Bita Edraki and Kathy Purnell

[00:04] KATHY PURNELL: So welcome. My name is Kathy Purnell. My age is 54. Today's date is July 21, 2023. I am interviewing my colleague Bita from Kalamazoo, Michigan. And her full name is Beeta Edraki. And I know her. I've known her now for over a year. And we met because we both have a shared commitment and passion to helping afghan evacuees in our community. And that's how we met. So, yeah, Bita please introduce yourself.

[00:48] BITA EDRAKI: Hi, Kathy. Thank you for having me on the show. My name is Bita Edraki That's my maiden name. I am 57 years old. I am speaking to you from Seattle, which we flew to yesterday, actually early this morning, but I live in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

[01:08] KATHY PURNELL: All right, well, thank you so much, Bita for taking the time to speak with us. And as I may have mentioned to you, the fair housing center of southwest Michigan, we decided to partner with Story corps to explore questions of home, community and belonging. And as you know, we may talk about this later, but for those of you who don't know, Bita is a member of our board and our mission is to end discrimination in housing. But we know that one of the tools that really helps, way beyond compliance and enforcement, is storytelling, and storytelling that helps explore deep relationships and the importance of intentional co creation of our community. And when we thought about people we wanted to interview, your name came up, and I the more I thought about it, the more I'm like, yes, Bita is definitely a relevant person to invite to share this topic because of your commitment to make Kalamazoo a home, a new home for many of the refugees in evacuating here. And so thank you again for joining us today. So let's talk a little bit about before you came to Kalamazoo and before Kalamazoo was home, the other places that were home to you before coming here. So when and where were you born?

[02:29] BITA EDRAKI: I was actually born in Tehran, Iran, in 1964, and that was where I was born when I moved to United States. I have lived in quite a few places in United. It's not just one place. So home has been many different places.

[02:58] KATHY PURNELL: And what was it like to grow up as a child in Tehran?

[03:03] BITA EDRAKI: Well, I lived in Iran during the heydays of Iran and pre revolution I had. And it's, you know, I lived in a middle class family that was a very loving and caring family where education and connectedness was of utmost importance, not only to my mom and dad and my brother, but to my extended family, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins. And we all grew up together.

[03:48] KATHY PURNELL: And what was. What's. What's your earliest memory of growing up?

[03:54] BITA EDRAKI: Not easy to answer. So my. I have many fond memories of growing up again. It's always centered around family get togethers. My brother and I obviously always getting into mischief together. We were 16 months apart. He's 16 months older than I am. And being excited about going to grandma's home because we knew everyone will be there. And we would get together with our cousins. I remember we would all pile up in one car. We refused to go in separate cars. And back then, there were laws of, you have to have seatbelts on. It would be 15. We were proud to say that there were 15 of us in Volkswagen Beetle, that we could then go far to grandma's house. So there was sense of, uh, being connected.

[05:01] KATHY PURNELL: No. Wow. So wait, so you mentioned a brother. Um, how many siblings did you have?

[05:06] BITA EDRAKI: I have one brother.

[05:07] KATHY PURNELL: Just one brother? Okay.

[05:09] BITA EDRAKI: One brother, Babak, who lives in northern California in Lafayette.

[05:16] KATHY PURNELL: And you said that the two of you would get into trouble. What kinds of things would you do together? What kind of trouble?

[05:25] BITA EDRAKI: I think outside, way past our bedtime, riding on a tiny little bicycle with more than just a person riding on the bicycle. Because I was small, I would be on the handlebar and other people would be in the bag. So there would be three or four people on a bicycle going down, taking my mom's silver trays during the winter and going sledding on the trays down the hills and coming back with the trays, having a few bumps here and there on it. We had a swimming pool, and we were constantly in that pool and finding different ways of jumping in a pool that was not deep enough to really be able to jump in from the roof of your house. So we'll just leave it at that.

[06:23] KATHY PURNELL: Wow. Okay. So how would you describe wow? No, it sounds like the two of you had a lot of fun together. So how would you describe a perfect day for you when you were young? What did that look like?

