Amran Ali 0:03
Today is Wednesday, December 11. My name is Amran Ali. This interview is for the
Muslims and Minnesota project for Augsburg University. If you can introduce
yourself to the recording and say when and where you were born.
Ayan Daud 0:19
Hello, my name is Ayan Daud. I was born ... Show more
Amran Ali 0:03
Today is Wednesday, December 11. My name is Amran Ali. This interview is for the
Muslims and Minnesota project for Augsburg University. If you can introduce
yourself to the recording and say when and where you were born.
Ayan Daud 0:19
Hello, my name is Ayan Daud. I was born in Mozambique. But I was raised in South
Africa for first ten years of my life.
I was born January 12 2000.
Amran Ali 0:36
Thank you. To begin Can you describe how life was for you growing up in South
Africa.
Ayan Daud 0:45
Um, so I've lived in like I mentioned earlier, I've lived in South Africa up until
I was 10. Before then, my life consisted of basically going to school and going to
Dugsi afterwards and dugsis basically a Muslim, where you learn more about like
Islam. So, in the morning I used to get up to go to school around 7am or 6:30am.
Actually, I had to be at school at 7am. I finished my classes by two. And at three
after coming home, I had to go to Dugsi, and I was a Dugsi from three to seven. So
that's what my life consisted of every day. Going to school we usually have to
walk. I usually walk with me it was me, my sister. And we also had a housemaid. So
it was the three of us every morning walking to school, and back and after coming
back, we had to also walk to Dugsi. And the thing was like not everything was
further like the most It was like walking a mile and driven like like walking to
school or dugsi, it was actually kind of fun because you always want to walk with
the people you go to school
with
your neighbors, so We all usually go to the same school so we all walk together go
to school and to Dugsi. So my life basically just consistented of going to school
and to dugsi and coming home, doing my homework, going to bed and then repeating
the same thing the next day. The only off day I had was basically Sundays and
Sundays was getting ready for the next day, prepping for school, making sure I did
all my homework, and just having a good time with my family on Sundays.
Amran Ali 2:29
Awesome, thank you. Do you remember life in Mozambique? How long were you in
Mozambique? I know you were raised in South Africa. But
Ayan Daud 2:38
I was born in Mozambique, but I don't remember anything because I don't think I was
there for that long. My mom, I think she was pregnant when she came to Mozambique,
and I was basically just born there. And like it was kinda like because it was
during like, the reason why I was born there was like a lot of moving was because
of like the civil war that happened in Somalia. So like my parents did not have
like one place they were at. They constantly had to move around. Mozambique, Kenya,
they've been everywhere Ethiopia. So it wasn't.. they all... they never really
lived in one specific spot. So I think we lived there for like, what, two months
after I was born and they had to like, move again. So like, I don't have any
memories of me living in Mozambique at all.
Amran Ali 3:19
Okay. And then just to quickly clarify, what would you say you identify as?
Ayan Daud
3:29
Whenever I'm asked this question, I've always kind o.. I'm just like oh What
should I say? Because I was born in Mozambique. But I was raised in South Africa,
but I identify as Somali. So many identities that I come from. So whenever I get
asked this question, I have to specifically always ask, "Oh like do you mean where
I was born, or where I was raised, or what I am. So usually, I always say I'm
Somali just to kind of be safe, but like, if people ask more specifics, that's when
I kinda explain my whole life journey like I was born here. I was raised here. I
moved here. So it's like a lot of places. I've lived in a lot of places. But to
answer your question, when I'm asked, What am I? I always say I'm Somali.
Amran Ali 4:12
Thank you.
And now can you recall like any specific events, it can be from your childhood, it
can be from now, that like shape that you would say shaped how you approach the
world in general shaped who you are as a person, being a Somali
person.
Ayan Daud 4:34
Growing up, when I was in South Africa, I used to always think because a lot of the
people that I knew that were older, so older, meaning like over 18, and that's when
everyone kind of stops going to... I mean, that's when like everyone like leaves
high school. I used to always see them they all kind of graduate and they did not
do anything. And the most of the of the people I knew were all like, refugees, so
like Somali refugees, and basically that's all I knew when I was in South Africa. I
did have other friends but they were all kind of in the same situation so like
after the 12th grade, they all kind of just stopped going to school and this wasn't
because they wanted to stop going it's because of like the money and then being as
refugees they didn't have like the money to go to school or two college because it
was very very expensive and like scholarships weren't offered as it is here. So I
remember being nine and just thinking of my like future and seeing that it kind of
stops once I turned 18 like there's nothing after that. Basically, I'm just
basically I'm just basically working or being like a hard life just working
basically no schooling, not having a future of becoming a doctor or nurse or an
accountant anything you name it like I did not have any of that. So kind of moving
to the US it kind of I kind of saw like oh wow, I actually have a future now I can
actually do something learn something, be something and I think that having like
that mindset as a child, kind of made me work harder once I moved to the US to work
harder to become what I want to be basically go to school. Because we don't usually
have the opportunities we have here in America in other countries. So like moving
here, and like having the experience in South Africa, seeing how everyone kind of
stopped going to school in the 12th grade made me work harder cuz I have, I have
something like a lot of people do not have I have, I have like, basically going to
school scholarships, just the family I have, like a lot of people don't have
anything I have. So that kind of that's one of the things that make me work harder.
Amran Ali 6:42
Thanks. Thank you so much. That was very insightful Ayan.
Yeah, cool. So this is going to be a good transition. Let's segue into you coming
from South Africa coming to America. When did you come here. Do you remember the
first day? Everything about that and then just How life was different from living
in South Africa when you came here.
Ayan Daud 7:05
So I remember the first day actually, it was Eid, I think, Eid 2010
I was with my mom and my sister and we were at this mall basically we're shopping
for Eid. And that's when my mom got a call. And basically the call is very
important call because literally, it was Eid so before it is a whole month of
Ramadan. And during the whole month of Ramadan is basically just praying asking for
forgiveness, asking, just praying. And every time I prayed, I'd always pray, "Oh I
wish," like basically it's this... It's a process we have to go through to get to
the US. And usually it's kind of picky on who goes. So during that whole month I'd
pray every single day or like I hope because that's something my mom really wanted.
