In this project we are speaking to people representing a diversity of experiences and backgrounds in gender identity, physical ability, whether they are Indigenous, native born, a refugee or an immigrant without legal status\u2014to ask what it means to be an “American.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_video src=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/1arZ_KbQUIk” admin_label=”YouTube Video” _builder_version=”4.9.10″][\/et_pb_video][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text: Video Teaser” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ text_text_color=”#ffffff” text_font_size=”16px”]<\/p>\n
Ivy Winfrey reports for Next Generation Radio with Colorado Public Radio Filmmaker Usama Alshaibi came to the United States from Iraq as a child. To him, being American means being proud of who you are and where you came from in the face of overwhelming resistance.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″ custom_padding=”6px||3px|||”][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_3,1_3″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″ custom_padding=”3px||6px|||”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”HERO IMAGE OPTION 1: Background image: DELETE IF NOT NEEDED” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ background_enable_color=”off” background_image=”https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2021\/08\/Ivy_Editorial_Emily_Animated.gif” background_blend=”multiply” custom_margin=”-2px|||||” custom_padding=”12%||39.4%|||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.10″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″ custom_padding=”6px||3px|||”][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_3,1_3″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″ custom_padding=”3px||6px|||”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Illustrator credit” _builder_version=”4.9.10″]<\/p>\n
Illustration by Emily Whang<\/em><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.5.1″ custom_padding=”7px||35px|||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.5.1″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.5.1″][et_pb_post_title date=”off” comments=”off” featured_image=”off” admin_label=”To One Arab-American Filmmaker, Being American Is Having The Possibility Of Change” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ title_level=”h3″ title_font=”Oswald||||||||” title_font_size=”42px” title_letter_spacing=”2px” title_line_height=”1.2em” meta_text_color=”#04a3e3″ meta_font_size=”18px”][\/et_pb_post_title][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.5.1″ custom_padding=”||12px|||”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.5.1″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text 1″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ text_font_size=”18px” text_line_height=”1.8em”]<\/p>\n
Usama Alshaibi has always been attracted to the idea of aliens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI think that’s how it feels when you come from somewhere else,\u201d Alshaibi said. \u201cI mean, they also call us alien residents.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nAlshaibi is a filmmaker and instructor at Colorado State University. He currently lives in Boulder, Colo. with his 10-year-old daughter.<\/span><\/p>\nAlshaibi was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1969.<\/span><\/p>\n When he was four years old, Saddam Hussein\u2019s government had a program that would grant scholarships for students, like Alshaibi\u2019s father, to study in the west, which brought Alshaibi and his family to Iowa City, Iowa.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.5.1″][et_pb_audio audio=”https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2021\/08\/NRG-CPR2021_Ivy_MASTER.mp3″ title=”‘I\u2019m probably more American than most people'” artist_name=”IVY WINFREY” album_name=”Next Generation Radio | Colorado Public Radio Newsroom | August 2021″ admin_label=”Story Audio” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ background_color=”rgba(12,113,195,0.89)”][\/et_pb_audio][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”3px|||||”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text 2″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ text_font_size=”18px” text_line_height=”1.8em”]<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would travel back and forth between Iraq and the United States to visit,\u201d Alshaibi said. \u201cSo I was aware that I was from Iraq and I had this feeling like, \u2018oh, I’m a foreigner, I’m from another place.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nDuring this time, he learned to connect to the world through art and painting, and developed a knack for it.<\/span><\/p>\nWhen his father\u2019s study ended, his family moved back to Iraq. <\/span><\/p>\nBut when the Iraq-Iran War broke out in the 1980s, his family was forced to flee to Jordan, then Saudi Arabia, and eventually ended up back in the United States. <\/span><\/p>\nAs Alshaibi grew up, he kept returning to art, he discovered he had a talent for Super 8 film production, and decided to go to film school in Chicago.<\/span><\/p>\nThen, during the second U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2004, Alshaibi had a calling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI called my dad and I said, \u2018Do you want to go back to Iraq?\u2019\u201d Alshaibi recalls.<\/span><\/p>\nHe documented his return to Baghdad in his first feature-length documentary, <\/span>Nice Bombs<\/span><\/i>, named after a moment in the film when, upon hearing a nearby explosion, his cousin Tareef explained, \u201cIt\u2019s a bomb, a nice bomb.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI was really disgusted with how the media was portraying Iraq, there was no objective media,\u201d Alshaibi said. \u201cThey were all embedded with the American military. So the perspective was through a tank, through a gun. And a lot of my work is me responding to that frustration and that anger.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nWhen he went back to Iraq, Alshaibi had this fantasy that things would go so well that he could move back, but he quickly realized how American he had become, and how different that was.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2021\/08\/210816-NEXTGEN-43-scaled.jpg” alt=”\u00d2The American dream is not my Indigenous dream. It’s so different than that,\u00d3 Jolie Varela said. \u00d2As an Indigenous woman, I would like to see our ceremonies restored, our traditions restored, our homelands restored, and our land back. When people come from other places and they come in the name of this American dream or in pursuit of this American dream, I don’t think they realize how that American dream erases Indigenous people, and further infringes upon our rights as Native people.\u00d3 (Photo by Jarrette Werk)” title_text=”210816-NEXTGEN-43″ align_tablet=”center” align_phone=”” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” admin_label=”Image 1″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Caption 1″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″]<\/p>\n
