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>> Mary Jane Deeb: Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman, and welcome to the African Middle/East Reading Room. I'm glad you're here. This is the before last program that we're going to be hosting in this wonderful reading room. We are moving to the Northeast Pavilion, which is behind me, over there, another very beautiful reading room, in January and in the meantime, we have to move out from here. So unfortunately, we will not be hosting any more programs for the next three months. So you are here in a way celebrating the last of what has been a very, very exciting time in this reading room. So we're all sad that we're leaving but on the other hand, it's only temporarily stopping. We will resume our exciting programs in January and we would invite you then in a new environment but a very lovely one as well. So I want to thank those who have been coming to these programs who have been attending our series. I want to thank my own staff who have been absolutely diligent until the last minute bringing wonderful writers, thinkers, authors, scholars to this reading room to share with us and with the public outside around the nation, around the world, the scholarship and the thinking that has come through their work, that has come through these collections that they have used. So it's only an au revoir. It's not a goodbye but it's just a short stop until we resume again in January. So today we are very fortunate to have with us Mr. Dawit Gebremichael Habte who is going to be talking about his own book, his own story, his own past and hopefully project into the future a returning scholar to our reading room. We have not had many programs on Eritrea and so it's very exciting to have one today and to share with our patrons, with our members here at the Library and with the rest of the world a story which is very exciting, very moving and a story that is shared by most people around the country since we're all at one time or another immigrants. So to introduce the author, we have our own Fentahun Tiruneh who has been forever our Ethiopian and Eritrean specialist here at the Library of Congress and who has done a fantastic job building the collections. So with no further ado, Fentahun will introduce our speaker. Thank you.

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>> Fentahun Tiruneh: Thank you, Mary Jane. Ladies and gentleman, I welcome you to today's program. My name is Fentahun Tiruneh and I'm the area specialist for the Ethiopian and Eritrean collections. Today I present to you a professional man with unique story of his immigrant life. Raised in a tiny village just south of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, Dawit Gebremichael Habte fled to Kenya as a teenager and sought asylum in the United States. Dawit is now a father, husband, software engineer, and author of "Gratitude in Low Voices: A Memoir." This story is a record of a saga of a young man who faced several turbulent events in his immigrant life outside of his family and country. 

^M00:05:00

This story is told by a very successful man who withstood the vagaries of immigrant life in different countries and who finally made it to the United States to build a family life. His story encapsulates the story of many of us from the same region but the difference is Dawit took his time and successfully published his adventures into a book. Instead of trying to detail his life story, I'll let Dawit narrate the rest of his adventure, country by country and event by event. Dawit is featured in the United States "USA Today, New York Times, Associated Press, and Johns Hopkins Gazette' and has written for various Eritrean websites and publications. He lives in Maryland with his wife and five children and works for Bloomberg BNA. Before I call on our guest to the forum, I'd like to make a couple of announcements. This event is being videotaped for subsequent broadcast on the Library's webcast and other media. There will be a formal question and answer period after the lecture in which the audience is encouraged to ask questions and offer comments. But please be advised that your voice and image may be recorded and later broadcast as part of the event. By participating in the question and answer period, you are consenting to the Library's possible reproduction and transmission of your remarks. An additional announcement is that this forum does not entertain questions of political nature. Thank you for your understanding. Now help me to welcome Dawit Gebremichael Habte.

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[ Applause ] 
^M00:07:09

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: I think I would be fairly certain the majority of you would love to go back to where everybody knows your name and actually they are glad you came. Cheers was one of my favorite sitcoms when I first came to the United States during my high school years and the place where not only everybody knew my name but I also knew everybody's name is called Gejeret, a small neighborhood in the city of Eritrea in the city of Asmara, the capital city of Asmara. That is an amazing place where we all knew each other's cousins, uncles, and distant relatives and we took care of each other. So "Gratitude in Low Voices" is a human story. It's a universal human story in that it's a journey from my birthplace in Gejeret, in Asmara to a place where I knew and where everything was familiar to unknown destinations, unknown places, unfamiliar destinations. It's also a story of those that I encountered along the way, so many angels without wings, individuals who came to my rescue and to my family's rescue in the form of human beings but nevertheless, angels without wings. When I narrate my story, my story does not start from the date that I was born because the circumstances, the situations that forced me to leave home also forced my parents, my father to leave home. They also put my grandparents in situations that are not normal, to say the least. So I'm forced to go back generations and you can imagine it doesn't stop with my great parents. It actually has to go back and tell the story of Eritrea and the people of Eritrea. The human cost of history, the human cost of war needs to be told with the right context and with the right perspective because at the end of the day, context matters. 