So I was praying "Oh, I really hope my mom gets what she wants. I hope we end up
going to the US" like I've been just praying and the day it was towards the end of
Ramadan and we were shopping for eid. And it was with me my sister and my mom like
I said earlier and that's when my mom got a call about our flight on when we're
leaving to the US and that was like the happiest I've seen my mom like actually
like it was my mom my sister and me. And it was kind of like all like wow like my
prayers actually got answered like, it meant so much to me and my sister and my mom
at the time, and no one knew about it was just three of us. And I remember going
home after shopping and I told my mom...I saw like my mom telling my dad and my
brothers and like everyone was just so happy because it's such a huge deal
especially when you're in South Africa and all they hear is someone's going to the
US is like such a big deal because it means so much to a lot of people like being
able to go to the US and actually follow your dreams. So after all that I remember
the day we were leaving. We were at the airport, we had all my mom's friends, all
my friends because all of my mom's friends kids were my friends so it was like
everyone was at the airport. And they were kind of just kind of making sure we like
left and just saying our last goodbyes and everything. And as we're on the
airplane, it was like, I think it was a 20 hour flight. It was like a whole day. So
we went to Germany first. It was actually more than a day. I'm not even gonna lie.
The first time we landed in Germany and after Germany, we went to Chicago. And
after Chicago, we landed in Kentucky. That's where we were. The first place we
actually moved was Louisville, Kentucky. And I just remember when we came, it was
kind of different. Like,
it wasn't what I expected it to be because a lot of the stuff you see on TV is just
like wow, like beautiful green.
Like basically there's no bad thing in America. Basically, everything is green.
Everyone's just happy. But coming I just saw like a lot of
like, it wasn't cute, like it was ugly. It was like Louisville, Kentucky, like
there was trash on the floor.
It was just it wasn't what I expected it to be. I thought we were going to live in
a big house but it was like a townhome with a lot of houses attached, it was kind
of different. I was expecting like, oh, we're going to live in a big house. But
like seeing that I was like, Oh damn, life isn't what the TV shows basically,
basically, we moved in, um going to school here was way different. So like, the
school was different. We had a school bus that picked us up in the morning. And
back in South Africa. We had to walk to school, there were no buses to pick anyone
up. It's either you find a way to go to school or you didn't go to school,
basically. So that was something new, like literally, there was a big yellow bus I
see on TV every day back in South Africa that came to my door picked me up to go to
school. And I remember the school I actually went to it was... I was in elementary
so I was in fifth grade at the time. The school I actually went to was a uniform
school. But on TV, like whenever I watched like American movies, we didn't see
like, Oh, it was uniform. We always saw like everyone wore what they want to wear,
you know, but like this was different school we actually had to wear uniform and
I.. so the first day of school, me and my three other siblings, we dressed up as
like regular, you know like, we don't need a uniform. And as we got on the bus we
saw everyone on the bus was wearing uniforms but us, which is kinda... It was kind
of awkward and kind of embarrassing because you're like a little fifth grader. And
all my siblings were younger than me. So it was just like, I was that big person
and like, it was kind of embarrassing at the time, I was like, Oh, well, I look
cuter than everyone I guess. Anyways, yeah, so that's something that was different.
Like it was kind of weird. Like, we didn't really get into the American lifestyle
and like, we kind of got attached to it after like a couple weeks and kind of
adapted to the new lifestyle. Something else that was different too like we didn't,
like I said earlier, like we went to Dugsi, five days a week, no six days a week,
but moving to the US, we didn't have the opportunity to do that. Because like,
classes ended, what three o'clock and after three there's so many other stuff you
have to do. Like, whether it's being in sports, whether it's being in extra
curriculars whether it's just been as a American student, you have to be very well
rounded. So a lot of we kind of kind of drifted apart from going to Dugsi. And
basically just kind of adapt to the American lifestyle, which is basically making
yourself like a more rounded person playing sports, painting, doing music and all
this other stuff. So we kind of switched to going to like dugsi once a week, or
twice a week, actually, which was Saturday and Sundays. So that was something
different we had to kind of actually adapt to which was like the American
lifestyle. So we kind of have to have a balance of Okay, we should go to school,
but we should also still stick with our religion learn more about religion. So I
feel like that's one of the biggest transitions like kinda like our time is kind of
changing, like how our schools change. Like my mom never worked in South Africa
because it was actually very, very hard to find a job. But once coming to America,
literally she had to pay. And My dad wasn't with us at the time. So she has to be
the one who paid rent. She had to be the one who got a car. So it was kind of hard
at first like my mom. She had to find a job to pay for the house bills. And then
for while we didn't have a car, so my mom had to learn how to take the bus, and
everything. So I feel like that's one of the biggest changes. It was a huge culture
shock when we came here.
Amran Ali 13:26
Awesome. Thank you for that. And I know you just mentioned how your mom had to
like, navigate the world as an immigrant. How, how would you say? How was that
like? Where did you guys live? I know now you live in Eagan, Minnesota. And I dont
think you guys have buses over there. Where'd you guys live? What did your mom do?
Yeah, so
Ayan Daud 13:55
um, when my mom first came looking for a job was hard. But when She ended up
finding one it was at a daycare in Kentucky, Louisville. And at the daycare, she
basically took care of children. I remember like going on the bus is something I
really really do not like is taking the bus because it's such a hassle, you have to
be at the stop. And at the time my mom had a baby. And my baby was my baby brother
was six, seven months. And she had to literally walk with him to the bus, get on
the bus. So it was like a lot, especially having like a six, seven month old baby.
And it was at the time it was winter too. So just imagine having to have the
stroller with the baby, you, your boots and snow kind of just walking through
walking to the bus station. I just I kind of just imagined just like Damn, that's
kind of hard. I'm just kind of imagining what my mom had to go through at the time,
being like the single mother at the time with with five children having to walk to
work to like the bus station with the baby because she worked at a daycare so she
had to take my baby brother with her. So I'm just kind of imagining that was kind
of hard, but um Actually, it was like after that after working, she did end up
buying a car, which was kind of easier. Now she didn't have to walk to the bus
station. She had her car, she could just take my brother in there and go to work.
