Before Opening Her Salon, This Portland Hairstylist Was One of the First Women to Serve in the Iraqi Military

The clients at Zeenh Aljaff’s salon in Northeast Portland are probably unaware that the woman cutting, dyeing and styling their hair was a trailblazer in her home country.

Before she moved to Portland a decade ago, Aljaff was one of the first women to serve in the Iraqi military, working with the U.S. to teach American soldiers to speak Arabic.

The Iraqi armed forces were rebuilt after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, while working closely with the U.S. military, and Aljaff’s Arabic language skills made her an attractive recruit. It was a good job at a time when finding work was tough. But Aljaff says she also enlisted to help women play a more prominent role in the military and government in Iraq.

“It was before any women joined the military,” she says. “They told me it was a good move to start getting women in the military.”

The job didn’t send her to a combat zone, but the political climate put her at risk—her daughter was briefly taken by political opponents who did not approve of her work. After meeting her husband, an American serviceman from Oregon, Aljaff decided to move to the U.S., and brought her two daughters and son with her.

Aljaff says she always loved to do hair. She grew up helping her older sister run a hair salon in Baghdad, and even while serving in the military, she trimmed her friends’ hair on the side.

She waited two years to get her visa. Aljaff moved to Portland around 2005, and immediately began working toward opening her own hair salon. But she had to take English lessons and go to beauty school to get licensed to do the same work she did at her sister’s salon in Iraq.

“I decided to go back and get my hair license because I really enjoyed doing it,” she says. “My English wasn’t good, so I was doing the ESL class plus beauty school. I found that some people were mean, because it was very hard for me to learn. And they started to make fun of me.”

Aljaff brushed off the taunts. She took English classes at Portland Community College and then went back to beauty school.

“I felt that I was less,” she says, “so I had to work extra to graduate with everyone else.”

It’s been more than a decade since she graduated and received her license to style hair in Oregon. She rented space in a salon in the Pearl District for years before opening her own place, Meraki Hair Studio (6633 NE Sandy Blvd., Suite F, mymerakihairstudio.com) in the Roseway neighborhood a little over a year ago.

“I’m really, really happy,” she says. “I have peace of mind.”