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By Peter Baumann Boomerang Staff Writer
On the morning of Nov. 5, thousands of stories will have been written about this historic election. About the endless campaigning, about target markets in swing states, about legacies both past and present, about liberal bias and manqué-toast media.
But what won’t be mentioned are the small stories — the stories that make America not just a nation, but also a dialogue between neighbors.
As a solitary voter, Jazmin Faulk is one of these small stories. As an American, Jazmin Faulk is a story about what makes the United States a great country, despite all the loud noise that sometimes drowns out the smaller, quieter voices that speak for the soul of democracy itself.
Because on Nov. 4, Jazmin, a former citizen of Saudi Arabia until Oct. 21 of this year, will end 34 years of involuntary silence and cast her very first vote.
“I really wish every American, especially women, would have to live in Saudi Arabia for two years, because if you were to do that you would realize how many rights you have to give up,” Jazmin said. “When you’re stripped of those rights involuntarily you realize how precious it is what you had.”
Before Jazmin finally became an American citizen at the JC Mahoney Federal Building in Cheyenne, she and her family had spent more than eight years maneuvering the maze of legal hoops and documents after moving to Wyoming in 1999.
“The paperwork is cumbersome, confusing, voluminous and expensive,” Jazmin’s husband, Darryl added. “Every little document costs hundreds of dollars.”
The Faulks also had to deal with additional hurdles along the way, including tightened requirements and regulations after Sept. 11. At one point, Jazmin was forced to start the entire process over — because of one single error.
“One reason it took us eight years — it probably should have taken half that time — but we made some mistakes on the paper work,” Darryl said. “And the guy just closed the file on us and said that we’d have to start all over.”
Not that the Faulks were dismayed — overcoming the difficulties of dating in Saudi Arabia had given the couple a wealth of experience in dealing with adversity.
Darryl said that when they first started dating, he would get nervous every time he visited her apartment because it was in the same building as the Ministry of the Interior.
“There was pure adrenaline, panic, when I would go there,” Darryl said. “Knowing that I could be arrested, knowing that she could be arrested and killed. Those are things that are very foreign to people in our culture. I remember going up in the elevator and just thinking, god, what if they’re really watching me and waiting for me when the door opens?”
With an Italian mother and a Saudi father, growing up in Saudi Arabia was an exercise in contradictions for much of Jazmin’s early life. Spending summers in Italy made her too Italian to be Saudi and living in Saudi Arabia the rest of the time made her too Saudi to be Italian.
“I was blessed to have the mother that I have because we had a great opportunity to have open dialogue,” Jazmin said. “We talked a lot and I love music so that was a wonderful outlet for me as well. I loved to dance and I was into Michael Jackson and all that, but for the most part I felt very rejected and introverted emotionally. Socially I was very friendly and outgoing, but emotionally and intellectually I was very introverted.”
In a country where women can’t vote, drive or leave the country without their husband’s or male relative’s permission, life wasn’t easy for a girl looking westward culturally.
“Women are not their own entity there, they belong to the males of their family, so I didn’t feel like I owned myself there, I was definitely owned by someone else,” Jazmin said.
While Jazmin said that life in Saudi Arabia was very comfortable in that she grew up with nannies, housekeepers and drivers, the more rigid parts of the Saudi lifestyle never appealed to her.
“Forget the driver, forget the maid — here I can ride my bike, I can take my children to the park I can go to the library; there’s just no comparison,” Jazmin said.
While the restrictiveness of Saudi Arabia choked her freedom, it was the inclusiveness of America that she heard about growing up that she says made her want to come to the United States.
“This is a country where you can say I’m an American and here’s my background. You’re still as American as the African American and the blonde-hair, blue-eyed American. You are American no matter what your background, your culture, your heritage, your religion. I never felt that I would fit in with any culture other than the American culture,” Jazmin said.
As an Arab-American, Faulk said that it has also been uplifting for her to see that someone with such a diverse background as presidential candidate Barack Obama can run for president.
“All the scrutiny that he is facing — he is an American man, he’s a Christian and yet you still have people who thin he’s an Arab, think he’s a Muslim and to think that he is in a position where he can be in office despite all of what some people think of him is just so great,” Jazmin said.
Although this election will be the first that Jazmin has ever voted in, she understands that as a Democrat, it’s hard to make a difference voting in traditionally Republican Wyoming. But that doesn’t mean she thinks voting is to be taken lightly.
“I know how the process works, I know about the Electoral College, and I know that Jazmin Faulk of Laramie, Wyo., her vote is not going to put Obama in office,” Jazmin said. “But I love the fact that I am given that right to go and express my opinion. It’s great to just let people know that this is how I feel and I can fully express that.”
