Victoria LaSaah

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Victoria LaSaah

My name is Victoria LaSaah. I was born in Liberia, West Africa. I have four sister and five brothers. My father and my mom they used to wake me up to go on the farm. It was so hard when we were growing up.

My father practiced Islam. He also spoke Arabic from the Koran. We’d pray five times a day.

Then my auntie asked for me. She said she don’t have nobody to take care of her children. I said, “I won’t go.” Then my auntie started crying, saying she needs my help, so that’s the time I left. I was eleven years when I moved to my auntie’s place.

I moved to Monrovia before the civil war. The civil war started in 1990. I think I was like twenty years old. We heard a gun shooting like everybody went crazy. Everyone confused. We don’t know where to go.

We lie down very flat under the desk. You can’t stand up, or they’ll shoot you. Then they start yelling. After two weeks, we had to leave.

Then we start walking. Everyone walk hard and the soldiers say, “Why you walking like Army-men? You’re not a military. You have to take your time.” We don’t know how to walk. We have this fear. You don’t want to walk hard. If you walk hard, they will shoot you.

The people who shoot us are the soldiers fighting the war. They are the rebels and they are trying to destroy the government and the civilians. We were being forced to march out of the capitol into the bush.

The civil war lasted for 18 years. We put our name into a hat and our name was drawn. We came to the United States in 2007, May 5th. I never had been on a plane before. I was scared. The people who are working the plane, they hold my hand. They say, "Don’t be scared." And my daughter was just growing up like Isaac.

I came to Minnesota because my sister lived here. I’m now going to school to learn how to speak English. Life in America is good. I love Liberia, too. People in Liberia are more social. For me, it’s lonely here. You know, women carry the heavy load more than the men sometimes.