Rangina Hamidi has been a refugee three times in her life.
“My family decided to flee Afghanistan in 1981, right after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan,” said Hamidi. She was a young girl then, four years old. But she vividly remembers being driven full speed through the desert at night with no headlights so the Russian warplanes overhead would not spot them.
Rangina Hamidi, former education minister of Afghanistan and current professor of practice at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.
Hamidi loves the country she grew to think of as home away from home. But her homeland Afghanistan called for her and she returned in 2003, becoming the first female education minister of Afghanistan in over 30 years. She raised her daughter there as she worked to rebuild a nation that she loved, hoping to increase educational opportunities for women.
In August 2021, she was forced to flee again, after the U.S. left Afghanistan and Kabul fell to the Taliban.
Once again, Hamidi found shelter in America, this time as a professor of practice at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University (ASU).
“I try to remain the brave soul. But at the same time, it has shattered me, incredibly, internally. I don’t know what to call home anymore.” said Hamidi. “It shatters human beings, individuals, and trying to live with that pain and that loss.”
