Katie Zellmer ’14 with Yusra Salim: Salim is a refugee from Iraq and mother of Zellmer’s second family.
by Elizabeth Carman
Katie Zellmer ’14 began a service-learning project during her sophomore year at Central. Nearly three years later, she still has not finished it.
Zellmer, who graduated with degrees in anthropology and history, began her assignment with the Iowa Refugee Support Project in 2012. Zellmer thought she would be going to Des Moines once a week to help an Iraqi family with their English homework, but she soon found a second home in the Salim household.
“I had never been accepted into a family like that so easily,” said Zellmer. “They just adopted me.”
Mohammed and Yusra Salim — and their five children — had only been in the United States for three months before Zellmer showed up at their front door. Originally from Baghdad, the family fled to Turkey in 2009 because of violence in Iraq. They were later granted asylum in the U.S. and arrived in November 2011.
While most people might be nervous about interacting with a family from a different culture, Zellmer said anthropology and international studies courses at Central taught her how to be curious.
“Right away when I started going, I was asking them questions about how they prepared food, how they ate and how they prayed,” Zellmer said.
Zellmer found her passion for helping refugees by connecting with the Salim family.
As Zellmer and the Salim family spent time together and learned about each other, they formed a bond despite their differences.
“Sometimes the daughters, and even Yusra, forget that I’m American,” Zellmer said with a laugh. “They’ll just start speaking to me in Arabic for a while, and I’ll be like, ‘You’re speaking in Arabic, just so you know.’”
Zellmer also found a connection between the Salims and her own family. “I was able to see a lot of my mother in Yusra,” she said. “Even though they were from completely different cultures and completely different religions, they were basically the same woman.”
Yusra often gave directions to her children in Arabic, Zellmer said — for example, to do their chores. Although she couldn’t understand Yusra’s words, Zellmer said she typically had a pretty good idea of their meaning. “All mothers speak the same language,” she said.
Zellmer’s relationship with the Salims did not end after she completed the semester-long service-learning project. She continued meeting with the family about once a week and took full advantage of their time together.
Zellmer recently joined the Salim family for a wedding celebration.
Before long, this experience paved the way for Zellmer’s job with the Center for Community-Based Learning at Central College. As an AmeriCorps VISTA, Zellmer works with various refugee organizations to provide students with service-learning projects similar to her own. “When working with the Salims, I found my passion for refugees,” said Zellmer. “My experience with service-learning really helped me get the job.”
After Zellmer completes the one-year position at Central, she plans to continue exploring this passion. One option she is considering is working toward a graduate degree in refugee studies so she can better understand the pressing issues in this field.
“It’s a global problem; there are 15 million refugees right now,” Zellmer said. “Working with this family has helped me realize that it’s a problem I can help with.”