^M00:10:26

Angels without wings. You see the gentleman, the young man in the picture? He is my childhood friend, my best friend and that's what makes sitting here an amazing opportunity is I could have, my fate and some of my friends' fate who are sitting here could have been the same as that young man. He perished in a war, in a war that should not have existed, that should not have happened. But his story needs to be told with the right perspective and the story of my grandparents, you see them, the story of my aunt who allowed us to live in her house and grow, have a normal childhood in the middle of war zone. The story of my aunt who has no kids who actually has to help my mom because my mother has to spend half of the week in the village to attend to, look after the farm and work and then come during the weekends to take care of her kids. That's story has to be told with the right perspective. The story of my father has to be told living in Saudi Arabia, where he has to acquire an Islamic name in order to raise his kids to work 18 hours as a truck driver. That story needs to be told with the right perspective. All is not gloomy. It's not doom and gloom. The story of Dr. Tekie Fessehatzion, a professor that I met in Baltimore who ended up becoming the father that I never had. His story needs to be told. The story of my counselor Beatrice Newell, a German, who has nothing in common with me and I had nothing in common with her, but she took out of -- She went out of her way to make sure this young immigrant who barely spoke English to end up going to Johns Hopkins University, after barely attending two years of high school in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her story needs to be told, with the right perspective and with the right context. The story of Mike Bloomberg, the three-term mayor of New York, who gave his young immigrant an opportunity to go back to his country to contribute to be part of a demobilization process of reintegrating his country folks, his countrymen his age. This young man was probably age 20 to 23 who funded my project. His story needs to be told, who also funded the publication of this book by preordering 10,000 copies. His story needs to be told. The story of Rose Varner-Gaskins, David Rysak, their story needs to be told because that is American story. That's not really broadcasted in the mainstream. Their story needs to be told because it's a human story. The commonalities that I found between me and the individuals that I encountered are just we happened to be decent human beings. We decided to see what is best in each other. So that's why I referred them in my book, "Gratitude in Low Voices" as "angels without wings." And Robin Farrell Edmunds of "Forward Review," he actually got it right. This is what he wrote. "This book is a reaffirmation of the good that people can do and how one young man succeeded despite the odds against him." 

^M00:15:09

The focus is on the people because that gentleman has to do whatever he did for his own good but those angels without wings actually did it for no other reason except because they see a delight in seeing somebody else succeed, somebody else being happy, to say the least. The African-American author, writer and critic James Baldwin had this to say. "People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them." At the beginning, I said my story does not start with my birthday. My journey might have started from the place that I was born but my story does not start from the day that I was born. In 1915, John Foster Dulles, one of the highly renowned US ambassadors, had this to say in New York.  "From the point of view of justice, the opinions of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interest of the United States in the Red Sea basin and the considerations of security and world peace make it necessary that the country has to be linked with our ally Ethiopia." Twelve years later, Eritrea was forcefully annexed by Ethiopia . Guess what? Five more years later, half a million of Eritreans became refuges in Sudan. That, by the way, is a third of the population. So when we talk about history, we completely forget the human cost of history. We talk about war. We talk about casualties. We talk about collateral damage. We dehumanize the human because that's much easier for us to read and have our [inaudible]. And my objective, one of my objectives in "Gratitude in Low Voices" is to awaken our consciousness. History does eat people, especially Eritrean history. When 53 countries in Africa were granted their independence in the 1960s, Eritrea was the only one, Eritreans were the only ones that were not granted that opportunity. And guess what? That's supposed to be in considerations for security and world peace. Isn't that oxymoron? 

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We will secure peace by putting the lives of others in danger. And to someone, this might be a correlation but this is more than correlation. This is a causation. This is a cause and effect because Eritreans were not given that right to determine their fate. They have become refugees and they are stranded all over the world till this day. So that's why when I said my story does not from the date of my birth because the circumstances that defined my fate go much deeper. So I spent ten years to write a memoire and I spend most of the time, maybe seven to eight years, doing research on Eritrea. The African proverb goes, "Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." Case in point. The story of Eritreans, you don't find it in many places because it was intentionally avoided because the other side was glorified. And again, I'm extremely grateful to Mr. Mike Bloomberg for his endorsement when he wrote "A candid inspiring memoire of cultural and historical importance." We have to be candid even when it comes to history. We have to reconcile with our own history, the bad, the good and the ugly. And I have tried in "Gratitude in Low Voices" to present an accurate and properly referenced historical material. One thing that you'll find in "Gratitude in Low Voices" that you don't find in any other memoire is this book has more than 46 actual documented references because when historical events is presented, especially in a type of memoire, our references have to be properly documented. So I have gone out of my way. I spent more than two years to make sure my claims are properly documented. Well, to summarize, "Gratitude in Low Voices" is an Eritrean story. It is the story of Eritrea and the people of Eritrea. As one of the reviewers in Eritrea accurately described, she said, "Gratitude in Low Voices" is a memoire of a society." "Gratitude in Low Voices" is an American story. 

