From Yemen to the U.S.

Going home isn’t always the best choice

Editor’s note: This first of a three-part series on the eight-year journey by Tareq Al Maqtari to pursue his passion for teaching. It took him from the University of Louisville to his home country of Yemen and then Syria, dodging civil wars in both countries, before eventually finding opportunity in Brookings, South Dakota.

Yemeni national Tareq Al Maqtari came to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship to advance his pharmacy education and made such an impression that he was offered a full scholarship to earn his doctorate.

His five years in the United States studying at the University of Louisville (Kentucky) had been a wonderful experience. He grew in his English-speaking skills as well as his passion for teaching. He broadened his faith perspectives, and his young family was able to join him for two one-year stays while Al Maqtari worked on his master’s and doctoral degrees in pharmacology and toxicology.

But the years between completing his education in Kentucky and joining the faculty at South Dakota State in Brookings were difficult for Al Maqtari and his family, who ultimately left their home country for a better life.

When Al Maqtari had earned his doctorate in May 2015, he was missing Yemen, which is in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula.

All his extended family was there, as was his own family, which consists of his wife, Hanan Faarea, and three children, who were then 10, 8 and 6. One year later, the couple had their fourth child. He wasn’t back in Yemen very long before he realized home wasn’t so sweet.

“The civil war already started in Yemen, and I had some fear, but I decided to go back. I thought it was a temporary war, six months, maybe a year,” said Al-Maqtari, now 43 and a Brookings resident since January 2022, when he also joined SDSU’s College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions as an instructor.

Going home to a civil war

The Yemen civil war started in 2014 when rebels from the Houthi tribe in northern Yemen began fighting government troops. While there have been various cease-fires, the region remains in turmoil.

“The economy collapsed. Electricity and water were all down. There was no electricity until you get solar panels and connect them to batteries. That was the only way to get light in your house. Water and cooking gas was always short. So it was not the best four years in terms of basic needs, but I enjoyed my work in teaching students there,” Al Maqtari said.

“However, after four years (2015-19), I realized that is not my best life for my family.”

Getting out of Yemen wasn’t easy. President Trump had banned immigration to the United States from six “terrorist” countries. Yemen was on the list.

“I had only one chance to leave Yemen. I got an offer from Syria to go to the International University of Science and Technology. My purpose was just to leave Yemen and then I will think about where to go from there,” Al Maqtari said.

He soon found life in Syria to be nearly as objectionable as life in Yemen.

“Syria was also in a civil war, maybe a bigger civil war. The basic needs were maybe acceptable when I went there in (October) 2019, but they deteriorated very quickly. Inflation was crazy. Prices would jump every day. It was able to survive for a year and a half. In 2020, I decided Syria wasn’t the solution I was trying to get,” he said.

Al-Maqtari’s fellow faculty members also wanted to leave. One told him about the “Scholar Rescue Fund,” which is a program of the U.S.-based Institute of International Education that arranges, funds and supports fellowships for threatened and displaced scholars at partnering higher education institutions worldwide.

That would prove to be Al-Maqtari’s ticket out, but like all elements in his journey, it was marked with challenges.

From Yemen to the U.S.

Landed a job, but couldn’t get to Brookings

Editor’s note: This second of a three-part series on the eight-year journey by Tareq Al Maqtari to pursue his passion for teaching. It took him from the University of Louisville to his home country of Yemen and then Syria, dodging civil wars in both countries, before eventually finding opportunity in Brookings, South Dakota.

With master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Louisville (Kentucky), pharmacology instructor Tareq Al Maqtari had published articles in peer-reviewed journals and had a good command of the English language. He taught in Yemen from 2015 to 2019, left during its civil war and settled in Syria, where another civil war was underway.

Al Maqtari soon realized he needed to leave Syria. A colleague told him about the Scholar Rescue Fund, which is a program of the Institute of International Education.

