From Refugees to 'Little Kurdistan': Nashville Marks 50 Years of Kurdish Migration

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Kurdistan24) - Fifty years after the first major group of Kurdistani refugees arrived in the United States, several generations of Nashville's Kurdistani community gathered to mark an anniversary that was less about a single date than about the long distance between exile and belonging.

The gathering, organized by the Seventh Branch of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, brought together members of the generation that arrived in 1975 and 1976 with children and grandchildren who now know Nashville not as a place of refuge, but simply as home.

The first families had arrived after the collapse of the September Revolution in Kurdistan in 1975, when political upheaval and persecution forced many Kurds into exile. Some were resettled in the United States; Nashville became one of their most important destinations.

What began with a relatively small number of displaced families eventually grew into the largest Kurdistani community in the United States. Nashville officials estimate that more than 20,000 people of Kurdistani origin now live in the city, a presence so established that many Kurds simply call the area "Little Kurdistan."

Continuity mattered, too.

A Letter Across Generations

Rahim Rashidi, Kurdistan24's Washington Bureau chief and also widely known as Mr. Kurd, representing the Confederation of the Kurdistani Diaspora, recalled a 1976 letter from President Masoud Barzani to the Kurdistani community in London, Ontario, Canada, delivered through Kurdish diplomat Mohsen Dezayee.

In that letter, Barzani urged members of the diaspora to remain engaged with Kurdistan and uphold the principles of Kurdayeti, a concept tied to Kurdish national identity, unity and commitment to Kurdistan's interests.

For those gathered in Nashville, the letter had a particular resonance. It was written at almost exactly the moment the first families were learning how to build lives in North America.

Half a century later, President Barzani sent a new message to the Nashville anniversary, read by Hikmat Bamarni, director of the KDP's Seventh Branch in the United States and Canada.

The message honored the first generation of immigrants, recalled the political circumstances that drove them abroad and praised those who rebuilt their lives without severing their relationship with Kurdistan. It also emphasized preserving language, culture and heritage while respecting the laws and responsibilities of citizenship in the countries where Kurdistanis live.

Bamarni, speaking to the gathering, stressed that political and regional differences should not prevent Kurdistanis abroad from working together around a shared cultural identity.

The American Who Went to the Library

One of the earliest figures in the Nashville story was not Kurdish.

Bill Sinclair, who worked with Catholic Charities of Tennessee, helped resettle the first Kurdistani refugees who arrived in the city in 1976.

Sinclair later recalled that when he was first asked to assist Kurdish refugees, he knew almost nothing about them. Before meeting the families, he went to a library and turned to National Geographic to learn about Kurdistan and its people.

The detail feels almost quaint now, when information about any community can be summoned instantly on a phone. In 1976, it reflected the distance between two worlds that were suddenly being brought into intimate contact.

Sinclair would later tell Mr. Kurd that two qualities especially impressed him about the newcomers: their determination to work and their desire for education.

Those qualities, he believed, helped explain much of what followed.

Families opened businesses, sent children to school, entered professions and created organizations that gradually transformed a refugee settlement into a durable community.

For Sinclair, one of the most symbolic developments came decades later, when Nashville and Erbil formally became sister cities.

A relationship that had begun with Americans helping displaced families navigate housing, jobs and unfamiliar institutions had evolved into an official partnership between Tennessee's capital and the capital of the Kurdistan Region.

From Refugee to Surgeon

Few personal stories embody that arc as clearly as that of Professor Dr. Gazi Zibari.

Zibari arrived in Nashville as a refugee on May 1, 1976.

He went on to earn an undergraduate degree from David Lipscomb University, then graduated from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine in 1985. He later completed surgical residency training at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center and a fellowship in abdominal solid-organ transplantation at Johns Hopkins.

His career eventually took him into senior roles in surgery, transplantation, medical education and academic leadership.

He has also participated in humanitarian medical work in Kurdistan and in countries including Vietnam, the Philippines, Honduras, Nicaragua and Zambia, and has received professional and humanitarian honors including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

At the anniversary, Zibari looked back at a journey that began as the United States approached its bicentennial.

"We are indebted to the United States for giving us a second chance at life," he said.

The phrase captured something essential about the first generation's experience: gratitude toward the country that offered refuge existing alongside a persistent attachment to the homeland they had been forced to leave.

Zibari's career also illustrates how quickly the meaning of "refugee" can change over the span of a life. A person who arrives needing assistance can, within a generation, become a surgeon, professor, mentor and participant in humanitarian missions elsewhere.