[06:40] BITA EDRAKI: I would always be woken up by my mom lovingly. And my perfect day would have been one that I didn't have to go to school, actually. I've never been a morning person. So then we would get up. Both Babak and I were passionate readers. And I remember going to the library and getting books. And we would come and we would share books and we would read about it, about things that were dear to us either, whether it was novels, short stories about animals. And then we would swap books. Bawback would help me create this little hideout room at the top of my closet where it was a larger area where we could put your comforters and pillows, but all of that was shoved under my bed. And we made that into by wiring. I don't know. They're not the nine volt batteries, the big box batteries and wiring them and putting little lamps in there and then making that into a cozy reading area where we were hidden from everybody. But he had one in his room. I had one in my room. And then going swimming and hanging out, having dinner, helping mom with chores. Those were. That's a perfect day to me. That was a perfect day to me.

[08:09] KATHY PURNELL: Wow. All right. Well, I mean, it sounds like even if you weren't a morning person and may not have enjoyed being woken up to go to school, it did sound like you were an avid reader, a passionate reader. I mean, it takes a lot of work to create that nook reading book. So did you enjoy school? I mean, even if it took, you know, a bit, even if it's not part of your perfect day, did you enjoy school? Look, and what kind of student were you?

[08:33] BITA EDRAKI: I was a good student. I had to be a good student because education was important to my family. And I also, it was difficult in iranian, ok. And schools were very regimented. But I would find joy in that through my friend. I was popular in school, had a large group of friends that we would hang out, we would study afterwards together. I remember in Iran we had the equivalent of an SAT from fifth grade. We had to pass that test of what you have learned from first grade to fifth grade to be able to advance the 6th grade, to go to middle school. And I remember studying with my friends. And then after taking it, going out to lunch together at a restaurant to celebrate the fact that we were able to take this test and we felt comfortable taking it. The subject was there. Yeah, go ahead.

[09:54] KATHY PURNELL: Oh, God. No, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[09:56] BITA EDRAKI: So subjects in school that I always loved was I loved science and history and geography. And usually I can say that was because those were subjects that I had, teachers that were also very passionate about what they were teaching.

[10:19] KATHY PURNELL: So did. So were there some teachers that still that you remember that that left an impression on you or that had a strong influence on your course of study?

[10:32] BITA EDRAKI: If we're talking about in Iran, yes. There were two teachers that made a huge impression on me. One was my english teacher, actually, she would teach english and iranian literature. And another one was my last year of school that I was. There was my mathematics teacher, which I remember I argued with them, because he was saying that you cannot have more than one line go through, adopt. And I said, oh, no, you can, having missed the previous lesson that a line is formed by, you know, dots. And he allowed me to actually go on the board and explain what I meant, and then he explained how it was not putting people down. So I remember that.

[11:32] KATHY PURNELL: No, that's true. So you said you were popular. How would your classmates. How do you think your classmates remember you, or how would they remember you?

[11:41] BITA EDRAKI: I think they remember me as a kid who was always very inclusive. I would always. They would sometimes get mad at me. I would invite other people into our friend group, and that was because of the way I was brought up. I was always brought up to have a sense of the larger community. It wasn't just about one group of people. It was about all people. I grew up thinking, you know, learning that we are all part of the same member of humanity. No matter what your background, your religion, your culture, your ethnicity, we are all part of the same family.

[12:39] KATHY PURNELL: Okay. And then I. What was. What was the first profession? I mean, I know that that probably has changed over time, but when you were a young girl, what did you want to be? Or what did you think you would end up doing?

[12:53] BITA EDRAKI: My. My goal always was to become a pediatrician, which I never actually. I always loved working with children, and that's what I wanted to become. But I went into early childhood education, and then I studied adolescent psychology and adolescent abnormal psychology, and that's how I became, you know, that was my profession, really. That's what I did.

[13:31] KATHY PURNELL: All right, so, okay, so then I know that because I've had the good fortune to meet you here in the United States and Michigan. You mentioned that when you traveled to. When you came to the United States, you lived in many different cities. So let's talk about why the United States, like, what happened? How did you end up, and why did you come to the United States?