^M00:21:52
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I can't say much about other places that I have never been but what I witnessed in the society in this country is Americans are as decent as you could get, at a human level, at the personal level and that story needs to be told. That's why I believe this book an American story. At the end of the day, though, most of all, "Gratitude in Low Voices" is a universal human story. Thank you so much.

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[ Applause ] 
^M00:22:40

>> Fentahun Tiruneh: Do you have any comments or questions? 

>> Thank you very much for giving us the [inaudible] of your book. And I know that we're all excited to read the book itself. But I have a question. In terms of structure, of organization, how did you, how did you organize your source? Was it in phases? Was it chronologically? Was it in different experiences at different times? How did you organize your material?

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: The advantage I have is that by training, I'm a biophysicist. I have a biophysics degree. So I was trained how to do research. By profession, I'm a software engineer. So I'm trained how to think in blocks because it has been [inaudible] and for better or worse, by necessity I became a writer because that story needs to be told. So the organization is chronological but the challenge you find with chronological, with telling a story chronologically is and you are trying to provide a context, you have to know where to put that context because if the historical reference becomes a bit too far, then you might lose your audience. So you have to try to bring it as much as possible. And no matter how tempting it is to try to bring information to the book, you have to find a way to tie it to your story. So it was extremely, extremely challenging and I'm extremely grateful for the editors of the [inaudible] books in that we spent close to a year and a half trying to get that organization right. Give you case in point. It's easier to start with the date of my birth but fortunately it's my great grandmother who gave me the name. So to me, that's a good link to go back in terms of family history. And then I come to the late '80s, '89, that's when I had to leave Eritrea because I was drafted into the Ethiopian army. So that is also the perfect place to bring the close of the war and to try to give context.

^M00:25:18

So it was extremely challenging but eventually it becomes gratifying because the proper contexts were able to put it in the right place. But the simple answer is it's a chronological starting -- Actually the title of the first chapter is "What is in a Name" because there was a great deal of squabble when my great grandmother was giving me my name. Now that gives me an opportunity because in Eritrea, you cannot give a name, same name as your family member who is still alive because I had a cousin who's name is Dawit. So that gives me an opportunity now to explore the cultural aspect of the society. Yes, sir? 

>> I was wondering if [inaudible] whether you wrote it in your Native language and how you arranged for translation. Also if you could maybe talk a little bit about how you [inaudible].

^M00:26:27

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: Got it. If I understand you correctly, one is how did I write it in my native language and get it translated. 

>> Right. Or did you write part of it in English?

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: Or did I write it part in English and part in my native language? The second part is how did I -- What is the process that I followed for publishing the book. For the first one, I actually wrote the book from the beginning to end in English. English is my kids' language. The first language I spoke is my mother tongue Tigrinya. In school, we were forced to learn Amharic. So we're taught using Amharic. Once I arrived in Kenya, survival forced me to learn Kiswahili. And then came to the US. So the option was either Spanish or English and I chose English. So I will explain part of the process. For Bloomberg, my responsibility is to manage the dev-ops, developmental operations team. And one of the principles of dev-ops is fail fast. And I failed actually badly at the beginning when I  had my first book draft ready in 2005. I sent it to publishers in 2006. I was rejected by more than 26 of them. And one of them gave me good advice. He called me to his office. He said he doesn't remember it because he's is the president of the company that published the book. So the idea he gave me was that I should go write an article to one of the New York publications and then an editor might pick it up and then they might interview me so that they could ghostwrite the book for me. It's a fair -- I took it as fair feedback because he's the only one who actually took his time to give me that feedback. And the message I received I took from that conversation was that I have a good story but my writing sucked. No way around it. So Professor Tekie Fessehatzion, who was the chairman of the economics department at Morgan, I relayed to him, I told him the feedback that I received and he suggested that I read about 15 books. So went back, started reading, and started writing online. And one of the best books that I read that seriously helped me with this book is titled the "Kaffir Boy," by Mark Mathabane, if I am not mistaken, South African. He has done an amazing job in terms of capturing the life of apartheid and how he survived as a young man and then how he came to the United States. So I kept reading, writing, reading, and writing. Finally, a miracle happened. A lot of people -- Well, I moved to New Jersey, I mean to --

