Fifteen years ago, in the face of a conflict he could not condone, Raheem Alkinani fled his native Iraq with only the shirt on his back . . .
. . . and the know-how to make another one.
Meet Salt Lake City's newest entrepreneur: master tailor Raheem Alkinani. Amid similar fanfare that accompanied his departure from his native land in the spring of 1991, when he sneaked across the border to Saudi Arabia with the assistance of U.S. soldiers, Raheem opened his shop, Elegant Tailoring, in June at 673 S. 700 East in Salt Lake City.
All 288 square feet of what the man who now proudly pays taxes on the place refers to as "my American dream."
His neighbors are the $4 Haircut Shop and the Oriental Food Market. A block away is Trolley Square.
Seven thousand miles away, give or take, is the original Elegant Tailoring. It is located in downtown Baghdad and managed by Raheem's identical twin brother, Mohammad.
For 15 years, Raheem has not seen his brother, or the family tailor shop where their father, Hussain, taught them their craft.
But at least now he has the next best thing: a franchise in America.
At 34, Raheem has lived almost as long outside Iraq as in it. He was 19 in the summer of 1990 when he left Saddam Hussein's army after the now-deposed Iraqi dictator invaded Kuwait and set the stage for the Persian Gulf War. Raheem hid in his sister's house until he could make it across the border. "I knew it was wrong," he says of invading Kuwait, "I knew I had to leave."
He told no one he was leaving — except his twin brother, who elected to stay.
He spent five years in a Saudi refugee camp until the U.N. and Catholic Social Services put him on a plane in 1996 and dropped him here, in Salt Lake City.
He got a job at McDonald's — the ultimate American franchise — before he could pronounce "Big Mac."
He's worked here, there and everywhere in the years since. He was employed at a Maverik convenience store in Union Park in 1998 when he met Jaimee Thiriot, who in 2003 became his wife. Two months ago, on June 2, their daughter, Dalia, was born — one day after the grand opening of Elegant Tailoring.
"It's been some summer," understates Raheem, who raised the funds to open his shop by spending much of the last year traveling back and forth to California to work as a translator for the U.S. Army to help prepare soldiers on their way to Iraq.
He says he worries constantly about his twin brother, his mother and his seven other brothers and sisters, all of whom are still in Baghdad. He hopes to visit them with Jaimee and Dalia one day. But now it is not safe. Just two weeks ago, he was scanning the Internet for news and there, big as life, was a photograph of his brother Mohammad, his face twisted in agony as he walked through a Baghdad street moments after a car bomb explosion.
Sitting in his new shop, Raheem holds the picture gingerly. The man in the photo looks exactly like him. "My brother and I talk on the phone all the time," he says. "I tell him to just stay home, don't go out. I'll send money."
But of course Mohammad won't just stay home, and his brother knows it. Every day, Mohammad will open the doors to Baghdad's Elegant Tailoring, the same as Raheem half a world away in Salt Lake City.
It's what they do.
"To see the look on his face while he's working, it's really something" says Jaimee Alkinani of her entrepreneur husband. "It's a look of peace — he's living his dream."
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.