[13:55] BITA EDRAKI: So I remember the exact date. It was December 6, 1976, that we came to United. My father worked for the Ministry of Agriculture in, and he was a very stooped man, was also a lifelong learner. He always, one of his advices to me was, Bita the day you stop learning is the day you need to die. And it didn't matter what it was. And I asked him. I asked him to explain what he meant by that and said, it doesn't matter. It can be a simple thing. It can be a new word. It can be a recipe, it can be a fact, but always, always learn. And being that's how you grow. So he sensed that what creates a safe home and an environment, a stable home, is crumbling within Iran, that opportunities will not be easily attained. I grew up in a Baha'I household. My religion is a Baha'I, and that Baha'is war and continue to be persecuted in Iran. He told me, my brother, that he wants us to always have the opportunity to pursue higher education and to be able to live and be so. I remember the day he came and announced that he is going to apply for permanent in either in California, I mean, in United States or Canada. And that was whom, whichever country would reply first was where we were going to go. And United States happened to respond to his application. I think it was a week or two weeks before the canadian embassy set that. So that's how we became. We came to come to United States. We were very fortunate that when we came to United States, we came with a permanent residency. And it was. We chose San Francisco because my father had a colleague that used to work for FMC Corporation, which, from my recollection, was an agricultural company. I remember them having agricultural machinery and chemicals. And Peter, back then, told my father that you guys can come here and you can use California, San Francisco, or Bay Area as a bridge as to wherever you want to move. But having their family and knowing their family and having that support system where they truly welcomed us and came and greeted us at the airport and had gotten a hotel for us for a month, we stayed in a hotel until we figured out need to go. But having that guidance from them was crucial in finding our way. I don't know, Cathy, if I went a roundabout way of answering your question, or whether the question was answered, but that's how we came to United States. That was the decision that was made for our family by my father to come.

[17:53] KATHY PURNELL: And how old were you? How old were you when you came?

[17:56] BITA EDRAKI: I was 1212. And so was I coming? Absolutely not.

[18:04] KATHY PURNELL: How did you feel when you first. So how did you feel when you first heard the news? I mean, when your father confided in you and told you that you would probably be living in the US or Canada?

[18:17] BITA EDRAKI: I told him, he can go and they can go, and I'll stay with my grandma. And I was told that that was not an option. I was not happy. I didn't want to leave my family and my friends. I had a very, very close relationship with my grandmother and my uncles and cousins and the neighbors, the kids that we would spend all of our times with. You know, being a preteen, it was a daunting idea of having to give up and all of that and going to an unknown place. Even though my father had brought my brother and I to California, I believe it was in 1974 that we went and visited the United States for the first time. But it was different. I knew I was going back home.

[19:21] KATHY PURNELL: So what was, what were your first impressions of San Francisco, either in the initial trip you made or when you first settled in San Francisco?

[19:32] BITA EDRAKI: My first impression was, it's a beautiful place. That was when we first came. And, of course, did you know all of the nice places, places that we wanted to go and visit? I remember all of that Monterey, Monterey Aquarium, all of those places that we went and visited. You know what, though? It wasn't home, it was a place. And then when we moved there, it was difficult for me. It was December at the, you know, first week of December. So we signed up for school, and they told us it's best to start after the Christmas holiday. So it was. I missed my family, I missed my friends. My first impression was, it's a, you know, it's a place for other people, maybe not me.

[20:37] KATHY PURNELL: So when, when did you first be. Well, how long did you live in San Francisco with your family?

[20:44] BITA EDRAKI: We moved, so it wasn't San Francisco. We went to the Bay Area, and we. I lived in Saratoga, California. Beautiful, beautiful place. I miss Saratoga every day now. I lived there from 1977 until 1983.

[21:08] KATHY PURNELL: Okay, and so you missed Saratoga. Now, you mentioned.

[21:14] BITA EDRAKI: I do.

[21:15] KATHY PURNELL: When, when did you first start to feel at home, either in Saratoga or in the United States generally?

[21:22] BITA EDRAKI: So in United States was after I actually went back to Iran, which was. The last time I visited Iran was before the revolution. It was the summer of 1978, and the uprisings were just beginning to happen. And I saw what I. When I came back to United States. And after the revolution, I realized the foresight of my father and how fortunate I was to be able to live in a place where I was not told how I need to dress, how I need to behave, that I had the freedom to choose what I wanted to study, where I wanted to go when I wanted to go, that I could drive, and that I had those freedoms.