But after that, it's been like a year... after a year that's where my dad came from
South Africa. So once he got here, it was kinda like my dad kind of saw. Like, we
didn't have a lot of family in Kentucky. So that's when my dad was kind of like,
okay, yeah, this is not it. We're going to move to Minnesota. And Minnesota. We
have so much family here. All of my dad's childhood friends were here. My mom's
family, my dad's family. So my dad kind of thought about it and said Yeah, we
should probably move to the US. Umm not the US.. to Minnesota because we have so
much family there. And I feel like I feel like that was the best choice for us
because kind of just thinking back like, back in Kentucky. We had like one family
there. But it wasn't really like... It wasn't really it so like moving to Minnesota
where there's a huge Somali Muslim population and there's so many more
opportunities jobs like so many other stuff you could do so I think that was like
such a good thing to do moving here with all of us and the first place we moved to
was Medelia Minnesota which is down south by Mankato. I don't know why my dad even
moved there. The school I went there, the school I went to there was... I was the
only me and my sister were the only black Muslim Somali people there like literally
it was a school. It was one school in the whole city. So it was like a middle and
high school attached. So you can just imagine how small it is. And literally the
whole everyone there was all white. But me and my sister I don't know why my dad
ever thought about moving there. But fast forward. It was a year later. That's when
my dad was like, okay, we're going to move up to Minneapolis area, the Twin Cities
area and that's how we kind of moved to Eagan, Minnesota, and literally just been
living here ever since and I don't think we're moving
anywhere after this.
Amran Ali 17:11
Awesome, thank you so much for sharing that.
So let's talk family dynamics. Of course, you're a lot older than you were when you
lived in South Africa. The culture in the United States is a lot different. Like
since you were going to like Dugsi six days a week and like you were very in touch
with your religion, all of them and everything changed once you got here. How would
How was your experience like navigating your teenage years? But also still like
adhering to your family expectations since you're still Somali Muslim girl, you
know, there's some rules.
Ayan Daud 17:46
so going, Okay, one new change like I said earlier with like, in South Africa, we
did have to go to dugsi six days a week, school five days a week, literally spent
all day just studying and doing my homework and stuff. There was no extra
curricular There was no sports, there was nothing like that. So moving here one big
change was in order to get to the best colleges in order to like do big things. You
had to be involved in extracurriculars. Like Yes, you did have the school day but
they also wanted you to be involved outside school, whether it was sports, whether
it was extracurriculars, whether it was college possible Avid. There was so much
other stuff you had to do so during my ten years something I did kind of struggle
with was kinda having my parents understand
Like
because they have this mindset. My parents have changed a lot actually over the
past couple years. But remembering the beginning like they wouldn't let me all
like... they want me to be home exactly right after school and they wanted me to be
home because they had this mindset or like they had this mindset like
extracurriculars. Like sometimes. I don't know they have so many they've heard so
many stories about just kids not ending up in a good way because they weren't home
as the classes ended like anything after like school it was basically just bad
things literally you get attached to other students and like, it kind of leads to
bad things. That's kind of what their mindset was at the moment. And it didn't
really make sense. But like now they kind of like have grown out of that they've
learned and adapted to American lifestyle of basically, having your children kind
of experience things outside of school, whether it's, like I mentioned at the
whether it's like extracurriculars, basically, either it's sports, college prep
programs, like music, or just anything that's extra outside of school. So basically
just building out your resume and building up yourself, having experiences seeing
what you like, what you don't like. So yeah, it was kind of hard at first with me
and my sister being the oldest, we kind of have to try everything for my little
siblings. And now that me and my sister have been through it, and we've made our
parents kind of understand all this is something that has to be done outside of
like classes or also like going to dugsi that's something we still have to do. Like
going to Dugsi on Saturday and Sunday mornings, so just being a very well rounded
person and like also making sure like my parents understood that we have to kind of
adapt to the American lifestyle. It's something that we've kind of had to tell
them. So, yeah, that's something I think my parents have kind of learned and grown
into.
Amran Ali 20:22
Awesome, thank you.
And let's see. So, I know like now you're in college, you're were in high school
before.
Did you deal with boyfriends all of that? any of that fun stuff, you know.. How did
your parents take it?
Ayan Daud 20:46
I actually like I said, like, I was never, I didn't really go to a school full of
my type of people like I have. I have a specific type. And the schools I went to a
majority like all white people and so yeah I just never really had that experience
of dealing with guys like I literally just went to school and I did not care or
looked at anybody like I just did me and my friends and that was it. Like I did not
worry about any other people literally like I was just doing me and so I'd never no
one really ever turned my eye or any of that and I literally I lived in the burbs
so literally all I did was I went to school, did my extracurriculars and came home
like I never really were doing anything outside of school so I did I went to
school, I did activities in school and I came home literally like I was kind of a
very narrowed person so I didn't really worry about any guys or any that up until I
believe my once I kind of came to college, that's when I kind of... because I moved
to Minneapolis. I started going to Augsburg university where there was like more
diverse people. And I was just more into the like the Minneapolis community and
that's when I kind of started like, kind of having like you know not I've never had
a boyfriend Gosh, kind of just talking to people and stuff like that. So yeah, I
think that's one of the reasons why I never really experienced things with guys in
like my high school years is because they weren't really my type. And I did not
care literally, like I did not feel any type of way towards anyone during my high
school years. Period.
Amran Ali 22:18
Okay, so just to be kind of imaginative here, Say it were up to you. Would you say
that? Would you think... would you have stayed in South Africa and not moved to the
United States like seeing your experiences here compared to your life in South
Africa? Or would you also have chosen to come to the United States.
Ayan Daud 22:42
So just thinking back at the time when I was younger, I was kind of mad that we're
moving. I was like, Oh no, like all my friends, all my family's here like I'm gonna
have to re adapt to a new lifestyle, New Friends New like everything new basically
so kind of just thinking back. I think my parents did make the best choice for us
moving here cuz just thinking about it. In South Africa, there's so much going on.
