Mohammad Tajsar and his older brother, Yousef, have never been to Iraq. But for their entire lives, their parents have told them stories about the country and why their family had to flee before they were born.

On Sunday, the two brothers voted in the first Iraqi election in over three decades, helping fulfill a dream their parents have had since they left their homeland over 25 years ago.

“They lost family and so much of their lives. (My parents) wanted to stay in Iraq. ... For them this is still a foreign country. It means so much for them,” said Yousef, a fifth-year political science student.

Their mother, Jenan, left Iraq the day she finished school studying to be a pharmacist. She was only 20 years old and said she left because she and her family were afraid, both for their lives and that they would be arrested because she refused to join the Ba’ath party, the ruling party in Iraq.

“We were really in a dangerous situation,” said Jenan, who is now 44 and lives in Los Angeles. “I had five of my cousins that were tortured and murdered. It was every day that we expected that they would be arresting us.”

From Iraq, Jenan traveled to Lebanon and then to Syria where she met her husband Kazem, another Iraqi refugee. They were soon engaged but the romance was bittersweet because many of their friends and family were still in danger and some were being tortured by Saddam Hussein and members of his regime.

“We didn’t even celebrate our wedding because we were so sad. ... We were not like ordinary couples,” Jenan said.

The couple continued to move around the Near and Middle East, and Yousef was born in Kuwait before the family finally settled in Iran.

Yousef says he remembers their life in Iran as somewhat hectic. Sometimes his extended family living in Tehran would show up at their house to live for a while because bombs were being dropped on or near the city, Yousef said. Mohammad and his younger brother were born in Iran before the family left for the United States in 1994.

They left so Kazem could obtain another license to practice dentistry. He eventually studied at UCLA and they decided to stay in the area after he finished.

For Jenan, the voting on Sunday was not just a civic duty, but a celebration of the fall of Saddam and the forces that originally drove them from Iraq.

“It’s not just we are going to vote, it’s a celebration thing. I feel that I am voting for my friends, those who gave their lives for Iraq. And of course I vote for the future of my country and the kids who lost a father and a mother that were killed by this Ba’athist regime and dictatorship. It’s like a dream come true,” she said.

Mohammad, an 18-year-old first-year English student, said his family is excited about voting, but is skeptical of the process and of how much of an effect it will have on security and stability in Iraq.

“I think the biggest thing is that there’s a skepticism about my whole family to reflect how we feel,” Mohammad said, adding that the elections may only be a metaphor for democracy and freedom for his family and Iraq.

“It is kind of sort of a closure for my parents to finally say that we got rid of one of the worst ... like a kind of conversion from the past to the present,” Mohammad said.

Yousef, who has been working at the polling stations as a technical advisor in preparation for the elections, also echoed that skepticism of the elections, but said he still hopes elections will begin to provide security and autonomy for Iraqis.

“The war destroyed any kind of infrastructure in Iraq. Creating a government is the only way for Iraq to start creating an infrastructure,” Yousef said.

Despite the skepticism, the Tajsar family made its way from Los Angeles to Irvine Sunday morning, leaving around noon to make the hour-long trip.

And though Yousef and Mohammad have never been to Iraq, their mother hopes it will bring them closer to their people.

“I told them just to have a relationship with the people in Iraq; just to give them support,” Jenan said. “When you vote, you build a relationship between you and those people over there, and you belong to those people.”