Qualitative methods

Reverse Culture Shock

A life story interview with Mona Ibrahim

Ashraf Kamel

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Introduction

This paper is based on a life-story interview with my mother Mona Ibrahim. The

interview was conducted over three days and lasted about two and a half hours total. While the

most immediately obvious way of structuring this paper would be to organize it chronologically;

I found that it was more practical to tell the story of mother’s life by focusing on important

themes in her life. This allows the relationships between the different periods in her life to

become readily apparent.

Reflexivity

I do believe that I have accurately portrayed my mother’s life in this paper but clearly

this is a difficult task. I grew up with my mother and obviously had some preconceptions as to

who she is going into this interview. I believe my surprise at some of my mother’s answers to

my questions is a sign that I was able to avoid allowing my preconceptions to overtake the

information I was actually given. I have done my best to make sure that everything in this paper

is supported by the interview and I feel like I have been successful in this effort.

Background

Mona Ibrahim was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1966. Egypt had recently gained

independence from the British. The country was still very westernized from this occupation,

although the Egyptian president at the time implemented communist policies which rationed

everything. Overall this was a time for optimism; however, this optimism was tempered by the

buildup to war with Israel in 1967, a war which ended poorly for Egypt.

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Mona’s family lived in the same building as they live in now, an apartment building built

by her mother’s father. While both of her parents worked full-time, this living situation was

ideal in that there was always family available to help with her, her brother Amr (1½ years

older) and her newborn cousin who lived downstairs.

Most of the large changes in Mona’s life happened in one year, 1988. This was the year

in which she finished her undergraduate education, got married, moved to the United States,

began graduate school, and had her first child. Clearly, many of these changes play significant

roles in her life-story. The significance of these changes will be explored throughout this paper.

Family

Family was without a doubt the central theme in this life-story interview. Throughout

the interview it was clear that Mona’s orientation towards family is central to her identity. This

orientation towards family began at an early age, and holds strong even for family members

that died when she was young. When discussing her grandmother (her only living grandparent

at the time of her birth), who died when she was ten, she says:

She would sit and tell me stories. The same stories over and over again…her story of the pilgrimage…it was a period of two months or more in her life to do the pilgrimage which takes a week [now]…I loved to listen to her stories. Too bad she died when I was maybe ten. Now, I forgot most of those stories and I didn’t have the foresight to write them down or take good notes or something. You know, now I’d die for some of those sessions of storytelling. (Transcript page 5)

Mona’s grandmother was central to holiday celebrations when she was young, all of her family

would congregate at her grandmother’s home. While this tradition would continue in her own

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home for the rest of the time she lived in Egypt, it is telling that she still views her grandmother

this fondly despite the fact that her grandmother died when she was young.

Mona’s mother is a woman who figures very prominently in her life-story. She describes

her mother’s temperament as follows:

I think the most significant characteristic about my mom is that she has a very positive outlook of the future, and faith that God will make things work out for the best…She’s very satisfied with whatever her life is like. She is very calm. (p.6)

While this temperament is something that Mona views positively she is also aware that it

sometimes made her life more difficult:

I didn’t feel her support a lot when I needed it because she was always like, “oh whatever will be will be” so when you actually needed her to do something it was so frustrating…Amr and I shared the same room all the time which is for a male and female sibling really not acceptable and actually for a long time we shared the same bed…they cut the bed in half but we were still in the same room. I was like, “I need my own room” but my mom was like, “Oh whatever”…I think she was attached to how the house was because her dad built it like that and she didn’t want to change anything. (P.10-11)

This frustration Mona felt at her inability to get her own room is much like her other complaints

about family; she seems to have felt that she was not taken seriously. This is not to say that her

relationship with her mother was not a good one though:

The good thing about my mom, she was my best friend when I was an adolescent. I didn’t have a lot of friends…mostly because when they invited me nobody would drive me to their birthday parties and these were where most of the socialization happened at my school…I was always at her feet talking, talking, talking she’d be doing the dishes and doing the housework and I’d just be following her around talking about all that happened in my day and she was such a good listener. So that was really appreciated by me (p.8-9)

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This notion of Mona’s mom as her best friend is an indication of the centrality of family to her

self-identity, while this theme appeared throughout our discussion of family; it is never more

potent than this explicit description of her mother as her best friend. Her relationship with her

mother has remained strong, even in light of her move to the United States. The continued

strength of this relationship became apparent when Mona was discussing her feelings about

community, specifically her feelings now that the rest Egyptian community that lived in Fargo

when she arrived has moved:

So now I wonder, what am I doing here? What am I staying here for? Why don’t I stay with my mom who needs me to take care of her or bring her over or something...she is only here for a few months [of each year] she has to go back for medical care because of the insurance issue. (p. 56-57)

It appears that Mona still thinks of her mother as important to her self-identity. This creates

conflict between her desire to take care of her mother in her old age and continuing with the

life she chose for herself by moving to the Unites States.