There's xenophobia, which is basically the South Africans, the black South Africans
against other refugees coming to the country. So some things they will do. She's
kind of burned down, burned down, like businesses, basically. Yeah. So I had my
uncle's business that was burned down and stuff like that. So there was so much
other stuff going on, that were against refugees, and somalis were refugees. And
that's what my family was. So my dad has experienced, actually, he was coming home
from work, and they tried to rob him and they actually like took a knife and kind
of slanted his leg behind his like caps. So it's just been a lot of like, a lot of
hatred towards refugees. Burning down their businesses. Um, my uncle's house was
actually robbed by South African policeman. So that just shows you how like The
whole like, mindset of like the police, even the own, you don't even trust the own
police. Literally, they came in the house, they took the gold and everything. And
they kind of just ran away. Like if you search up the article, you end up seeing it
still. This happened like 2011 2012, I think. And it's just so much stuff that's
going on and like even the police, the government, everything's kind of corrupt. So
just kind of thinking back. I'm glad my parents made the choice to move to the US.
Because I feel like I would have never really had a life back in South Africa. I
would not be going to school. I probably be working but I don't even know what I'd
be working on because there were barely any jobs. Like where I lived in were all
like owned by business people like It's like my dad even had a business back there.
And literally he only hires what two people. So it wasn't like a lot of jobs for
people like literally everyone was a business owner and they made a little. They
weren't even making a lot of money. So I think thinking back like I would have
never really had a future if I still lived in, um, South Africa, I probably would
have had children by now if I'm being honest. Just thinking about it sounds crazy,
like at this age, I don't think I can ever have a family or like children. It's
just kind of kind of crazy just thinking about it. But yeah, like, I really think
my parents made the best choice. Now like, basically all my siblings like me and my
sister both go to college. Two of my siblings are in high school. Currently, I have
one younger brother, and he's, he's in third grade. So, like, we're all like going
to school now. We're all learning. We all have a future, what we want to become.
And so yeah, I'm really glad my parents made the choice of moving here.
Amran Ali 25:42
Awesome. Thank you.
Yeah, so
you said you previously said you identify as Somali. I'm also going to just go on a
limb and assume that you identify as a Somali Muslim woman. Okay, so as a Somali
Muslim woman, let's start here. Let's start in South Africa. I know you were like,
10 when you're there, but like, have you ever experienced any type of
discrimination there? I know you said your dad experienced some. Have you
experienced anything personally?
Ayan Daud 26:18
Personally, back in South Africa, I feel like
there was there was like a lot of discrimination going against especially South
Africa is kind of majority Indian people. Like the school like the building I lived
in had a lot of Indians living and the school I went to there weren't a lot of
Indians, but there were Indians. And the Indians always kind of thought they were
kind of above everyone there. All the black people so that they were.. they thought
they were like, there was whites, and the Indians and then coloreds and then Black
people, so they kind of thought they were above us in a way. So I'd always like
kind of walk with my mom and like there was always the guy who owned our house.
When my parents were kind of renting our house it was owned by an Indian guy and
you can kind of just tell like how kinda I was kinda young at the time, I didn't
really see it. But now kind of just thinking back at it, I did kind of see like the
discrimination against my parents. I kind of experience that with them too, because
I was with them at the time. Yeah, but like kind of moving to the US. I never
personally experienced it. I've always had people look at me some type of way, or
like, I feel like but no one's ever no one really ever said it to my face actually.
But I've had a lot of stories where my friends have been actually been through
something. Actually one of my friends
got stopped by
the cops. A couple weeks ago, couple months I think. And the one thing she did was
basically he told her to get her registration and license out. And as she was
reaching over to the outside to get her registration out, and she was handing it
over to him, her license fell through a crack between I think the two chairs and as
she wanted to reach to get it, she saw that his hand kind of moved towards the gun.
And that's when she kind of kind of got scared and she had her hands kind of on the
dashboard. And basically she told him if you want it, you go get it because she
kind of saw his hand go towards the gun. And as we all know, America and white cops
are like basically very dangerous in a way if you think about it, especially
against black Americans, because literally every time we're pulled over especially
by white cop, every black person I believe, always has that thought of what if they
shoot me like I believe I've never been pulled over. But I believe if I were to be
pulled over that's one thing I'd be scared of. What if they end up shooting me or
what if something happens or like kind of just been scared or you just have to be
very aware sometimes because like, there's so many things that go on we've seen so
many injustice going on in America with the cops and black people so kind of just
that kind of experience got me kind scared when she told me about it, it was
actually something that could have easily happened or easily been twisted by the
cop. So yeah, so as she told him, like, you can go grab it because she saw him go
towards the gun. He kind of just left it alone just said, Oh, just give me your
name, and your name, your last name. He kind of just took our information. He
didn't grab the ID or anything. And at the time, she did get a speeding ticket and
she went to court for it. And so there were two people at the time it was her and
there was this other white lady in front of her and they both were they both had
the same charges, which were they both was driving at a 65. No, they weren't
driving at 65. The thing says it's 65 but they were driving like 20 over which was
like 85 so the lady in front of her she was a white woman. She was probably like 40
years old. And she was there, the cops they kind of dismissed her case. They
basically just gave her a warning and dismissed her case, mind you they both had
the same charges. And this time it was actually my friends turn to kind of go in
front of the judge and they didn't even let her explain herself. They didn't ask
any questions basically, they kind of just were like "oh".. they kind of, they
said that they were going to reduce the 85 speed limit to 70. But it'd be on her
record for five years, and they didn't give her a chance to kind of explain herself
as she is a college student. She is just now starting her life. And the woman like
right in front of her she saw this with her own two eyes, it happened in the same
court room, they kind of just let her go off with a warning. So you just kind of
see all the stuff that goes around like as a black Muslim students like as young
adults, all the stuff that kind of will always kind of discriminated against. And
this was kind of firsthand she saw with our own eyes like all this is when you have
to actually kind of be aware, okay, yes, I'm different. And that's something I
gotta deal with. There's nothing we could ever do to change people's mindset but
just yea, but just like experiences like that, I've seen so many stuff on the news.
I've had so many other friends that have been through stuff like this. So it's real
and it's something that happens very frequently, actually. So yeah.
Amran Ali 31:15
Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that story. That was really powerful.
Cool.
Now, being a sophomore here at Augsburg University, what are your plans for the
future as of now what are you studying? What do you plan to do with that? Let us
know.
Ayan Daud 31:33
Um, so I am currently a double major in accounting and finance with a minor MIS.
