, there’s this six or seven degree, I don’t remember, of separation, where if you meet somebody after six people, you eventually know somebody they know or become related. When he’s in Lebanon, he says there’s one degree of separation. You meet somebody, you talk to them, then you realize you’re related to them. Doesn’t matter which religion, which area of town. And that is true. That’s true.

Abedelraman Tayyara [00:45:31] Okay. I would like to thank you for this.

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