'I'm not ISIS. I'm suffering because of ISIS.'
Mohammed Abd Ali does what most children do when they get home from school. He drops his backpack, takes off his shoes, grabs a snack and puts his feet up.
The 11-year-old is a sixth-grader at Springfield Middle School, and the oldest of three in his family. Like his siblings, he likes phones, often shifting his focus on a game as the adults around him talk. He's outgoing, but when he's nervous, he laughs.
Just like any other kid.
But other sixth-graders didn't move to the United States less than two years ago because they had to flee the country where terrorists killed their family. Other sixth-graders haven't walked down the street while strangers yelled hateful slurs at them and their mother.
Other sixth-graders didn't tell the Battle Creek City Commission two weeks ago that because of bullies, he wants to change his name.
"I came to America because ISIS killed my two uncles," Mohammed told the commissioners. "In school, some people call me, 'Oh you're Muslim and you are a terrorist.'"
His mother, Rana Mahmood, says she'll grant her son's wish.
Aysar Mohammed Hasan had been receiving threats. In 2004, he became an interpreter for the U.S. Army in Baghdad's Green Zone, doing the job for three years. Other family members worked as interpreters, too. Aysar said he received messages from terrorists, warning they would kidnap or kill him if he didn't stop helping the Americans.
Aysar escaped danger once: A bomb that went off on his doorstep, fortunately, had left no one injured.
Then, in January 2007, terrorists attacked Aysar's family's carpentry business.
Aysar recorded video footage of the aftermath. It begins with his father, an elderly man, speaking in Arabic. Aysar walks throughout the property and walks by several bodies covered with sheets. Once, he lifts the sheet to show the lifeless face of a man. (Nine years later, as the video plays from a computer in her Battle Creek apartment, Rana identifies the man as Aysar's cousin.) Some men are holding guns, in an attempt to protect the business from another attack. Blood stains the ground, and women's screams can be heard throughout the video.
That day, Aysar's brother and two cousins were killed. There were others killed, too.
Six months later, terrorists kidnapped another of Aysar's brothers. While some people told the family they saw him pushed into a river, his body was never found.
This is why Aysar, now 40, left Baghdad, fleeing with his wife Rana and their three children. They underwent a lengthy process, complete with a series of background checks and interviews. They moved briefly to England, ultimately settling in Michigan after receiving refugee status, first in Sterling Heights. They have been in Battle Creek since April.
They left behind the country where they were raised and met each other. Where Aysar had a good job and experience in IT, and where Rana had jobs in scientific research and a bachelor's degree in physics.
Editorial: Show compassion and welcome refugees
"When I came here, we start a new page of my life," Aysar said. "I'm scared from Iraq, between Muslims, between Sunni, Shiite, al-Qaeda. When I came here, nobody accept us. They see my wife wear a hijab at Wal-Mart. The small kids, they ask, 'Dad, what's that?' They tell them to 'Shush. Shut up. Those are Muslims.'"
Rana, apologizing for her broken English and fighting back tears, was there to ask for help.
"I bring my kids here because I want my kids to live a good life and take good ideas from American people," she told commissioners. "This is the country for freedom. So I want my kids to get that."
"Please," she said. "Help us to say to people 'not all Muslims are terrorists and we come here just to live in peace and love.'"
Moving to the U.S. seems to be more difficult for Rana. Aysar works at Denso Manufacturing Michigan Inc., and although he's a laborer despite his education, he said he has a nice boss. His lighter skin and an accent that most doesn't recognize leads many to think he's Russian, he said.
But Rana wears a hijab, a headscarf worn by Muslim women. She said she's been followed out of grocery stores, refused service and yelled at while walking on the street. "Fucking Muslims," she recalls someone saying. Most of it she doesn't fully understand.
"When I walk on the street, they say bad words (to) me and my son," Rana said. "Some man in the car, they drive really slow. Bad words. Middle finger. Something like 'towel head?' 'Mohammed, my prophet?'"
She was able to find a job in a factory. She spoke even less English than she does now. She said co-workers treated her badly because she was Muslim, and when she spoke to her supervisor about it, she was told the staffing agency that helped her get hired would call her that night.
The agency did, and fired her, citing poor performance, she said. She hasn't been able to find work since, and is considering taking off her hijab for her job search. Aysar tells her to do it if she must, but doesn't want to know, she said.
"It's difficult for you when you walk in the street and the people bother you," Rana said. "Sometimes, I tell Ginger we are the same because she wears hijab. I wear hijab. But I tell her, 'You can defend for yourself. You have a language. I don't have a language.'"
Ginger Dowdle grew up in Battle Creek and is a practicing Muslim. She went to the City Commission workshop with Rana, who she met during a grocery trip to Horrocks. "Her story made my heart sick," she said.