Coming into college, I was kinda like I was kind of confused of what...what I
exactly wanted to become. I did know I wanted to become like a doctor as the first
year when I first came in. So I saw myself like I always thought I was going to be
a doctor. I was going to go to med school graduate, become a doctor, but after
going through my first semester of college I noticed oh Wow, like, this isn't
really for me like, I like the idea of being a doctor. But it takes so many steps
for you to get there. And so much stuff you have to go through. Like, I love the
idea of being so many things. But you have to know what it takes to get there and
after like taking a couple classes, and I kind of thought, is this something I
really want to do in the long run? And I kind of just thought to myself, and I was
just like, yeah, like, I don't think I want to do this. Like I love the idea of
becoming that but like it takes so much that I'm not capable of and I don't really
enjoy doing all that to get to becoming a doctor basically. So that's when I kind
of explored my second semester. And I've always been somebody who loved dealing
with numbers and problem solving and stuff like that. So I kind of was exploring, I
took accounting as a class that semester, and I ended up falling in love with it.
Just like the way everything works with the accounting. A constant part of
everything and just being able to solve problems. Kind of just seeing the credits
and there was a kind of just made me kind of like "oh wow." This is something that
you actually like doing, enjoy doing, I don't dread ever, like, even if I'm working
on the homework, yes, you may feel like oh my god, this is so much. But just being
able to work through it at the end of the time, or end up solving something. It's
something that I've always liked. And that's something that kind of the business
part of my major kinda, I actually enjoy doing. Future wise, as an accounting and
finance major currently. I don't know exactly what I want to be in the future.
Like, I may be like an accountant at a big bank or a finance person or stuff like
this. But as the bigger picture, I want to be a business owner in the future, where
I don't know what exactly I want to do. There's so much stuff to do as a business
owner. I don't exactly what I want to do, but for sure, once I graduate, that's
something I'm willing to work on. Me and my sister my, I don't know, we've been
kind of just talking about it like we want to be like kinda, we want to own a
business together and kind of go back home and start a business. And when I say
like, go back home I mean, like, actually Somalia. We've never ever been there. But
I know that somewhere we want to eventually go back to if I feel like it's getting
better now. But like in the future wise, I know it will definitely get better and
having like a business there was kind of a head start for me and my sister. But up
until then I'm probably going to be like an accountant analyst or finance analyst,
somewhere up until I get to what I want to be, which is like a business owner in
the future.
Amran Ali 34:42
Awesome. That's super exciting.
You kind of stole my next question from me, but
do you see yourself starting a family in the future? If so? I hear that you do want
to go back to Somalia at some point. Do you see yourself raising your family there?
Having them live life here, What are your plans?
Ayan Daud 35:04
In the future, um, I definitely do see myself having a family. I'm a very family
oriented person. So I really love spending time with family. And I never really
thought of the importance of family up until like, kinda like at the age I am right
now, like family is everything at the end of the day, and they are the ones that
are going to be there for you at the end of the time. So basically, I that's kind
of what made me really say, okay, yes, I do want to have children, I do want to
have kids I can depend on as I get older, and stuff like that.
And I kind of always thought about it.
Like, if I do have children, like I kinda, I want them to really be cultured in a
way like I want them to know what they are. I want them to know their roots. I want
them to know their language, their culture where they're from their religion and
everything. And I kind of just thought about it like raising them in America might
not give them other opportunities to learn about their religion because America is
a different culture as well. So they're going to have that crisis or I have to keep
up with both sides of my culture and stuff like that. So I kind of just thought
about it something I've always kind of thought about. It's kind of just freezing.
Like as a, right now I came to the US when I was 10. And believe it or not, I did
lose like a lot of culture, I believe, like, I've adapted to the American lifestyle
in a way like, like, I'm not very, very fluent in my language, which is Somali. And
kind of just I just like, I'm a very, like, I'm very cultured, I believe, but like
losing your language, I feel like is a huge part like as I am not in fluent right
now, I can imagine like, what my children are going to be. They're barely going to
even know the language. So I feel like something I would do is kinda like every
summer, like, maybe just go back to Somalia with my children. So they learn more
about their culture. They know their family, they know their language. So that's
something I kind of want to do because I don't know I don't think I'd ever want my
children to ever lose, where they're from, all the language. All their language. So
yeah, that's something I feel like I'd definitely do like I might raise my children
in Somalia if I do end up becoming a business owner for a couple years, but I
definitely want them to kind of also grow up in America, which is their second
culture. Second cultural perspective, I guess.
Amran Ali 37:20
Awesome. If you got a chance to say a few words or give advice to like younger
Ayan, what would you tell her about everything that you've learned now?
Ayan Daud 37:31
Um, something I would tell my younger self is basically to not give up
to always have hope that things are always going to get better.
I'd also probably tell myself that there is a future for you. Like I said earlier,
like back in when I was in like South Africa, I'd never thought that I'd be what I
am or be where I'm at, like right now. So kind of thinking back I told myself
there's a future like always have hope. Basically just believing yourself 100% that
things are always going to get better.
Amran Ali 38:10
Awesome, thank you.
Yeah, and that kind of wraps up everything for here. Just to quickly go back to
something you did say earlier, let me quickly find Yeah, so you are a Somali Muslim
woman living in Minnesota. You grew up in Minnesota most of your United States
career? Yeah. Um, what would you say is different from Louisville, Kentucky and
Minneapolis, Minnesota, but you're from like Eagan but same thing.
Ayan Daud 38:50
Um so in Louisville, Kentucky.
I feel like Minnesota is 10 times better.
100% in a way cuz I went to a school
full of, I went to an all girls school back in, back in Kentucky and moving to
Minnesota. It kinda I went to a school that was kinda like all boys and all girls,
it was very mutual. And something that was different was like, I feel like 100% the
Minnesota school systems are 100% better, in a way. Because like back when I was
like in Kentucky, like the schools weren't really very developed in a way and I
think that's due to resources aren't provided in those schools. Like literally
they'd be like, like the school was just, I don't know how to describe it, like
they never really have resources. And I think that's something like Kentucky public
schools have to work on, like having enough resources for students at schools,
whether it's adding more extracurriculars in school activities, whether it's adding
extra classes for students to be more kinda, kinda just expand and learn new
things. So I kind of think that's something that was different, like in Minnesota.
