The whites of Hani Al Kaabi’s eyes began to match the hue of his burgundy tie as he watched his three children scamper about an empty conference room at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigrant Services Building in Centennial on June 4.
“I’ve just been really lucky,” he says between warm, lighthearted hollers directed toward the energetic trio: “Guys, guys, keep it low, please.”
Though a relentless attitude and indefatigable personality certainly didn’t hurt, it’s a thorny task to argue that Al Kaabi hasn’t seen a string of good fortune. That’s not to say that it hasn’t been marred by tragedy or that he’s in the least bit undeserving.
A brief history of Al Kaabi’s strand of serendipity over the past 15 years: Finding a job in bacteriology immediately after earning a degree in biology that prevented him from being conscripted into the Iraqi army. Snagging a prestigious job as a security coordinator at an Iraq bureau of ABC News, which afforded him coveted priority for a U.S. visa. Meeting a benevolent businessman who just so happened to be selling his business. Qualifying for a business loan despite having almost no collateral.
Notwithstanding an extensive index of heady displays of personal mettle, bravery and will, that almost providential scroll of events led Al Kaabi and his wife, Hadeel, to that recent, tearful ceremony earlier this summer, officially affirming both of their newly awarded United States citizenships.
“It just brings tears to my eyes,” Hani says when thinking of the road that he marched upon to get to that air-conditioned room filled with more than 60 other immigrants from 31 different countries. “When I keep thinking about everything in my life, I just think I got really lucky. I got really, really lucky. I don’t really have the right words for this — I think I’m speechless.”
Residents of Aurora for about the past five years, both Hani and Hadeel are natives of Baghdad, Iraq, a homeland Hani left in 2009 — like many emigrants seeking a new life — with little more than a suitcase of clothes.
“I came with nothing,” he said. “I made good money with ABC News (in Baghdad), but I ended up financially securing literally every last one of my family back in Iraq. That’s how I got through the guilt of leaving them.”
“My wife supported me, she came all the way over here with me, but I could see the fear in her eyes — I couldn’t confirm it, I kept telling her things could be OK,” he said.
Initial assimilation was demanding for Hani after he first arrived in Colorado. That guilt he carried with him from Iraq translated to shame and fear in the U.S., due in no small part to his use of food stamps provided by the African Community Center, a resource for new emigrants based in Denver. Those emotions soon evolved into stubbornness, as evidenced by his refusal to accept disability exemptions he could have earned for a severe injury he sustained to his back more than 10 years ago.
“My wife supported me, she came all the way over here with me, but I could see the fear in her eyes — I couldn’t confirm it, I kept telling her things could be OK,” he said. “By taking those exemptions I would have been really ashamed from my wife and my family back in Iraq. I’m not going to be ashamed by saying this now: The first few months that we used food stamps, I felt so, so small. I told my wife, we will make it, we’re not going to use these forever.”
With that attitude leading the charge, succeed he did. A worker at the Denver ACC recognized his grit and put him in touch with the owner of an insurance agency who was hiring. Two years, one insurance license and a loan from the Colorado Enterprise Fund later, he was the owner of his mentor’s former agency — despite barely even knowing the meaning of the word insurance just five years ago.
“I said, ‘Let me be honest, I can’t remember ever even using the word insurance in my life, but I’m willing to learn if you’re willing to teach me,’” he said.
And teach he did — Hani’s owned Tameen Insurance on South Parker Road in Denver since 2012. He said that he mostly caters to the many Arabic-speaking immigrants in the surrounding neighborhood, and although it was a tricky market to break into, business has been good. He added that outside of obtaining his citizenship, the most memorable moment he’s had in the U.S. so far was simply buying groceries.
“I still remember the moment I used my own card for the first time to pay for our food,” he said.
The road to earning a U.S. passport was an undulating one for the Al Kaabi family — including the loss of their first child in the early 2000s — but the pride in arriving at the final destination is evident in Hani’s eyes as he beams at Muhannad, 9, Saba, 8, and Ahmed, 7.
“I have these kids, I have this small family,” he says while watching them fiddle with his iPhone and giddily take photos of their mom and dad. “And I just can’t think of how I got so lucky. I succeeded.”
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