Collection is open for research.
Gift of The Immigrant Story, June 2023 (RL2023-081).
Salsabel Al Masri was born in Daraa, Syria, in 2003. In 2012, a year after the beginning of civil war in Syria, she moved with her family to Irbid, Jordan. In 2016, she and her family immigrated to the United States, living in Portland, Oregon.
Source: Information provided by Al Masri in her interview.
Oral history interview with Salsabel Al Masri, by Dora Totoian and Sankar Raman, SR 12337, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Salsabel Al Masri was conducted by Dora Totoian and Sankar Raman on January 5, 2020. 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, Al Masri discusses her early life and education in Daraa, Syria, and talks about her love of math and her ambition to become a doctor. She discusses the beginnings of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and her experiences moving to Irbid, Jordan, the next year. She talks about her life and education in Jordan from 2012 to 2016, including racism she experienced and her feelings upon learning that her home in Syria had been bombed. She describes the process of immigrating to the United States, and describes adjusting to life in Portland, Oregon, including learning English and attending American high schools. She shares her experience wearing headscarves in Portland, discusses her parents' jobs, and talks about family still in Jordan. She closes the interview by reflecting on her immigration experience.
Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and The Immigrant Story. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted,
An article about Salsbel Al Masri, "Tending a Garden and Her Dreams" by Dora Totoian, was based on this interview and published on The Immigrant Story website at