I feel like the schools are very well resourced. Students have a lot of kind of
like it's kind of set up in a way where students can be a very, very well rounded
students. But back in Kentucky, it wasn't really like that, like the school
systems, the teachers and everything they we're kind of against students in a way,
like, like, I feel like we 100% like schools in Kentucky, like the school I went to
specifically. I feel like we definitely need a like a psychiatrist or something in
the school cuz or like counselors and stuff like that, because I feel like a lot of
the students would act up and automatically they'd be expelled or stuff like that.
And I feel like they never really worked with students or like, make them kind of
help them instead of kind of just kicking them out of the school or kind of passing
them around through school to school to school, school school. So I think that's
something I'd say that was a huge difference kind of here, especially to school I
went to like, there were a lot of resources such as counselors that worked with
students that had like behavioral issues and stuff like that. So that's one thing I
think, was a huge difference coming here.
Amran Ali 41:10
Awesome. Thank you for that.
Yeah. So that's all the questions that I have. Did you have any like last words
that you want to share?
Ayan Daud 41:23
Um kind of going through these questions that kind of gave me a lot of flashbacks
that I didn't really... I kind of forgot. So kind of just talking about these
questions. It kind of made me think about things that I kind of forgot about. So
I'm glad kinda you kind of reminded me of those questions and like those memories.
So thank you.
Amran Ali 41:38
You're very welcome. Thank you so much for your time Ayan. This concludes our
interview.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Chyanne Phravoraxay 0:00
It is November 22, 2019 and I'm Chyanne Phravoraxa. I am the oral historian for this oral history
project. And I'm here with Amal Issa. Can you state your full name and age?
Amal Issa 0:15
My name is Amal Issa, and I'm 18 years old.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 0:20
All righ... Show more
Chyanne Phravoraxay 0:00
It is November 22, 2019 and I'm Chyanne Phravoraxa. I am the oral historian for this oral history
project. And I'm here with Amal Issa. Can you state your full name and age?
Amal Issa 0:15
My name is Amal Issa, and I'm 18 years old.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 0:20
All right. So we're gonna start with your background. So where were you born and raised?
Amal Issa 0:25
I was born in Minneapolis, downtown Minneapolis, and I was raised here so I lived here all my
life.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 0:32
Okay. And how many siblings do you have?
Amal Issa 0:35
I have eight siblings, two brothers and sisters.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 0:40
Nice. So growing up in Minneapolis, did you feel like you were surrounded by your community?
Or did you ever feel like discriminated against?
Amal Issa 0:52
I, I felt I was surrounded by my community, because I think outside Somalia, Minnesota has the
largest population of Somalis? So I was constantly surrounded by Somalis. I didn't feel left out,
in a sense.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 1:06
Nice. So, in terms of your religious upbringing, how was that like? :ike, did you guys go to the
mosque often? Did you celebrate the holidays?
Amal Issa 1:16
Yeah. I'm Muslim. So I spent like, a lot of time in mosques and celebrating. We only have like,
two holidays. So yeah, we'd celebrate those. But we wouldn't really- So I went to like a small
school so we would get it off to celebrate, but like when I got into university, it's not considered a
national holiday. So I'd have to like skip class.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 1:43
Oh, okay. So can you give more detail about what you remember growing up and celebrating
the certain traditions and stuff?
Amal Issa 1:53
Yeah. Um, when we're celebrating, this is like a one specific restaurant we always go to. And
like, we've been going there for, however many years it's like, tradition now, for us to go there.
But it feels weird when we don't go, because over the summer we were out of the country. So it
was only my dad and my sister left here. And the rest of us didn't go, so it felt kind of weird
adjusting to life outside of what I grew up knowing.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 2:25
So when- You said, You guys go in the summer. So is that for Ramadan? Or what is that for,
when you go to the restaurant? Or is that just like a family thing?
Amal Issa 2:35
It's for Eid. So our two holidays. Yeah. But yeah, the last one was in the summer, but we're out
of the country. So we didn't end up going.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 2:44
Okay, so how was it like going- or going in? I mean, going to Somalia?
Amal Issa 2:48
Um, it was weird, because it's my first time out of the country ever. So it took a lot of adjusting.
Like, when I'm in Minnesota, it's like, "oh, you're too Somali". But when we're there everyone
knew us as the American kids. So it was kind of like, it put us off a little, because everyone, like,
even when we didn't speak, everyone automatically knew us. I think we're like the talk of the
neighborhood. But it was weird kind of adjusting to the different way of life. And it could be that
hard to adjust to it. I liked it.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 3:23
So how long were you there?
Amal Issa 3:25
Two months.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 3:26
Two months? Okay, and did you stay with family or did you go to like, a hotel or something?
Amal Issa 3:32
No, my mom was renting a house there. So, we stayed there for two months, but we had family
over every single day. So it felt it felt nice, because everyone's so busy when we're here, but
there's it's like a new person's coming to visit us every day. It was nice.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 3:47
Oh, it's nice. And how was Eid there compared to here? Like how you celebrate it? What would
you say?
Amal Issa 3:55
I missed Eid here. It was weird over- It was nice. But I was just so used to having- Celebrating
Eid here. So it felt kind of weird, but we went to the ocean, which is pretty nice. It was very
pretty. But we spent it around family, so I liked that.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 4:14
How are you involved in the Muslim community and how were you like, I guess, as a child and
then to now like, how were you involved in community? Muslim or like, Somali too?
Amal Issa 4:26
Okay. Um, as a child, I spent most of my time surrounded by Somalis, as I said earlier, but I
went to like a small, charter school, that was mostly Somali. But now going to University of
Minnesota, I kind of want to give back, so I volunteer at the Brian Coyle Center in South
Minneapolis and I just helped tutor kids there. It's a nice experience and I get to help out in my
own way.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 4:56
Yeah. And at Brian coil- So can you give more detail on that program like, what kind of kids are
there or is it connected with other schools?
