Asma

            Asmahan Tsoi is a family friend. We just call her Asma. She’s lived all around the world and really is like a grandmother to me. She was born in Iraq and is currently living in London. A lot of the questions that I asked her related to her childhood and the issues currently present in the Middle East regarding gender roles, stereotypes, and politics in general.  She’s led a very interesting, independent, and worthwhile life so far. Her childhood in Iraq was a very happy one, as she was born into a wealthy Iraqi family,

“We were a very wealthy family and although there were plenty of businesswomen that had careers in nearly every field, she was a housewife. Most women of considerable wealth were at the time.”

            I asked her why the wealthy women were mostly housewives and she went on to describe the diversity in Iraq, “there were jews, christians, muslims, and anything else you could imagine. It’s just that the muslims held most of the wealth, we were there first.”

            Asma was a happy child and her childhood was quite normal in her memory, but what really changed her life was when her family insisted that she get married. Of course, she did what they asked not being sure what else she could do.

            She was married at a very young age, but soon ran away to Lebanon where she was able to find secretary work. This was where she met my mom. My mom was trying to rent an apartment in Lebanon, but no one would let her rent an apartment without a man living in the apartment. After a couple months of couch surfing my mom finally found Asma. She was the only person in Lebanon that would rent a flat to a single woman in her twenties.

            Asma met a young businessman while there, and that’s where she gets her last name. They’re still married and have 3 kids, 2 of which have kids of their own. Not only this, but Asma was able to break free from the constraints that Islam put on women and she converted to Catholicism. She’s not only one of the bravest people I know, but one of the kindest. To me, she was an independent woman before people even knew what it meant.