He was quickly approved by the institute. But his Yemen nationality kept him out of the U.S. and Al Maqtari wanted to go somewhere in which a more religiously and politically tolerant atmosphere exist.

Other options were England, Australia and Canada. But in 2020 the world was experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So universities were not trying to get anyone. Everything really slowed down, so I got rejections and stayed in Syria for another eight months,” Al Maqtari said.

In 2021, the pandemic had eased, and with Joe Biden as president, the Yemini immigration ban was lifted. The institute submitted Al Maqtari as a candidate for an SDSU teaching position that had become open due to increasing teaching needs at the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions.

Al Maqtari met with Dan Hansen, dean of the pharmacy college, and Omathanu Perumal, then head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, via Zoom in January 2021 and was offered the position.

Al Maqtari was understandably excited, but it proved to only open a whole another set of challenges.

“It took me an entire year just to come here because of visa issues,” he said. Part of the problem was there were no active U.S. embassies in Yemen or Syria because of civil wars. “I was in Syria but had to take my family back to Yemen and then try to get an embassy where I could get an interview. That was Egypt. 

“When I got to Egypt, there were lots of people in Egypt applying to get into the United States, so I was delayed.”

Landing in Brookings in January

Because Al Maqtari is from Yemen and had been in Syria, his application received additional scrutiny from officials at the U.S embassy in Egypt. All told, he made three trips from Yemen to Egypt. He arrived in Brookings in January 2022 without a car, adequate winter clothing or his family. In addition, he was now teaching in English and the courses were slightly different than what he had been teaching.

“I had to adapt to all of that.”

Adapting to a South Dakota winter with no car was the biggest challenge.

“Without the car in a place which is frozen, that was a torture to walk 15 minutes every day to the university and then walk to Walmart, then walk to Goodwill to buy some stuff for myself or my family if they come. It took me three or four months of struggling to adapt in every way. Then maybe within four months I got my car and finished my first semester. That’s when I started to feel well-equipped to stay,” Al Maqtari said.

In May, he returned to Yemen to get his wife and children. It took one month in Yemen for his family to receive their new passports.

After that the Al-Maqtaris made the long drive from northern Yemen to southern Yemen, where the only international airport is located, to fly Egypt. The family stayed in Egypt from June to September 2022 to get the U.S. visas. The only explanation Al Maqtari received was “‘You have to wait until we finish the administrative processing.’ I didn’t know what that meant or how long it would take.”

Family stays behind in Cairo

Therefore, he returned to Brookings in July 2022 and left his family in a rented Cairo apartment.

In Brookings, Al Maqtari collected furnishings for the apartment in anticipation of his family’s arrival, prepared for fall semester and maintained contact with his family.  

“It was scary for my family to be in another country, even though it is an Arab country. Still it is another country where they don’t know many people. It’s just the kids and a wife who doesn’t travel or work. It was a scary time for them and for me” Al Maqtari said.

He also contacted the Institute of International Educational and SDSU pharmacy administrators to see if they could influence the visa processing.  

That didn’t work either, but “at least they tried,” Al Maqtari said.

“I want to thank the understanding of my department head and also the dean. All of them were very supportive and understanding during my family’s visa process” he said. Two of them, Perumal and Hemachand Tummala, current head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, received a certificate of appreciation from the Institute of International Education for their role in bringing Al Maqtari to SDSU.

“Then (in early September 2022) the U.S. embassy in Egypt gave the visas to four members and not the fifth, which was my oldest daughter. I asked my wife and three others kids to come to Brookings, which was great, and we got a bigger apartment, but one daughter was stuck in Egypt and we didn’t know the reason,” Al Maqtari said.

From Yemen to the U.S.

Life in Brookings exceeds expectations

Editor’s note: This third of a three-part series on the eight-year journey by Tareq Al Maqtari to pursue his passion for teaching. It took him from the University of Louisville to his home country of Yemen and then Syria, dodging civil wars in both countries, before eventually finding opportunity in Brookings, South Dakota.

