By Danielle Bettendorf, Living & Arts Editor
When you get to Susquehanna, there’s an entire weekend dedicated to making incoming students feel at home on campus. Everyone knows their fun fact for icebreaker games, what to do if you fight with your roommate and who you’re supposed to go to if you lock yourself out of your room.
That weekend doesn’t cover what to do when you’re profiled in the wake of a terrorist attack.
Baktash Ahadi, who graduated from Susquehanna in 2005, was two weeks into his freshman year on Sept. 11, 2001. More important to the campus, he was the only Afghan student enrolled at the time.
Ahadi started receiving hate mail from other students and found his background beginning to alienate himself from the rest of Susquehanna.
“This guy wrote an op-ed [for the school paper] that said that he thought the government should bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age,” Ahadi said. “That hit an emotional core with me because all of a sudden, instead of people being like, ‘Oh, you’re from Afghanistan, is that somewhere in Africa?’ the conversation shifted to, ‘Oh, you’re from Afghanistan, how do you feel about the 9/11 attacks or did you know anything about it.’”
Ahadi credited the faculty in getting him to stay at Susquehanna: had they not given him a safe space away from the rest of campus, he would’ve been on his way.
“Too many people go to Susquehanna because it resembles the high school that they went to,” Ahadi said. “It’s homogeneous and there’s no diversity … The people that come to Susquehanna go there because it’s what they know.”
Frustrated with Susquehanna’s uniformity, Ahadi couldn’t find what he was trying to learn on campus.
“I was seeking the answer to the question, ‘Why do people do what they do?’” Ahadi said. “What are the reasons behind people’s actions? Was it environment? Was it biological? Was it cultural? Was it religious? Was it political? I couldn’t learn any of that stuff at [Susquehanna].”
He went abroad twice – once to Prague and once to India – and found that there was much more out in the world once he was willing to truly leave home.
But home was still where Ahadi solidified his identity prior to college: he grew up in the central Pennsylvania area oft-nicknamed “Pennsyltucky,” in Carlisle, Pa.
When Ahadi’s family emigrated to the U.S. in the 80s, he stuck out compared to all the other kids. He didn’t have the same things his peers had: different shoes, different lunchbox, different food.
“In a world where these material things are a signal of trust to all the other students, I felt like I couldn’t be trusted,” Ahadi said.
When it came to American acceptability, Ahadi found respect from his peers in sports: running, soccer and capture the flag all helped him move from the shy brown kid to someone who was wanted.
“It gave me the confidence to then be able to speak up in class,” Ahadi said. “It made me cool enough to have kids want to invite me to sleep over for the first time.”
While Ahadi found popularity among his peers as he got older, the racism he experienced as a kid still stuck with him.
“I’m 37 years old and the shit that happens to you as a kid you never forget,” Ahadi said. “I remember my early childhood experience being one of alienation and … I found out how to find belonging.”
Growing up between two worlds – of being Afghan and being American – Ahadi learned to balance his identity and integrate it into his career, where he teaches diplomats about Afghan culture.
“I know how to talk to Americans in such a way that’s gonna help them understand the worldview and mentality of Afghans, and I can do the same thing with Afghans,” Ahadi said.
Ahadi called the area in which he resides the “gray zone,” where he thrives in his dual identity.
“I thrive in it because I’ve accepted who I am,” Ahadi said. “I’m really comfortable with my strengths, and I expose my vulnerabilities and my weaknesses.”
Reflecting on his life, Ahadi’s greatest lesson learned was in loving his differences for what they are.
“I would tell myself that you didn’t have a choice … All this stuff just happened to you and it’s OK,” Ahadi said. “It’s not your fault.”
Ahadi also emphasized the lack of control he and other immigrant kids experience trying to figure out their identities.
“I think a lot of first generation kids go through real suffering because there’s expectation that they’re supposed to be able to [balance] in these two worlds, when in fact it’s the most difficult thing to do,” Ahadi said. “Their parents have expectations and American society has expectations, but nobody ever talks to them and tells them it’s okay not to know.”
As an adult, Ahadi decided that he was done with balancing the expectations he grew up with.
“If you figure it out, amazing,” Ahadi continued. “If you don’t, don’t worry about it. It’s not gonna matter in 30 years anyway.”