[22:17] KATHY PURNELL: So. Okay. So then what do you miss about Saratoga? What did you love the most about it? Or what did you miss? What do you miss the most about it?

[22:28] BITA EDRAKI: I think it was when, again, it was the time that I found another home. It became home, of course, the weather in California, it's loved that. I loved the fact that I lived with my mom, dad and brother it was that sense of family. Back then, we had a beautiful home that was the center of. So once the iranian revolution happened, as you all know, it was a huge brain drain on Iran. Everybody that could immediately left. And there was a large population that came to the northern California Bay area. Again, as I mentioned, I am a Baha'I, and the Baha'I community sort of gelled together and supported each other in that respect. I remember having gatherings at our house every Friday night where it started with a few people. By the time I left in 1983, Washington, we had 70 people that would come every night and would gather together, and it would be. People would cook and, you know, they had a sense of belonging and a family. So that family was created.

[24:08] KATHY PURNELL: All right.

[24:12] BITA EDRAKI: Let'S see.

[24:13] KATHY PURNELL: So many questions I want to ask you. All right, so did you, did you study in the United States? Like, when did you go to. Yeah. So where did you go to school in the United States?

[24:26] BITA EDRAKI: So I came to. When I came to California, I went to Redwood Middle School, which was actually right behind my house, and I would walk there. It was difficult for me, and I'm going to add this in there, because I'll tie that back into my experiences with working with the refugees, afghan refugees in Kalamazoo. And it was. I was. They had no newcomer program. They had no ESL and English as second language programs. So I was actually put in the program. It's for a special ed program. It was in a trailer, and it was a special ed program. It was very uncomfortable for me, but it was the only place where they could have someone that had come that didn't, was not fluent in English to be given the opportunity to actually take tests and take longer, because back then, we didn't have, you know, Google translate. We had dictionaries that I had to go through to find words that I didn't understand. So that was a difficult transition, but it was a short period of time. And then we moved. I went to high school. I graduated high school in three years because I wanted to learn more. And I took classes at the community college there. I got accepted at UCLA, but I was only. I wasn't even 16 when I got accepted. And my father wasn't sure that moving away from home and going to such a large university would be the best thing for me. So I stayed home, and I went to the community college, West Valley Community College, where I studied early childhood development and French. I remember taking 27 credits one semester and just going, having nine classes in college. I enjoyed it. It was difficult, but I loved it. And then I repeated that I then went to University of California, Irvine, but that's because I got married at a very young age. I met a young gentleman, and we fell in love, and we got married. He was a student at Stanford University. And then we moved to Costa Mesa, where he was now going to work, and I transferred my option. Instead of going to UCLA, I went to UC Irvine.

[27:29] KATHY PURNELL: So in your. Did you have. Did you. I know that you had kids. Did you have children during that.

[27:38] BITA EDRAKI: During that time? So we moved several places, and then we had children about eight years after we first got married.

[27:48] KATHY PURNELL: Okay, so where did you move to? Maybe.

[27:55] BITA EDRAKI: Yeah, within California. We moved to different cities. So it was Costa Mesa, then Irvine, then Laguna Niguel, and then from there, we moved to upstate New York, to Ithaca, New York for college, for Cornell, where Michael went for his business administration. He got an MBA from there. And I actually was working for the city of Ithaca. And I worked with their youth program, where I supervised programs for adolescents and young adults with special needs.

[28:40] KATHY PURNELL: How long did you live in Ithaca?

[28:43] BITA EDRAKI: Two very long years.

[28:46] KATHY PURNELL: Why do you say that?

[28:50] BITA EDRAKI: It seems like this is a pattern for me. I moved from southern California, Laguna Niguel, where I complained about how having the sea mist and dew on my car every morning that I got up to go to work, to moving to Ithaca, New York, and having to live through the winters. The bitter, bitter winters in Ithaca.

[29:09] KATHY PURNELL: Yeah. No, they are. They are very cold. To know that.

[29:15] BITA EDRAKI: And it was difficult. Living in Ithaca was not an easy time for me, but I managed again. Part of it is that sense of belonging and community. Wherever I have moved, there has been a baha'I community that we somehow find and find some support for each other, and that's what it was. But I was very eager to move out of Ithaca once Michael graduated, and we did.