Mona’s father was very protective of her, and appears to be central to her notion that

she was not taken seriously by her family. He was the disciplinarian of the family who sought to

be “respected and feared” (p.6) as a way to keep his children on the straight and narrow. This

combination sometimes led to some bizarre situations that Mona regarded as unfair:

I remember a time when we had paint we found on the roof or something. The balcony was so cracked and in bad shape and in bad shape and stuff so I took it on myself to go out and repaint the balcony. Our parents weren’t home…and I told Amr let’s paint the balcony…when dad came home he said, “Oh, what did you do? Oh it’s lumpy, I think you ruined the balcony.” I remember feeling heartbroken over that. Not feeling appreciated and stuff. (P.23)

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Mona has flippant in her response to this, something her father was not willing to accept and

he sent her to her room for being a, “girl without manners” in front of guests, an experience

that Mona was very sad about. While her father was always fairly controlling, not even allowing

her to watch TV without him there to send her off if something inappropriate was about to

occur (like a kiss) , he was especially authoritarian when it came to male/female relationships:

I was, you know, because of my upbringing I was very uptight about being seen with a male or talking to someone is not officially my fiancé or something because people would say bad things about me or say she runs around or something. So the dating happened after we were engaged you know. Despite my dads disgruntled comments at the time…it’s hard really to get to know someone well…I mean it turned out well but it could have been a disaster. (P. 38)

This is a telling statement, even after Mona was engaged her father was uncomfortable with

her spending time with males, even if that male was her fiancé.

Mona does view her father positively even if she felt it was difficult to get him to take

her seriously. Much of her appreciation for her father stems from his belief in the importance of

education:

Best thing about my dad was that he really cared about my education, there was no question that I would go to college which was not how a lot of parents were at that time. Remember just a generation before it was kind of questionable for a girl to go to college it was viewed as they are just out there looking for men and showing themselves in public. A decent girl would just learn the basics; how to read, basic history of the world, and then stay home and learn to cook and keep house…By the time I was born a lot of girls were going to college but still for being so conservative he had no question about me getting a good education. (P. 7)

This desire to make sure that Mona got a good education was surprising in light of the fact that

her family did not have much money. Mona went to an expensive private school from

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kindergarten until the end of her high school years, this despite the fact that her parents

couldn’t afford more than one uniform every year, or really many clothes at all. Mona would

ordinarily get one new set of clothes every year, and if she didn’t like them, this could be tough:

Like one year my mom made me a knit outfit, like she knitted me an outfit; pants and a sweater. Imagine wearing knitted pants and they turned out to be tight you know she she’s a good knitter but she like could never get the sizes right or never followed the patterns exactly and so the pants were very tight and the top was also tight and I’d started to develop breasts and stuff so I was just showing…she was like, “no it’s perfect it’s good that’s your Eid outfit you wear that” and I just hid under the covers of the bed just crying and wishing I would die rather than show up in that outfit but I did (laughs) but you know other Eid’s you know—that’s kind of the bad one most other Eid’s I got an outfit that I liked. (P.13)

In light of their tight financial situation, the dedication her dad showed to getting Mona an

education was remarkable. This became especially obvious when Mona entered college. She

initially went to Cairo University, which was free, but had some serious drawbacks, “professors

don’t show, there were no textbooks, no education” In light of her frustration with the college

education she was receiving Mona’s dad decided to send her to the American University in

Cairo (AUC). This school was extremely expensive, she was only able to afford to go after her

father convinced the financial aid office to give them a discount on her tuition. The school was

still expensive for her family at this point, a fact that did not matter for long as Mona was able

to get an excellence scholarship to pay for her tuition every semester after the first. This meant

a lot to her:

My dad didn’t know that [she would earn scholarships] and was willing to pay …for the next seven semesters as well. He was willing to do that so I would get a good education…he wasn’t very generous in general but when it came to education there was no question he’d pay. (P. 8)

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This dedication to education appears to be central to Mona’s perceptions of her father.

