Oral history interview with Dilshad Karim Saatchi, 2019 September 27

This oral history interview with Dilshad Karim Saatchi was conducted by Sankar Raman and Shea Seery on September 27, 2019. The interview was recorded for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees in the United States.

In this interview, Saatchi discusses his family background and early life as a Kurd in Iraq, including his experiences during the Iran-Iraq war, and during the Iraqi genocide of Kurds that began in 1991. He describes his family fleeing their home for the Kurdish countryside and talks about living in hiding from the Iraqi army in a makeshift refugee camp. He briefly talks about his education after returning home. He discusses working as an English translator for the U.S. military at a prison during the Iraq War, describes some of the interrogations that he was part of, and talks about the dangers of the job. He shares his reasons for immigrating to the United States. He talks about joining the U.S. Army, and shares his experiences during his 2012 deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan. He discusses his reasons for settling in Portland, Oregon, and briefly talks about his marriage and his education at Portland State University. He closes the interview by reflecting on the fact that the majority of his life was spent in the midst of war, by sharing his experience with post-traumatic stress disorder, and by discussing his plans for the future.