Humanity First

When an Afghan student from Trinity College studies abroad, will she be able to return?

- Elizabeth Titus

As I listened to Donald J. Trump’s “America First” inaugural speech on NPR, I was struck by a conversation I had had with my Afghan daughter before she departed for a semester in Rome the day before the inauguration. A junior on scholarship at a prestigious liberal arts college in New England, Sabira is doing what most juniors do, going abroad. Keenly aware of how fortunate she is, she left for JFK International Airport in a state of disbelief that this was actually happening. An economics major and Arabic minor, she does nothing but study and earn money as a Residential Advisor, and the result is that she made the Dean’s List for the fall semester.

I should clarify: she is not actually my daughter, as she has loving parents back home in Kabul. I am her legal guardian, and have been for five years, while she is studying in the U.S. Close friends were so taken with her that they are sponsoring her younger sister, Zohra, who goes to boarding school in Connecticut. Other friends in our circle are now making plans to bring her younger brother here, provided the boarding school is as generous with him as they have been with his sister. It seems likely, given the way this family impresses people. A third sister, Nahida, is in the U.S. through a nonprofit devoted to educating Afghan girls, and this past Christmas, all three sisters slept in one queen bed at my home in Connecticut. The head of Zohra’s boarding school said that she is an example of sheer determination and hard work for the other students, many of them international. She got all As the past semester, despite the language challenges. And Nahida placed for her Oregon boarding school in a national science competition.