Mona’s orientation towards family certainly appears to continue into the present day

when asked what the most important thing given to her by her family she responded:

I think just their time and their love. Like when I go to Egypt they always come for one day like one morning or something, all the family comes with all their kids and we have a meal together…The all say, “Thank you Mona for bringing us together because we never get together during the year. (P.45)

Mona makes an effort to stay connected to her family despite having moved:

I think I am you know not one who is distancing herself, like you know, now I immigrated and don’t relate to them. I try to stay rooted and keep my ties to them, I really appreciate them and love them and stuff (P. 45)

This takes a real effort and Mona seemed truly proud to have been able to maintain her familial

ties to those all the way in Cairo.

Of course, the family that she created is also important to her. Her husband is, of

course, important to her life and has probably had a bigger impact on her life’s trajectory than

any other person. Due to Mona’s conservative upbringing they did not, as touched on before,

know each other all that well before they were engaged. Her husband’s proposal to her was

described in this way:

He asked my one day, “can we sit and chat for a minute?” I was like, “About what? (sounds suspicious)” He said, “I have this chance to go to the US to get a PHD or to work at IBM in Egypt and make a ton of money but not get a PHD. What do you think?” I said, “Well it’s your life why are you asking me?” He said “I’d like to propose to you.”I said, “so why are you asking me? Go talk to my dad.” (P. 38)

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As mentioned before, she believes that this turned out well but it could have been disastrous.

This conversation though had momentous consequences for Mona’s life as they did decide to

come to the US and pursue graduate education.

The final element of family is the one that appears to have the biggest impact on

Mona’s self perception, her children:

I think that’s what really matters in all this life, how did you raise your kids? What kind of kids did you leave behind? If they remember you when you die and, you know, say a prayer for you for forgiveness or things like that or not (P. 53)

While Mona seemed reluctant to talk in depth about her three children (probably largely due to

the fact that I am one of them) she did make one other statement about them I felt was telling:

They are just wonderful, they are the best thing in my life. My kids are really the best thing in my life, best thing that ever happened to me. They make my life so full and so meaningful and they are the only source of real heartbreak I’ve ever had or real happiness I’ve ever had. (P. 40)

Despite the lack of in depth conversation about her children these passages indicate a view of

self that is largely based around family, and specifically her children.

Friendship

Mona’s orientation towards family might be partly explainable by the problems she’s

had with making friends in her life. When asked about her struggles as a child she responded:

Not having friends. I remember that you know, I’d be standing with a group of girls and then when they started to say something like you know a secret or something. Or something juicy they’d be like “Oh! She’s standing here let’s move to another place or wait because she’s there.” Like you know I was never included in that and you know they made a point of making sure I wasn’t there to hear that. That hurt me so much you know I feel like I am totally the outsider. (P. 22)

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Mona makes a very potent observation in this passage, she observes herself as the outsider.

This is a reasonable understanding because she has been, for most of her life, the outsider

among her peers:

They [her family] were different from other families in my school. Most of them were richer; it was a private school and most people had more means than us and also in college, people were like just more wealthy and also liberal you know with their kids going on field trips or going to café with friends and I never had that. (P. 14)

This financial difference between Mona and her peers persisted throughout her time in Egypt

since she was attending expensive private institutions despite her family not having much extra

money:

Yeah definitely that [class] was an issue but it wasn’t like I was feeling inferior necessarily but I thought they were looking down at me because I did not own the same fancy clothes or the same fancy things and don’t have a car. My peer acceptance was kind of suffering because of that but I never felt that I am less of a person because I didn’t have much money. (P. 29)

This gulf between Mona and her peers has persisted since she moved to the states, although

the differences between her and her peer groups here do not revolve around class issues:

Cause people don’t befriend us, like our neighbors, they are all nice and everything but they don’t really befriend us, they don’t try to invite us over…I’ve tried to invite them several times, and they are very nice and they come and they are courteous and bring gifts and everything but they don’t invite me over…same with the people in my department and stuff, they are very courteous, they are very supportive. I love my colleagues but it’s not like I’m best friends with any of them…It is you know fine, fine. I enjoy the company more of people who are of the same background as me, like you know Soha, she was just my best friend after just a few months because we shard so much. (P. 55-56)

This is not to say that Mona has not made friends in her life; but between her moving around

the United States, and her friends moving around the United States, it has been difficult for her

to find lasting friends:

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I guess now my friends are really in the US but some are in Michigan, some are in Connecticut, some are in Georgia, some are in New York. So what am I doing here? (P. 57)

It seems exceedingly likely that the centrality of family in Mona’s life is due to the difficulty she

has had in her life making lasting friendships.