[29:43] KATHY PURNELL: Where did you then move to or settle after that?

[29:46] BITA EDRAKI: We moved to Indiana for one year, southern Indiana. And then after that, we moved to Connecticut. So Connecticut was home for me for a long time. I lived in Richfield, Connecticut, for almost 24 years. That's where my kids grew up. That's where my kids were born, and that's where they grew up.

[30:10] KATHY PURNELL: So given all of the different places, we haven't even got. Oh, wow. We haven't even gotten to. I know we're good. So we haven't even gone to Kalamazoo. How did you. How did you get. Why did you decide to move to Michigan? How did you end up in Michigan?

[30:28] BITA EDRAKI: So my first husband, Michael, passed away about 1213 years ago. And after that, I was in Connecticut still, but I went back to California to be with my mom and take care of my mom for a while. And my mom, unfortunately, passed away. After that, I had an opportunity to live in southern California for a few years, where I reconnected with my current husband, who happened to be a very, very dear friend of mine. And we got married in the midst of the pandemic, and we were supposed to live in southern California, but John had to come back to Kalamazoo, where Kalamazoo was home for him and because of family obligations. And he was supposed to be there for a short time, but it turned out that he was there for longer than what we anticipated. And I realized that home is where my heart is, and my heart was with my husband, and he was in Kalamazoo. So I resigned from my job and I moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, which, again, was not a very easy transition because I moved from southern California, Carlsbad area, in the midst of the pandemic the day before your polar vortex hit in Michigan, to Kalamazoo, Michigan. That's how Kalamazoo became home for me.

[31:55] KATHY PURNELL: No. Wonderful. And so I know your heart is in a lot of things. I mean, and thank you for sharing, because I was going to ask, like, where is home to you? And you answered that. And I know that you're very passionate about your work now, which is helping a lot of afghan evacuees in our community, and you've done a tremendous amount of work helping that process. Say more about that work and why it's important to you, and why did you say yes to that work?

[32:30] BITA EDRAKI: So I started when I learned that there was a large group of afghan refugees coming and knowing that I could help with at least communication with a group of them, because I speak Farsi, and that is a dialect of Farsi, which is spoken in Afghanistan. The two main languages are Pashtu, which I do not speak. I've learned some words, and Dari, and I could communicate with them. So I thought, having gone through that experience of knowing that if there is someone that you can communicate with, that could make things easier. That's how I started. Both John and I speak Farsi. And I thought, what a wonderful way to be able to help people that had to leave in a very different circumstance than I did. You know, I had to. Time to come. I came here knowing that we were leaving Iran. These families, some were given 24 hours to pack and go to the airport in Kabul to be evacuated. How traumatic of an experience that must have been for them. And I thought, if I can provide some sense of comfort for them, that's what my job and I got to start. At first, I started working with one family. One family turned into another family, then another family, another family. Before I would, we were working with over 80 individuals and trying to take care of all of journey and to actually have a sense of belonging, which is very difficult to have when you have been uprooted so abruptly.

[34:31] KATHY PURNELL: So you mentioned throughout the interview kind of how a big part of a sense of belonging that you feel is tied to your faith being baha'I and somehow finding the other Baha'is in the Baha'I community wherever you go. Yeah, maybe tell us a little bit more, because some of the listeners may not be familiar with kind of the core tenants that animate you and why I. What does it mean to you to be baha'I? Yeah. And how does that kind of influence how you engage with others?

[35:06] BITA EDRAKI: So to be Baha'I, for me, is to be a world citizen. It's a world citizen. I belong to the human race. I am part of the human race. And it's what happens in one part of the world affects everybody else. The principal tenants of the Baha'I faith are unity of mankind. And that has animated again, as you said, that is who I am. That is, I think maybe from my early childhood where you ask, what did my friends think of me? And I was the one person that was inclusive. I brought everybody else. I remember getting in trouble because I actually fought with someone because they were harassing someone that had a disability, and I got in trouble because I shouldn't have done that. But I pushed them away, physically pushed them away from the child they were beating. And baha'I believe in. I know we have very limited time, so I don't know.

[36:21] KATHY PURNELL: No, but that thing. But, no, but this, this. I mean, that, that actually, that helps a lot in terms of the. The unity of mankind and. And kind of the. The kind of the foundational belief in kind of humanity.