^M00:30:04

I'm kind of in tears because it's a miracle that I can't say any, I can't describe it in any other way. I moved to Virginia and I got hired by a company called BNA for three-month contract. Well, six years later -- Actually five years later, Mike Bloomberg bought the company. I had quit his company, moved here, and he bought the company. And the new vice-president came. I was talking to him and I told him, listen, I have a great relationship with the Bloomberg company. Mike has done this for me. I've also drafted a book. So here it is. I gave him the draft. The story that I heard after that is I think about four months later this guy was flying back from New York. He sent me an email saying, Dawit, I need to talk to you. I have some interesting to talk to you. And I said, okay. I wanted until four. He didn't come. It was late. So the next day I walked to his desk and I said, what's going on. And his name is Joe Breda. He's now the president of B. Law, Bloomberg Law. He grabs me -- We went to his office and he said Mike Bloomberg was talking about you. I said I haven't talked to this guy for more than seven years. How did he end up talking about me. Joe Breda said that he was presenting to Mike Bloomberg and his senior management team and apparently Joe Breda forget a datapoint that he couldn't remember. So Mike was trying to make him feel at ease and he said, listen, I remember everything from my childhood. How can you, you know, he was trying to make him feel at ease and in the middle he said, except I forgot this guy's name. There was one guy. We gave him money. He went to Eritrea but couldn't remember his name. And Joe Breda told him, I know who you're talking about. He's like, no, you don't. How can you know, you just joined the company? He said his name is Dawit Habte. He said, yes. Where is he? He's like, he's working for you through BNA and he has written, he has drafted a book you may be interested in reading. And Breda told me he was going to send my name to Mike. I said don't do it. I will send him a thank you note and I said, Mike, thank you so much for remembering because we all live in each other's memory. And that is the most precious place we all have. And if this guy could put my name somehow in his [inaudible] by not remembering it, and he said, well I'll stop by when I come to DC. Stop by when you come to New York. Listen, you are paying for my flight. You are paying for the hotel. So I might as well go and say hi. And that is how -- So I can only take credit for writing it. The rest is so much positive coincidence that is completely outside of my control. And as you probably would realize reading the book, most of my life is outside of my control, a lot of -- The only thing that I might have done right is I hold on to people. I hold on to friendship. I don't let it go. Yes, sir?

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[ Inaudible Audience Question ] 
^M00:36:04

Yes. I think if I understand you correctly you are asking me have I taken into account the publications and books written by Eritreans who are professional historians. 

>> Have you been fair with the history of [inaudible]?

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: There is no dispute when it comes to the history of Eritrea. In fact, I intentionally avoided mentioning them in my book and I'll tell you why. Because I am Eritrean. I am presenting the Eritrean view and I have a responsibility to show publications and historical references that are written by non-Eritreans.  What is that?

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[ Inaudible Audience Comment ] 
^M00:36:55

No, no. I'm agreeing with you. I'm not arguing with you. I'm not arguing any of them. 

^M00:37:06
[ Inaudible Audience Comment ] 
^M00:37:07

Okay. Okay, let me try to elaborate and then you can correct me. The side of history that I have presented is the human cost, the human cost. What I'm saying is Eritreans have paid day in, day out for decisions that are made without their consultation. And this goes back, it doesn't start in 1950s. I just gave a reference. It goes back to the Italians. It goes back to the building of Suez Canal. Once Suez Canal was built, the Pandora's box opened in that area. Eritrea literally became a pawn in the chess game between the East and the West and people suffered. Their survival was a simple mechanism of taking care of each other. That is the whole point I've tried to make in this book. Fair enough?

>> Let's give a chance to others. We were discussing -- 

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: Hi, Helen. Yes?

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[ Inaudible Audience Question ] 
^M00:38:37

Yes. Helen is asking me I have spoken about what the book is. Can I also elaborate or speak about what the book is not. The book is not your typical memoire in that majority of the memoires that are written for self-promotion. I have done this. They become a resume of the individual who is trying to accomplish something. My accomplishment is simply to tell the human history of Eritrea and also the humanity that I encountered throughout the short life that I have lived so far. So it is not self-aggrandizing. That's why it's called "Gratitude in Low Voices." It's not self-promotion and I may take credit for doing C, but A, B and D are done by someone else. Most of it completely outside of my control. So it's not -- And it's not an autobiography. The gentleman, he mentioned a few books. All those books that he mentioned are actually autobiographies. They are not memoires. 

