The Delegate From Sadr City

Imagine, he says, you know someone from growing up. A classmate. A cousin. You remember them as a child. You can recall a summer day when they were smiling. You have beautiful moments in the past with them. And then you find them hanging from a bridge. Or they are floating, headless, in the river. Try to understand for a moment what this is like. “And then you will know,” Majid says, “why I am here.”

For nearly half of Majid’s 12 years in the U.S., he says, he's felt the anguish of having “my two families at war.” As an American, he thought the war was a bad idea. “Is this in our interest?” he asked. “No. Will it catch al Qaeda? No. Will it improve the economy? No. We lost money, military power and dignity. We lost our influence in the world. And we have to get it back.”

Mr. Fish

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More About

• Michelle Obama
• Saddam Hussein
• Hillary Clinton
• Democratic National Committee
• Arabic Language

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It’s a powerful enough comment about the American Idea that Majid can talk about his new country in the first-person plural and really mean it. Majid earned that “we” the hard way. Or, as Nina puts it, “Nobody can lecture Majid about freedom.”

That’s why Majid is so moved at every turn, including the basic certification of the vote. “When Michelle Obama said she was surprised to be on the stage,” Majid says, “I knew what she meant. I cried then too. There are simply no words for my surprise to be here, having a voice in changing my country.”

And Majid knows there is still a long road ahead. “When I get back home,” Majid says, “we go right back to work. This is my only vacation this year.”

Before the DNC, Majid worked nine or 10 hours a day. Now he plans on as many as 16 hours a day. “And maybe,” he adds, “when Obama is elected — then it’s time to sleep.”