"I've noticed a difference in my own friends, and the people in the community that I worked with," Dowdle said, her voice cracking. "People you've known — I've grown up here, I'm 43 — and it's like people you've known for a really long time, they don't even know how to act around you anymore. I'm the same person."
The Pew Research Center estimates there are about 3.3 million Muslims of all ages living in the U.S., making up about 1 percent of the country's total population. According to an annual survey of 12 Arab countries, "an overwhelming majority" — 89 percent — have a negative view of ISIS. That number is 93 percent in Iraq, the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies reports.
More than 4,000 refugees resettled in Michigan during the 2014 fiscal year, according to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. Nearly 2,800 were from Iraq.
In Battle Creek, refugee services are handled by Lutheran Social Services of Michigan. The agency has mostly worked with Burmese who have moved to Battle Creek after facing religious persecution in their country. Some 2,000 are estimated to live in the area.
The second-largest group the agency works with is Iraqi refugees. Program coordinator Aram Derbandi — who is Kurdish and from northern Iraq himself — said refugees from Iraq are not all Muslim; some are Christian and from other minority faiths.
A unique issue Iraqis face is their high levels of education. In order for them to be recognized in the U.S., the degrees have to be re-evaluated, Derbandi said — a process that takes both time and money.
"Most Iraqi cases, they're educated or highly educated, and they have a degree," he said. "They come from higher expectations. They like to work in the field they used to work in their country. And sometimes it's hard for them to find them a job that is comparable to what they did in their country."
Meanwhile, recent terrorist attacks in Paris have prompted discussion of U.S. policy for refugees. Gov. Rick Snyder was among the first of several leaders to reconsider allowing Syrian refugees into their states. He's since joined calls for a review of security and clearance policies for refugees.
Also in the national spotlight is anti-Muslim rhetoric — so much that it was a focal point in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address last week.
"When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer. That’s not telling it like it is," Obama said. "It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And it betrays who we are as a country."
Aysar and Rana said they don't pay close attention to U.S. politics, only catching snippets of it on TV. But when a co-worker once suggested he was a terrorist because of his Muslim faith, Aysar made it clear: "I'm not ISIS. I'm suffering because of ISIS."
Aysar said he plans to go to school in the U.S., likely taking classes online. Rana will continue to look for work as she raises the kids.
Mohammed will change his name. Rana said they'll move him to Harper Creek Community Schools, so no one there knows his previous name.
Residents back 'Welcoming Michigan'
It's a move for a boy who seemingly is eager to fit into his new home. Mohammed doesn't say he's Iraqi. He says he's American. Rana said when they arrived in the U.S., Mohammed kissed the flag.
This is where Rana wants to raise her children. She wants them to gain an education and learn American values. "That was my opinion in the beginning," she said. "Now, it's the same."
"But now, they ignore us. What they get? Hate? Just hate? They hate the people who hurt them."
B.C. commissioners to talk of 'Welcoming Michigan'
It's unclear whether the City Commission will vote on whether to join Welcoming Michigan. There is no resolution on its next agenda, a requirement to sign onto the campaign.
But there's no deadline to join. And several city commissioners — Andy Helmboldt, Kaytee Faris and Kate Flores — have signed a pledge in support of refugees that was led in part by Welcoming Michigan. Along with Battle Creek Public Schools board Trustee Nathan Grajek and elected officials from Kalamazoo County, they toured Lutheran Social Services offices last week to learn more about the agency's work and take a stand against what the organizations called "recent negative rhetoric and disturbing comments directed at refugees and Muslim Americans."
If the city joins Welcoming Michigan, it could mean a customized program to help Battle Creek be a community where both newcomers and long-time residents can live. Other participants have created naturalization ceremonies and improved their language-access policies.
Many of the workshop attendees were in support of the campaign. Others, however, were staunchly opposed.
Some didn't think there was a need to join a program, because the large Burmese population here showed the city was already welcoming. Another said government shouldn't tell him how he should welcome someone. Another said commissioners were committing treason and said the U.S. shouldn't accept immigrants with open arms.
Commissioner Flores used her comment time to address Mohammed.
"Thank you for coming to speak with us," she told him. "You have a beautiful name, and I'm glad that you're here."
Contact Jennifer Bowman at 269-966-0589 or jbowman@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow her on Twitter: @jenn_bowman
Learning about Islam
This week, two local Christian churches will begin to host workshops for residents to learn more about Islam.
WHEN: 10-11:30 a.m. Tuesday
WHERE: Trinity Lutheran Church, 2055 E. Columbia Ave.
INFO: fccbc.org/wp/the-jesus-fatwah/
WHEN: 6:30-8 p.m. Wednesday
WHERE: First Congregational Church, 145 Capital Ave. N.E.