^M00:40:04

Memoire has a timeframe. It describes an event, a time and it's not from the beginning of life to end of life of somebody's accomplishments. What it is not? Yes, it is an inspiration because I wrote it because I needed inspiration. So you might read about my experience in the refugee camp and some nights walking through the forest of southern part of Ethiopia which I have never been before that but it's not for you to feel -- It doesn't portray for someone to feel sorry for me. It basically gives a perspective and actually it's presented in such a way that might have made me who I am. Thank you. 

>> Any more comments, questions?

^M00:41:04
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>> From someone who has a short memory, I'm wondering if this book was part of a diary or journal. Did you j[inaudible] that when you were growing up? How do you go back and remember names the way you did in the book [inaudible]? But for you, how do you remember [inaudible]?

^M00:41:35

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: Thank you. Sophie [assumed spelling] is asking me how the book is so detailed, how did you remember the details in terms of places, names, and events? Were you taking notes? Do you have some kind of diary? I did take notes. The day that I left home for some reason -- We have this calendar it's called [foreign word]. It's a small calendar. I left home with that calendar. So starting from the 5:00 a.m. we went to the airport to fly to [inaudible] and we didn't catch the morning flight. So we had to take the evening, the 6:00 pm flight. Starting from that, going through the southern part of Ethiopia, the forest and Kenya, through all that life I was actually taking notes. That [foreign word] I still have it and amazingly the benefit of that [foreign word] was it completely took me out of my physical presence.  Every time I went from my -- There were about seven of us. I went from the group and started writing. I was going away from the -- I basically I was transforming mentally to a different place. So that made all the suffering nonexistent. And one of our colleagues actually did tell me that, Dawit, why you even bother to write this nonsense? Aren't we're going to die anyway? Why bother? And my answer was simply so what. I will be dying writing. So what's the point. In terms of remembering my childhood, especially my childhood activities and the treasure is I'm extremely fortunate. I have people like Daniel sitting right here. We got lost when we were six or seven years old in the city of Asmara. So I have many of them and we meet every day, every weekend, every month, every Saturday we have a get together for Gejeret and what I did was after I wrote it, I doubled checked with them and they gave me feedback where yes, this is accurate. You may have missed this. That number you are wrong because they give me names. So I was able to get that information from my childhood friends. For the other personal stories of the people, I actually went and interviewed all of them. 

^M00:44:43
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Mebrahtu Negusse, [inaudible] who was my angel who came from heaven to actually, until six years old, until six grader -- Until I was in sixth grade, I didn't know to use dictionary and until I met that guy, his children showed me how to use dictionary and how to even they even showed me what a library was. For him, I knew he came to Boston. So I went, I drove there. We spent three days and nights interviewing and then getting all the facts that I needed. And after I wrote it, I sent it back to him when we back to Eritrea. He reviewed so I did go back -- I did interview a lot of people because again, this is personal story and it has to be accurate and it has to have proper context. 

>> Maybe one more. 

^M00:45:46
[ Inaudible Audience Question ] 
^M00:46:13

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: Yes. You are asking me to give some context to the title and also describe to you why "Gratitude in Low Voices."

>> Yeah, I like the title. I like the title of the book. I'm not sure what you meant by it. 

>> Dawit Gebremichael Habte: Yes. Okay. It actually came from the book and I am trying -- Yes, on page 36. 

^M00:46:47
^M00:46:51

Usually when I came home from school with my test results, mom would say, "Son, how did you do this time?" From her tone, I could easily tell that she was concerned. Mom would start searching from sticks marked with x in red pen on my exam papers. At times she would count two or three x marks out of 20 or 30. Once she finished counting the x marks, she would straighten her head and say, "Son, what happened? Were you sleeping in class?" No, [foreign word]," I would respond. [foreign word] is my mom. "Look, I got seven correct," I would protest while selectively placing my finger on the questions I answered correctly. "Of course," mom would say, "why else would you go to school then? I don't think you understand my question. I'm asking you if you were asleep in class half of the time. Otherwise, how could you miss this many? But [foreign word], the others got a lot more wrong than me. This is a good grade," I would protest. "Those are not kids, son," my mom would say. Our exchange would continue with my mom pulling me close to her for a warm hug. This time though, this is when I brought an award from school. I was first from my first grade so I brought an award. So this is the time. "This time though mom's tone was more of excitement and elation. Grace be upon all you saints for delivering my prayers to our father in heaven. Thank you, Saint Mary, for watching over my family. Thank you, [inaudible], for this day. The gratitude of my mother would continue in low voices for me to hear until tears starting wailing up in my mom's eyes. Mom then looked at me with a big smile somewhat trying to hide her emotions. Mom's low voice and her broad smile were the most powerful expressions of love and compassion no amount of words could express. That's where the gratitude in low voices came from. Thank you so much. 

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[ Applause ] 
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