Faces of Our Strategic Plan: Jessica Bitar For Jessica Bitar, the United States has always meant the promise of a brighter future. In September 2018, that promise became a reality when her family moved from Kuwait to the US, embarking on a new chapter in their lives. Originally from Syria, Bitar’s family moved to Kuwait when Bitar was very young for her father’s work and she lived there for 14 years. “I went to school there, it was 14
pretty great,” Bitar said, “But since we were immigrants in Kuwait as well, we weren’t able to stay there forever because my dad was the only one working and he wouldn’t be able to work after a certain age.” Faced with the looming threat of unemployment due to the terms of her father’s visa, Bitar’s parents had to find somewhere else to live. They planned to move back to Syria in 2010 to be near their extended family again and even Mt. Hood Community College
bought a house there. Their plans were derailed when war broke out in Syria in 2011. Bitar and her family soon learned the house they bought in Syria had been destroyed as a result of the conflict and a lot of people there began fleeing to safer places. “We never ended up moving to Syria, my dad would’ve loved for us to live there but it just never happened,” Bitar said. The Bitar family’s future was very unclear at that point as poverty