After skirting two civil wars and dealing with COVID-19 and immigration restrictions, Tareq Al Maqtari finally had a teaching position at South Dakota State University. He survived his first Northern Plains winter and life without his family. He hoped to have his wife and four children with him for his second year of teaching pharmacy.

Because of visa delays, he left his family at a rented apartment in Cairo, Egypt, in July 2022 and returned to Brookings. Good news arrived in early September, when visas were approved for his wife and his three youngest children.

“I asked my wife and three others kids to come to Brookings, which was great, and we got a bigger apartment, but one daughter was stuck in Egypt and we didn’t know the reason,” Al Maqtari said.

That daughter, Baraah, was 17 and at one point was regretting leaving Yemen. “I was wondering if I should leave Egypt to go to Yemen to live with my grandparents,” she said.

While she did have two roommates in Egypt, the thought of going out to buy groceries was unnerving. “It’s scary being a girl walking alone (in Cairo). I had an instance where a guy was following me and tried to get my number. I was scared to death. If I had gotten kidnapped, nobody would have known,” Baraah said.

She had attended U.S. schools in third and fifth grade while her father was at the University of Louisville, but she wasn’t comfortable about moving to South Dakota where there are few Muslims. “I thought it would feel weird and I would get comments on my hijab,” Baraah said.

But three weeks after her family left for America, Baraah got her visa. “I got my visa in the morning and then at 10 p.m. I was at the airport” ready to fly by herself to her new home.

Al Maqtari said, “Within nine months of coming to Brookings, I was able to get all my family—wife and kids—a big house and a car and furniture. That’s when I started to feel more stable and settling in. I think things moved well eventually.”

Family finds a fit in Brookings

While none of the Al Maqtaris enjoy South Dakota winters, they all appreciate their new home.

Hanan Faarea, Al Maqtari’s wife, is the least social of the group, but she does appreciate the freedom to go out, Baraah said. 

The family’s other daughter, Sandus, who will be a junior at Brookings High School, has discovered a talent for drawing and painting. This summer a schoolteacher hired her to do the nonartistic work of painting walls.

“I wouldn’t have thought that is possible” for a girl her age to be working and earning $15 per hour, Al Maqtari said in contrasting the difference between life in Yemen and the United States. “It’s wonderful. Some day she wants to open her own business to sell some of the things she has made.”

The Al-Maqtaris’ oldest son is Mohammed, who will be a freshman at BHS. He was born deaf and received cochlear implants when the family was living in Kentucky about 10 years ago.

“He needs batteries and processors. That was an issue in Yemen and Syria. Here you can get those parts easily,” Al Maqtari said.

Their youngest is Amgad, who will be a second grader and has easily adapted to the United States. Baraah said, “He doesn’t feel like he is even an Arab anymore.”

As for Baraah, she has graduated from Brookings High School, is working at Hy-Vee and has been accepted into the computer science program at SDSU. “At first it was hard having to leave all your friends and family … (but) I have made a lot of friends from all different countries and religions. I didn’t get any racist or sexist comments. You don’t feel like you don’t belong,” she said.

America has truly been the land of opportunity for her.

“I have gotten a lot of opportunities I didn’t think I would get. If two years ago you would have told me I was going to get my driver’s license, I would have laughed in your face. If you would have told me two years ago I would be getting a job, I wouldn’t have believed it. Now I’m doing both and saving money to get my own car.”

At Brookings High School she sang in the talent show with a friend. “In Yemen, you might be able to sing at a public place and they might applaud, but under their breath they would be saying mean things, especially that I’m a girl. It’s been different here,” she said.

“I knew there was more freedom (in the U.S.), and women were treated the same as men,” but she didn’t know if that would apply to her since she wasn’t an American citizen.

“I didn’t think it would be this easy,” said Baraah, who plans to work during the 2023-24 school year and then begin schooling as an in-state resident in 2024-25.