Peter Baumann’s e-mail address is lbedit9@laramieboomerang.com
But what won’t be mentioned are the small stories — the stories that make America not just a nation, but also a dialogue between neighbors.
As a solitary voter, Jazmin Faulk is one of these small stories. As an American, Jazmin Faulk is a story about what makes the United States a great country, despite all the loud noise that sometimes drowns out the smaller, quieter voices that speak for the soul of democracy itself.
Because on Nov. 4, Jazmin, a former citizen of Saudi Arabia until Oct. 21 of this year, will end 34 years of involuntary silence and cast her very first vote.
“I really wish every American, especially women, would have to live in Saudi Arabia for two years, because if you were to do that you would realize how many rights you have to give up,” Jazmin said. “When you’re stripped of those rights involuntarily you realize how precious it is what you had.”
Before Jazmin finally became an American citizen at the JC Mahoney Federal Building in Cheyenne, she and her family had spent more than eight years maneuvering the maze of legal hoops and documents after moving to Wyoming in 1999.
“The paperwork is cumbersome, confusing, voluminous and expensive,” Jazmin’s husband, Darryl added. “Every little document costs hundreds of dollars.”
The Faulks also had to deal with additional hurdles along the way, including tightened requirements and regulations after Sept. 11. At one point, Jazmin was forced to start the entire process over — because of one single error.
“One reason it took us eight years — it probably should have taken half that time — but we made some mistakes on the paper work,” Darryl said. “And the guy just closed the file on us and said that we’d have to start all over.”
Not that the Faulks were dismayed — overcoming the difficulties of dating in Saudi Arabia had given the couple a wealth of experience in dealing with adversity.
Darryl said that when they first started dating, he would get nervous every time he visited her apartment because it was in the same building as the Ministry of the Interior.
“There was pure adrenaline, panic, when I would go there,” Darryl said. “Knowing that I could be arrested, knowing that she could be arrested and killed. Those are things that are very foreign to people in our culture. I remember going up in the elevator and just thinking, god, what if they’re really watching me and waiting for me when the door opens?”
With an Italian mother and a Saudi father, growing up in Saudi Arabia was an exercise in contradictions for much of Jazmin’s early life. Spending summers in Italy made her too Italian to be Saudi and living in Saudi Arabia the rest of the time made her too Saudi to be Italian.
“I was blessed to have the mother that I have because we had a great opportunity to have open dialogue,” Jazmin said. “We talked a lot and I love music so that was a wonderful outlet for me as well. I loved to dance and I was into Michael Jackson and all that, but for the most part I felt very rejected and introverted emotionally. Socially I was very friendly and outgoing, but emotionally and intellectually I was very introverted.”
In a country where women can’t vote, drive or leave the country without their husband’s or male relative’s permission, life wasn’t easy for a girl looking westward culturally.
“Women are not their own entity there, they belong to the males of their family, so I didn’t feel like I owned myself there, I was definitely owned by someone else,” Jazmin said.
While Jazmin said that life in Saudi Arabia was very comfortable in that she grew up with nannies, housekeepers and drivers, the more rigid parts of the Saudi lifestyle never appealed to her.
“Forget the driver, forget the maid — here I can ride my bike, I can take my children to the park I can go to the library; there’s just no comparison,” Jazmin said.
While the restrictiveness of Saudi Arabia choked her freedom, it was the inclusiveness of America that she heard about growing up that she says made her want to come to the United States.
“This is a country where you can say I’m an American and here’s my background. You’re still as American as the African American and the blonde-hair, blue-eyed American. You are American no matter what your background, your culture, your heritage, your religion. I never felt that I would fit in with any culture other than the American culture,” Jazmin said.
As an Arab-American, Faulk said that it has also been uplifting for her to see that someone with such a diverse background as presidential candidate Barack Obama can run for president.
“All the scrutiny that he is facing — he is an American man, he’s a Christian and yet you still have people who thin he’s an Arab, think he’s a Muslim and to think that he is in a position where he can be in office despite all of what some people think of him is just so great,” Jazmin said.
Although this election will be the first that Jazmin has ever voted in, she understands that as a Democrat, it’s hard to make a difference voting in traditionally Republican Wyoming. But that doesn’t mean she thinks voting is to be taken lightly.
“I know how the process works, I know about the Electoral College, and I know that Jazmin Faulk of Laramie, Wyo., her vote is not going to put Obama in office,” Jazmin said. “But I love the fact that I am given that right to go and express my opinion. It’s great to just let people know that this is how I feel and I can fully express that.”
Peter Baumann’s e-mail address is lbedit9@laramieboomerang.com
