Source: The Greeley Tribune
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20100301/NEWS/100309996/-1/RSS
Tissa Hami knows something about being hijacked.
Her budding career fell victim to cratering public opinion toward people of Middle Eastern descent in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Hami is essentially American, having lived in the United States most of her life. But she was born in Iran to Iranian parents and lived there until she was 5. She grew up in predominantly white, suburban Boston and was on a scholarly path — her father holds a Ph.D. in computer science and her mother is a dentist — until all career options suddenly went sideways.
After earning a master's degree in international affairs at Columbia University, she spent a stint in Paris.
“I came back to the United States on Labor Day weekend 2001,” Hami says. “A week-and-a-half later 9/11 happened. Two Ivy League degrees, and I could not get a job.”
She remained unemployed for more than a year. Hami came to realize her career would likely not pan out as she'd dreamt.