Education

Despite the excellent reputation of the school Mona attended through high school she

never really found it fulfilling. Her problems with this school are best summed up when she

explains why she loved the American University in Cairo:

Going to the AUC…was so different from anything I’d experienced. Like for the first time memorization was not stressed and you were actually supposed to say an opinion…I remember the first time I was doing a research paper…some articles were pro and some were con…I was just in tears, couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do…So I was definitely a dualistic thinker, there is a right and a wrong answer for everything because that’s how I was taught. That [AUC’s intellectual freedom] was revolutionary for me but you know, I was a B and C student in high school but at the AUC I was almost a straight A student. (P. 30)

This transition was eye opening for Mona, she got to try a lot of different courses and expose

herself to a lot of new ways of thinking. One of these, was psychology. While psychology was

not practical as a major for life in Egypt (very few psychiatrists, heavy stigma) it intrigued her

enough that when she came to the States instead of pursuing a graduate education in

economics (her undergraduate major) she switched to a graduate education in psychology. It

was in graduate school that Mona discovered her talents:

I learned that when I am interested in a subject or a specific kind of work I am very creative and productive too…I remember not sleeping more than three or four hours per night for two weeks on end because I wanted to finish something that was my idea to add to the project [she was a research assistant]. I didn’t have to do it but I just

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wanted to improve things and stuff. So I’m very passionate, when I am passionate about something I put in a lot of work. (P. 36)

Mona’s life in education certainly did not end with school, she went on to be a professor of

psychology. Interestingly, she says that this was the job she wanted ever since she was young.

Mona makes it clear that she believes that education was not only valuable to her but to

everyone:

I think it’s [education] very crucial in a persons life. I think most of the problems in the world are because of a lack of education or like bad education. Like this dualistic right and wrong answer to everything like there is an answer, black and white world and stuff…That kind of mentality is not productive. I think the more educated you are the more you see things from different perspectives and can kinda appreciate world views other than your own…So I absolutely think good education is crucial. Bad education is just bad for everybody. (P. 37-38)

This belief that education is truly capable of making people better is a large a part of what

makes Mona happy with her work:

Yeah I love it [work]. When the class is going well I love it. Some classes don’t go well…that’s not so enjoyable, but most of the time I really enjoy interacting with students and teaching and hearing their opinions on things and also the stimulation I get from trying to improve my courses and reading on my subject, I love that part. (P. 42)

This passage is intriguing in that Mona makes it clear that what Mona enjoys about work is

helping others, in this case her students, find the same stimulation and creativity that she does

from her academic pursuits. While it may be part of her job to continue her education, it is also

clear that she still finds the same stimulation and excitement from education that she felt in

graduate school.

Moving

The largest change in Mona’s life was clearly moving to the Unites States but, as Mona

observes, much of the impact of this decision was lost on her at the time:

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Definitely now in retrospect I think the most crucial decision I made was moving to the US. I really didn’t understand all the all the dimensions and repercussions of that, not that I necessarily regret it now that I know what it’s like but I’d never considered those issues before which are really serious because it also involves my kids maybe not being Muslim, maybe not identifying with being Arab, so what did I do? Whereas if they’d grown up in Egypt it would have been a very different probability game. (P. 50)

Of course, Mona experienced her share of surprises and difficulties adjusting in the process of

moving. Some things that culture teaches us cannot be easily unlearned “The [cultural] value

of generosity I notice in myself, just how you should absolutely give everything you can to your

guests and make them feel so welcome” (P. 50) This form of generosity has it’s own flavor,

which Mona believes is partly due to the rationing system that was in place when she was

young:

Exactly. You can’t get more when you use up yours and stuff…it really is a good behavior to be so pushy for your guests to eat and good behavior for them to be so adamanat, “no no no” and then finally giving in. It makes sense in that culture, I just, oh you know, I can’t change that very much (P. 51)

The other major piece of Egyptian culture that still sticks strongly with Mona is her notion of

time:

…my sense of time of course, we’re talking about event time. I’m definitely an event time person. I’m finding it really hard to change after all these years in the US…so definitely event time, it’s so rude to just not give closure to things or not put people first or whatever…the clock is definitely secondary for me. It’s hard for me, you have to pay a penalty if you pick up your kid late by five minutes and the students will leave you class if you’re late by more than a few minutes. (P. 17-18)

Of course, culture is something that we don’t just learn we were young. Culture is always a part

of our lives so Mona’s experiences of culture shock were not limited to the United States. When

Mona mentioned that her plan had been “to get a degree a PHD and go back to home” I asked

her why she didn’t and she gave this truly compelling answer:

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…Going home I felt just so out of place. I remember landing in the airport in Egypt after three years of being gone for the first time in my life. First time I flew anywhere or rode a plane was on my way to the states. I landed and I felt like a fish out of water, I felt like what am I doing here? This is a big mistake. Already a kind of deep regret. The whole trip was just kind of shocking you know? The economy was falling apart, how greedy people were, how rude, how dishonest they are sometimes. That’s of course the people I dealt with outside of the family were all shop owners or like people at the airport baggage people trying to get money from you or taxi drivers so you know when you really interact with people, just chat with them or family and stuff. They are really kind and nice and patient people and very generous and all that but my interactions with just the street people was very disappointing and I wondered if they changed or if I changed or if I just did not see it this way before, what happened?

The second time we visited a couple of years later it was the same shock. By the third time we visited we were like ok we’re not coming back because clearly we can’t really live that way. (P. 47)

While Mona finds herself questioning the decision to move to the US at times it was this feeling

of disconnect during visits to Egypt that led to her decision to do more than study in the United

States, to move to the US.

Religion

Mona is a Muslim, but one whose faith has changed and matured over the years. Her

experience with religion began with her family as a way to bring people together. This can be

seen in the holiday tradition of getting the family together; first at her grandmother’s home and

then once her grandmother passed away, at her own home. Religion was however more than a

chance to get together as a family; it was also an opportunity for fun and competition with her

cousins who lived downstairs:

And then Ramadan, Ramadan was very special cause like when we were little Lamis and Noha…my cousins downstairs was kind of a competition who would fast more days. So when I was six or seven or something I would start by fasting one day a week or on the weekend or something and it just like a competition. Uh so one Ramadan came—Ramadan was in August that year really hot and really long days in Egypt and I

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remember that Ramadan I fasted all days just to show my counsins my strength because they would break the fast a day here and a day there but I fasted all summer (P. 13)

When Mona described this story she still sounded proud, clearly this was an accomplishment

that she, to this day, is proud of herself for.

Religion has been for Mona more than just an opportunity to get together with family, it

was a source of community with whom she could relate once she had moved to the US.

However, the flavor of Islam once she had moved took some getting used to:

I experienced a lot of social pressure in the mosque in Michigan to wear the veil and stuff which is not like my family or the circle of people i knew in Egypt. As I told you people were much more moderate in Egypt. Some people in my family wore the scarf and some didn’t but they never tried to pressure those who didn’t. You know most of the family wasn’t and that was fine. When we came here though…they almost didn’t consider us Muslims…My memory of that Sunday school was when you and Ayah came and told me that we shouldn’t celebrate Mother’s day it was haraam [a sin]. Music has haraam…yeah that made me so mad. I didn’t experience that in Egypt, it was struggle I was pissed off with them but I wanted a place I could meet other Muslims. Then I clarified what I believe in and now I don’t give a damn what other people think or do. Fine I don’t think you’re true Muslims either. (P. 32)

The process described in this passage is truly amazing. Mona looked for a place in which she

could feel comfortable and find people like her and felt rejected. Only by really clarifying her

beliefs to herself was she able to really find the community that she sought. It is really doubtful

that Mona would have felt comfortable in the United States without the ability to find this peer

group with whom she could relate.

Discussion and limitations

I feel that there were two major factors that limited this life story interview. This biggest

of these would be my lack of experience in interviewing people; while transcribing this

interview I found several places where I feel I could have asked follow up questions that would

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have been enlightening. However, I do feel that with the nature of this project it may not have

been useful for the interview to go longer. I already feel that I have more information than I can

use in any reasonable timeframe for this paper.

The other factor that I feel really limited this interview was the fact that Mona is my

mother. It seems to me that there Mona was really reluctant to talk in depth about her kids

with me, while I suppose this is unsurprising it is somewhat disappointing, especially

considering the importance that she seems to place on her children. The other way in which I

feel that this relationship may have been detrimental to this paper again is in the lack of some

useful follow-up questions. While transcribing this interview there were places I noticed where

follow up questions would have been useful but I feel like I avoided because I believed I already

knew the answers. This was not a productive way to go about things due to the fact that my

prior knowledge was really not useful for this paper; it would seem to detract from my ability to

accurately reflect what came out in this life story interview.

Conclusion

In this paper I looked at what I believe were the central themes of Mona’s self-

perception as expressed in our interview. These were family, friends, education, religion and

moving. I found this project to be extremely worthwhile, both for the interview skills I feel I

gained and for the opportunity to get to better know my mother. I truly hope and believe that I

have accurately represented her here.