Three Generations in One City

The Nashville community's 50th anniversary is therefore not only a story about survival.

It is a story about what happens after survival.

Over five decades, Kurdistani-Americans in Nashville have become physicians, academics, entrepreneurs, artists, professionals and civic leaders. They have established businesses, cultural organizations and social institutions while making Kurdish music, food, language and celebrations increasingly visible in the city.

The next challenge is less dramatic than the first, but no less important: ensuring that what was preserved through displacement does not fade through comfort.

Ipek Ismail, vice president of the Kurdistani Diaspora Center in Nashville, spoke during the anniversary program about maintaining Kurdistani identity, language, culture and heritage among younger people raised in the United States.

That question is especially pressing for a third generation whose relationship with Kurdistan may come through parents, grandparents, summer visits, music, political stories or language spoken at home.

The program also included a panel featuring Bamarni, Professor Edmund Ghareeb, Zibari, Dr. Omar Farhadi and Rozhyer Aware, discussing Kurdistan's history, diaspora life and the responsibility of communities abroad to preserve ties with the homeland.

Aware's own story reflects another branch of the early Kurdish migration to the United States. She arrived with her parents in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as a political refugee in 1977. She later earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Business Economics from South Dakota State University, where she also taught macroeconomics and co-taught courses on Middle Eastern topics before serving as the university's Multicultural Coordinator and Advisor.

After returning to Sioux Falls in 2007, Aware began a career in banking with Wells Fargo, serving as a branch manager and chairing the company's Diversity and Inclusion Council for South Dakota for a decade. She later moved into mortgage lending and currently serves as a senior mortgage consultant.

Alongside her professional career, Aware has remained deeply involved in community service and public education. She has spoken at more than 100 events, conferences, schools and workshops on business, diversity and Kurdish history. In 2006, she was the main guest speaker at a welcome-home celebration for South Dakota U.S. Army soldiers returning from Iraq. Her community work has also earned her a number of honors, including the Sioux Empire Humanitarian Award.

For Aware, the Nashville anniversary was also intensely personal. She attended with her family and watched as her parents reunited with people whose lives had intersected with theirs during the Kurdish refugee migrations of 1976 and 1977.

"Seeing my parents' faces light up as they reunited with old friends was priceless and brought back so many childhood memories of those who made the '76/'77 journey with us," she said.

Aware said hearing the stories of the original generation offered a reminder of the solidarity that helped families navigate their first years in the United States.

"Hearing the stories from the original group reminded us of the strength and unity of those early years," she said.

She also expressed hope that future commemorations would bring together an even larger number of families from that generation.

"We do wish more families from the '76/'77 group had attended — a milestone like this deserves a strong presence from those being honored," Aware said.

Still, she described the gathering as an important affirmation of shared memory and community across generations.

"Being surrounded by familiar faces and shared history meant so much," she said. "Here's to honoring our past, strengthening our connections, and making the next gathering even more unforgettable."

Poetry, songs and cultural performances added another dimension to the evening. They were not merely decorative additions to a political commemoration; they represented some of the most durable ways a community passes memory from one generation to another.

A Bridge Between Nashville and Erbil

On Sept. 9, 2023, Nashville and Erbil formally established a Sister City relationship, creating a framework for cooperation in culture, education, health care, higher education, technology, trade and the arts.

For the families who arrived nearly 50 years earlier, the symbolism was difficult to miss.

The city where refugees once began again had entered into an institutional relationship with the capital of the place they still considered their homeland.

The connection also reflects how the Kurdistani community has changed Nashville itself.

"Little Kurdistan" is no longer simply shorthand for where Kurds live. It describes a piece of the city's identity, built through restaurants and businesses, community organizations, political engagement, Newroz celebrations, music and the ordinary life of families who have now spent generations in Tennessee.

The first arrivals carried memories of revolution, flight and uncertainty. Their children grew up learning how to belong to two places. Their grandchildren inherit a more complicated privilege: they can treat Nashville as unquestioned home while still deciding what Kurdistan will mean to them.

That is why the 50th anniversary was as much about the future as the past.

The earliest families had to preserve identity because displacement threatened to erase it. The generations that follow face a different task: preserving it because success, distance and time can quietly loosen the ties that exile once made urgent.

Half a century after the first major arrivals, Nashville is no longer merely a refuge for Kurdistanis.

It is one of the places where Kurdistani identity has been remade, carried forward and given another home.