A photograph of Usama Alshaibi and his younger sister as children sits on his bookshelf at his home in Boulder. Photo by Ivy Winfrey.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2021\/08\/NEXTGEN-MOVIE-POSTER.jpg” title_text=”NEXTGEN-MOVIE-POSTER” admin_label=”Movie Poster Image” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Movie Poster Caption” _builder_version=”4.9.10″]<\/p>\n
Usama Alshaibi\u2019s first feature-length documentary released in 2006, detailing his return to Baghdad nine months after the U.S. Invasion of Iraq. Photo Courtesy of Usama Alshaibi.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.7.7″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2021\/08\/210816-NEXTGEN-40.jpg” alt=”\u00d2The American dream is not my Indigenous dream. It’s so different than that,\u00d3 Jolie Varela said. \u00d2As an Indigenous woman, I would like to see our ceremonies restored, our traditions restored, our homelands restored, and our land back. When people come from other places and they come in the name of this American dream or in pursuit of this American dream, I don’t think they realize how that American dream erases Indigenous people, and further infringes upon our rights as Native people.\u00d3 (Photo by Jarrette Werk)” title_text=”Aug. 16, 2021.” align_tablet=”center” align_phone=”” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” admin_label=”Image 2″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Caption 2″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″]<\/p>\n
Usama Alshaibi sits at his home work station. He works as an instructor at Colorado State University and makes many fiction and nonfiction independent films. He produced five short films in 2020, including The Shadow, a response film to the\u00a0 2014 film American Sniper. Photo by Ivy Winfrey.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2021\/08\/210816-NEXTGEN-34-scaled.jpg” alt=”\u00d2The American dream is not my Indigenous dream. It’s so different than that,\u00d3 Jolie Varela said. \u00d2As an Indigenous woman, I would like to see our ceremonies restored, our traditions restored, our homelands restored, and our land back. When people come from other places and they come in the name of this American dream or in pursuit of this American dream, I don’t think they realize how that American dream erases Indigenous people, and further infringes upon our rights as Native people.\u00d3 (Photo by Jarrette Werk)” title_text=”Aug. 16, 2021.” align_tablet=”center” align_phone=”” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” admin_label=”Next Gen 34 Flag Image” _builder_version=”4.9.10″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Next Gen 34 Caption” _builder_version=”4.9.10″]<\/p>\n
Usama Alshaibi stands in his backyard in Boulder, Colo. holding an Iraqi flag. When he first came to the United States as a child, he didn\u2019t speak any English and that led him to discover his love for art, he said. Photo by Ivy Winfrey.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text 4″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ text_font_size=”18px” text_line_height=”1.8em”]<\/p>\n
Alshaibi had always had this vision of what America was. He said that vision of America was \u201cyou know, the Brady Bunch and all the TV shows that I watched in the seventies. It\u2019s just white blonde kids<\/span>.<\/span>\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBut that changed when he moved to Chicago.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI remember I was in a neighborhood and there were like five different languages being spoken around me and everyone was from somewhere else,\u201d He said. \u201cBeing from Iraq, an immigrant, whatever the hell my story was, was normal, boring, benign \u2026 I could walk into a neighborhood and feel like I’m in another world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nAlshaibi became a citizen of the United States in 2002. To him, the spirit of being American is to have room to be yourself, and fight for that right.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nTo be American is to have the freedom to define for yourself what it means to be American.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThe reason earlier immigrants came here, our mothers and fathers and families wanted a better life,\u201d Alshaibi said. \u201cThey could have gone to other countries, but what was it about here? And I think it was the possibility of change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2021\/08\/210816-NEXTGEN-42.jpg” title_text=”210816-NEXTGEN-42″ admin_label=”Next Gen 42 image” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Next Gen 42 caption” _builder_version=”4.9.10″]<\/p>\n
Usama Alshaibi lives in Boulder, Colo. with his 10-year-old daughter Muneera. \u201cIn many ways, our children inherit not only our stories, but our traumas,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so I have to balance that out by saying \u2018this is who you are, this is where you\u2019re from\u2019 and to counter the challenges that come with that \u2026 and make sure she\u2019s strong and confident.\u201d Photo by Ivy Winfrey.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What does it mean to be an American? We are finding, coaching and training public media\u2019s next generation. This #nprnextgenradio project is created in Colorado, where five talented reporters are participating in a week-long state-of-the-art training program. In this project we are speaking to people representing a diversity of experiences and backgrounds in gender identity, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":450,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"coauthors":[19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/450"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpr2021.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}