As for Al Maqtari, “I love it. I’m a person who loves teaching. During my Zoom interview, I said, ‘I love teaching. I’m not going to come to do research.’ They were very open to that. I’m doing what I enjoy.”

He is teaching Pathophysiology, Pharmacology, and Toxicology II, III and IV courses to students in the first and second year of the pharmacy program. This school year he also will teach pharmacology for veterinarians with Teresa Seefeldt, who previously taught the course. She also co-taught with Al Maqtari in his first semester.

Loved by students

Al-Maqtari’s teaching has impressed both students and administrators.

At the end of the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, he was one of six teaching instructors nominated by students for teacher of the year honors. “Students like him. He hit the ground running,” said Omathanu Perumal, who served as head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and associate dean for research during his 17 years with the college.

Hemachand Tummala, current head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, added, “He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the field of pharmacology and has an impressive track record of teaching at various international institutes. He is an enthusiastic teacher and a great team player. Students love him for that. We are thrilled to have him in our team of fine educators.”

Austin Manuell, who is heading into his third year of pharmacy school, said, “Dr. Al Maqtari came to every class so well prepared that he did not even need to reference notes when teaching for the most part. This showed me that he really cared about what he taught and did not just want to get through the semester.”

Classmate Maddi Hansen said, “I failed my first exam that I took with Dr. Tareq. It was extremely disheartening because I thought I was just not smart enough to continue in the pharmacy program. We were offered the chance to retake the exam because of how low the exam average was. Dr. Tareq took the time to meet with me and go over the exam with me.

“The following semester when I had him as a teacher again, he would check in on me and ask me how the class was going. After each exam he would ask me how I, and the students, felt about the way he teaches and how he can improve. He always wanted to hear from us so that we could get the most out of our hours together.

“I have absolutely loved having Dr. Tareq as a teacher. He has continually challenged me to work hard to earn my grades. On my final exam with him, I received a 96%.

“From failing my first exam to acing my last one, I have grown and learned so much from Dr. Tareq. He is the future of the pharmacy program at SDSU, and I am glad that I have gotten to work with him.” 

Hoping to gain asylum

Actually, Al Maqtari’s future isn’t so clear cut.

Although “my understanding is they (SDSU administrators) all want me to continue,” there are some uncertainties.

The Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund provides an award of $25,000, in addition to supplemental benefits like relocation funding and professional development resources, to support the academic appointment, which must be matched by the host university and can be renewed for a second academic year.

“After two years, SDSU could absorb the visiting scholar if they want,” Perumal said.

While the list of U.S. host schools is long, SDSU is the only participating school in South Dakota. Jon Stauff, assistant vice president in the SDSU International Affairs office, worked with the program to bring a faculty member to the chemistry department from Cameroon for the 2020-21 school year. The School of Design will host a fellow from Afghanistan in the coming year.

Al Maqtari is in the United States on a J1 exchange visa, which allows him to stay in the U.S. for five years. Then he must return to Yemen, he said.

Before then, he hopes to gain asylum. A lawyer has told him he has “very good grounds,” and he hopes to file soon.

When Al Maqtari thinks back to a year ago when his family was in Egypt with no guarantee they would be joining him here, he is thankful for how matters have evolved. He likes being at South Dakota State. “I like the students. They respect science and the teacher. They are very honest if I ask for feedback. That makes teaching more fun for me.

“The pay is much better. You don’t have to do other things to make ends meet. In the Middle East, you have to teach at several places and it still may not make ends meet.”

He adds the South Dakota State has not only served as an academic safe haven for him, his colleagues were always open to his questions and advice on subjects as wide ranging as teaching to what type of phone to buy.

“Om (Perumal) was always smiling to me, asking me if I had any questions.”

Editor’s note: The Institute for International Education reports that since the conflict began in Yemen, it has awarded 158 fellowships to 91 Yemeni scholars, partnering with 43 host institutions in 13 countries.