Amal Issa 5:04
Yeah. Okay, so the Brian Coyle Center is like a community center for the Cedar Riverside area
in South Minneapolis. It's close by here. But it's mainly Somali- A Somali community, people that
live there. So a lot of Somalis come in, but I work. I volunteer in the Teen Tech Center, and it's
funded by Best Buy. But what I do is, I tutor youth between around like, 5th to 9th- 10th grade,
and I just helped them with their homework. It's mainly after school, so if they ever need help,
the kids that live inside the area, they come and they get that they need.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 5:47
And how long have you been volunteering there?
Amal Issa 5:50
About a year and a half now. I started there, because of the scholarship I got, but ended up
really liking it. So I went back.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 5:57
Oh, nice. So you're talking about the University a lot. So what made you choose the University
of Minnesota?
Amal Issa 6:06
Honestly, my first choice was Augsburg.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 6:09
Oh, really?
Amal Issa 6:09
Yeah, I was like, set on coming here. But along the way, I had like some financial issues. I
applied, I got accepted and everything, but there's like some financial issues. So I ended up just
like, on a whim, choosing the University of Minnesota. I didn't really want to go there, but I love
it. It's so much more different than I thought it would be.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 6:29
So what did you think it would be like? Or like why didn't you want to at first?
Amal Issa 6:34
Well, my sister goes there, so I thought it would be weird. But, um, I grew up like in South
Minneapolis, really close to the University of Minnesota. So I spent a lot of my time there. And I
felt like I knew what was going on there. And it seemed like really small to me, but it's gigantic.
It's amazing. It's beautiful. But, um, what was the question?
Chyanne Phravoraxay 6:59
Oh, I guess I asked you- Sorry, I asked you what made you go against it before? Yeah, what
you thought about it before and I guess what you think about it now?
Amal Issa 7:08
Yeah, I thought it'd be like a small school, because I went to St. Paul college and St. Paul
College was a really small and diverse- When I came here it's, you know, a predominantly white
school, but I love it. It's big. There a lot of opportunities and a lot of different things I could do to
feel kind of like at home.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 7:31
Okay. And, um, do you know your major yet?
Amal Issa 7:35
Yeah. I'm majoring in mathematics. Hopefully to minor in Arabic.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 7:40
Okay, cool. So they have- They offer Arabic classes then there?
Amal Issa 7:45
Yeah, I'm taking one the semester. I wanted to minor in Spanish, but I just gonna put that on
hold, because it's a little too hard for right now.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 7:53
Yeah. So how is the Arabic class? Is it like what you thought it would be? Or- Or did you have
expectations of it?
Amal Issa 8:01
Yeah, so growing up Muslim. Arabic played a huge plays a huge role in my life. So I thought like
I knew enough, and I did not enough, to like get me by, because in like an Arab country or
anything, but I really don't know anything about the basics, but it's- My teacher is great. It's
making me fall in love with the language and that's why I want to continue, because- Just the
way he teaches it makes me really like it.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 8:31
It's great. So I'm sorry, I guess I'm jumping back to like Islam. But um, how do you think Islam
affects your everyday life? Like do you pray or is there anything that you do?
Amal Issa 8:45
Um, well, it affects the way I dress because I wear the hijab every day. But yeah, I pray every
day. It doesn't really affect my life, because I just have to take a couple of minutes out of my day
to go and do my prayers, but I think it helps me feel like more at ease, knowing that like thingsthings will turn out okay.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 9:09
And when did you start wearing your hijab?
Amal Issa 9:12
Um, I'm not sure.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 9:15
Oh, you're not sure?
Amal Issa 9:15
It's been a while. Yeah.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 9:16
Oh, okay. Yeah. So moving on to, I guess your current life in terms of like Sisterhood Boutique
or like your after high school life, I guess. What made you connect with Sisterhood Boutique?
Amal Issa 9:36
It's a weird story, because my sister, um, interned there summer of last- 2018. Yeah, summer
2018, my sister interned there and I was unemployed then. I was just at home, most of the time.
And my sister was going to go on a camping trip to the Boundary Waters. So she's like, "oh,
since you're at home all the time, uh, you should come along". So I was like "Okay, why not?"
We ended up- And it was with Sisterhood Boutique, so I invited a friend and we ended up going
camping with them for a week. It was brutal, but I guess we kind of bonded, while we were
there, because the store manager,at the time, went with us and she offered us jobs afterwards.
We ended up interning there and I interned there for about eight, nine months, and then my
internship ended, the beginning of the summer, right before we left for Somalia.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 10:31
Oh, okay. And can you explain what you did at Sisterhood Boutique?
Amal Issa 10:37
Yeah, so for the most part, we'd work on the store floo, just arranging the front and doing
inventory in the back, helping customers. But we also attended a couple different events. We
helped with their annual fashion show. And yeah, that's mainly what we did. But since I stopped
working, I just go back a couple times a week to help out.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 11:05
Yeah, that's sweet. So what other events do you remember? Other than the fashion show?
Amal Issa 11:12
I can't remember their names. But, um, I was invited to represent, like, Pillsburg United
community. So Sisterhood is under the Pillsbury United Community. So I was invited to present
them at the Women's Foundation of Minnesota. I think it was in like April, I think. Yeah. So I was
invited to represent them. And it was like an equity summit, at the Radisson Blu, but it was a
really cool experience. Oh, what else did we do?I can't remember most their names. But we
went to a lot of events.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 11:49
That's okay. Is there anything you'd like to say to people in your community or like any
messages that you would like to put out?
Amal Issa 12:00
I guess there's like, a lot of problems with the youth right now. So just like a message, would be
like, we'll get through it. I mean, our parents survived Civil War, so we can survive anything. So
we'll get through it.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 12:15
And when did your parents come here? Like, did any of your older siblings come with them? Or
born in Somalia?
Amal Issa 12:22
No. So all of my siblings and I were born in Minneapolis, but I think my mom was like, 19 when
the Civil War broke out, and she met my father in Canada, soChyanne Phravoraxay 12:32
Oh really?
Amal Issa 12:33
Yeah. They- So they fled, during the Civil War and my mom- She went through a lot of different
countries, but I know she ended up in Canada and a dad somehow ended up in Canada. That's
where they met and then they decided to relocate to Minnesota and we've been here ever since.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 12:51
Okay, and are any of your extended family to like your aunts or maybe grandma, grandpa?