[36:35] BITA EDRAKI: Right.

[36:36] KATHY PURNELL: And.

[36:36] BITA EDRAKI: Yeah.

[36:37] KATHY PURNELL: And how that. Yeah, but go ahead. Yeah.

[36:41] BITA EDRAKI: A progressive revelation that we are part of the same creation. It is that we are just, we develop and evolve as time goes by and as our spiritual needs will grow, as so do our social needs and demands.

[37:03] KATHY PURNELL: So can you tell me about a moment when a person's kindness made a key difference in your life?

[37:21] BITA EDRAKI: That's a difficult question to answer, Cathy. There has been so many of those moments throughout my entire life, having, wherever I go and having moved so many times, living away from my family is creating those close bonds of friendship where in Richfield, my door was rarely locked and my friends would come, knock on the door, open the door and come in, and they wore my family. During the time of my late husband's illness, everybody came together and they helped. It was, I never felt alone. It was wherever I went, had people there. And maybe that's why working with these afghan refugees is so important to me, is I want them to know that they're not alone. They belong to a community that to welcome them.

[38:31] KATHY PURNELL: So what are some of your thoughts about how we as a community. So now that Kalamazoo is home to you now, what do you feel that Kalamazoo could and should do to become home that welcomes everyone that is more inclusive?

[38:50] BITA EDRAKI: So, George, part of it is to get to know who's coming into Europe. It's a two way street. Not only do they have to get to know us, we have to get to know them. We have to understand what their needs are. It's not giving people what we believe we want to give to people really listening and hearing. What is it that they need? What is it that they're. They want? So for anything within belong to a community, you always need to have financial support, the language support, and that cultural transition support. Again, it's for both sides of it. How can we emotionally connect to these people and how can they have that emotional connection to us? So I can give you an example, is to provide programs for the children that they can partake of. YMCA of Kalamazoo is great. We were able to get kids registered and have the fees waived for them when they first came. And we were so excited. Okay, we got YMCA memberships for all these kids. Get them there once they get. How do you get them there? Transportation. Okay, so it's not just how do they get there. How do they sign up for these programs that we can go? How do they sign up for classes? There's so many small details that we forget. So one of the things that Kalamazoo has done, and I feel that it's remarkable. And that's why I said when I first came, I was put in education in Kalamazoo, they have the newcomers program where some of them, the very, very first time in their life, are actually going to school. They were able to get them buses that would come and take them. And the love that they experienced from their teachers, they want to go to school. They're excited about that. I work and talk to the girls that for the first time they have this notion that they can become their own person, they can actually study. Some are talking about wanting to become teachers, educators, and, you know, one wants to become a physician. These opportunities they would have never had in Afghanistan. Again, that ties back to my religion, which is the equality of men and women is one of the core principles in the Baha'I faith. There's actually, if you have enough money to only educate one member of your family as a baha'I, you're supposed to educate the woman, the girl first, because they become the future educators of your family. So to see that and to witness that these girls are blossoming, not just girls, but the boys as well, it's, that's what gets me excited. That's why I love and continue working with them.

[42:13] KATHY PURNELL: No, I absolutely can. I mean, just hearing your voice through this interview is really, and I'm so grateful that you took the time to do this. The idea of, like, kind of what animates you both. Your faith in the sense that you don't want anyone to feel alone, right, to remind everyone that they have a place and they belong and should flourish and should dream and flourish. So, Peter, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I know that you're traveling, and because you have, like, a deep love of your family, which is now, like outside of Michigan, you're traveling. It's even more special. And I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.

[42:56] BITA EDRAKI: Well, Cathy, thank you for even thinking about me. I think at first I said to you, why me? You know, there's so many other people that you could interview. But I thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell you my story of how I came to United States and then to find United States home again and hoping that we can, as a community within Kalamazoo, make kalamazoo, make United States and the world home by, you know, we. For me also, I'll close with this, is that sometimes I get upset with what is happening in the world in general, and I feel so helpless because I can't make the world a better place. What I can do is help my micro environment, maybe improve the lives of a few individuals within my micro environment that then can have larger impact on the world, you know, with its grassroots efforts. So thank you for giving me the time and the opportunity.