Amal Issa 12:59
Yeah. I've never met my grandparents. But one, my dad's mother is in Somalia right now. And
the rest passed away already. So I never met them. But I have a couple aunts and uncles
scattered around the United States and Canada. But I'd say most of my, like, close family's back
home in Somalia.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 13:25
What do you hope to do with your degree in mathematics?
Amal Issa 13:28
Uh, I'd love to be a teacher. So I'm, I'm studying mathematics, but I'm also in the direct track to
teaching program at University of Minnesota. And in order to get into the licensure program, I
have to major in the subject area I want to teach. So, yeah. That's what I'm doing right now.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 13:47
Okay. And do you have an idea about what age you're thinking of teaching?
Amal Issa 13:53
I'm stuck between to middle school and high school. I still don't know yet. But one of those
hopefully.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 13:58
Chronologically, where do you stand in your siblings? Like are you the middle child or
youngest?
Amal Issa 14:06
I'd say somewhere in the middle. I have three sisters older than me and then five siblings
younger than me, including my two brothers. So not exactly the middle, but around that.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 14:23
Okay. About that restaurant that you're talking about, so when do you remember your first time
going there? Or have you- your family been doing that like before you were even born, because
I know you're like, kind of in the middle-ish.
Amal Issa 14:37
It start started, I think maybe like 10-12 years ago, but I'm not sure exactly when. I think it was
too young to remember. But yeah, it was a while ago, and we started going to like another one
also, but now it's been about 8 years so. Yeah.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 14:59
So you mentioned going to the charter school, as a child. So what other ethnicities did you, likeI guess were you learning with or like other students?
Amal Issa 15:11
Okay, so the majority were Somali, but there's also like different, um, Arab cultures like
Egyptians and Syrians but also like Pakistanis, Afghanis. But mainly Somali.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 15:30
And was- Oh, sorry. What were you gonna say? Oh. Was the- was Islam ever like tied into it?
Amal Issa 15:38
Um, not really. They like, give us like a certain amount of time, if we needed to go pray, but
other than that it wasn't really tied into it. But for holidays we would get it off. Yeah.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 15:57
And for the university- Because you did say that there was a change in like, being surrounded
by your community and then going to university, did you ever feel like uncomfortable or was it
just new?
Amal Issa 16:09
Okay, so when I- 2016, when I was starting my junior year of high school, I started doing PSCO
at St. Paul College first, and St. Paul college was really diverse. And I had a couple of my
friends who were doing PSCO with me, so I was very comfortable there. It was a bit of a
change, but I was still comfortable. But I graduated from high school and St. Paul college, um,
May 2018. And then I started at the University of Minnesota, September 2018. And it was a big
change 'cause I didn't really know anyone there. And it was- It's a predominantly white school,
so I was mainly surrounded by white people and it felt different because I was so used to be
surrounded by Somalis and my friends and it was a bit uncomfortable, but I got used to it.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 17:00
Just judging from what I've heard about, like you being involved in like the Sisterhood Boutique
and you went to the events, are you involved in any other activist stuff?
Amal Issa 17:11
Any other extracurriculars?
Chyanne Phravoraxay 17:13
Yeah, that too. Yeah.
Amal Issa 17:15
Um, well, for my teaching program, I have to, like, observe, like a high school teacher or a
middle school teacher teaching. So I'm, I'm usually a South High- South High School in South
Minneapolis on Fridays and Thursday mornings, just observing a math teacher. But other than
that, I work through the University of Minnesota with America Reads, and I'm literacy mentor,
around Franklin at- it's called Projects for Pride and Living, but yeah, I tutor there. Like two days
of the week.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 17:53
So how does that compare to Brian Coyle? Because I know you tutored up at both but they're
different, like organizations.
Amal Issa 18:01
So with- PPL is Projects for Pride in Living, so I'll just call it that. PPL, I worked with just one
student each time I'm there. So we like get into a habit of doing things a certain way. But when
i'm at Brian Coyle, I work with a bunch of different students and sometimes like there's really no
one to tutor. So I'm just like hanging out. So it's a little different, in that way, but it's very
structured at PPL and Brian Coyle was kind of like, "whoever comes comes". So it's kind of
different in that way but I like both of them equally.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 18:39
And what do you think of your- I guess, I forgot the term. Was it- does the observation I guess or
is that- that's not an internship, right? You're just observing the teacher?
Amal Issa 18:49
Yeah.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 18:50
Okay.
Amal Issa 18:50
It's just, I, service learning. That's what it is.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 18:53
Oh. Okay. Service Learning.How is that? Like can you give me more details on it?
Amal Issa 18:57
Well, yeah. Um, so when I first started, I was in a chemistry classroom, and I'm a math major. I
took chemistry like four years ago. So I don't really know anything. I forgot everything. So it was
kind of weird. But the teacher was a great teacher, I loved his way of teaching. And then he
somehow got me into a math classroom to observe that, and she's also- the teacher I'm working
with, she's also a great teacher, it's just a bit calmer. It's interesting to look at stuff from like, a
teacher's perspective, the teacher's perspective now, because I've been so used to being a
student. Yeah, that's kind of interesting and like a new experience.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 19:39
So, um, this is just from my knowledge of like, education majors, but when do you start getting
involved in like, becoming like a teacher's assistant and like, teaching with them? Do you know?
Amal Issa 19:54
Um, I think that'll be when I'm in the licensure program. So after I can make bachelor's, is what I
would think. It's my first year in the teaching program, so I'm not really sure. Each school's
different, butChyanne Phravoraxay 20:07
Oh, okay. And other than becoming a teacher do you think you're going topursue more
education or any other plans, alongside being a teacher?
Amal Issa 20:18
I don't want to stay in school very long. But um, originally I wanted to go into the medical field,
but the years of schooling just put me off, and I love teaching, so I was like "Uh, I could do this
instead!". But I'd love to be like an EMT or paramedic one day.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 20:36
Oh, really?
Amal Issa 20:36
Yeah.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 20:37
Okay.
Amal Issa 20:38
We'll see how that goes. I was gonna say like, I'm thinking of applying for- So St. Paul and
Minneapolis, they have like an EMS Academy thing that they do every year, so I was thinking
maybe I should apply for that next year.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 20:55
That is so interesting, because of- because of your history, as like becoming an teacher and
then the EMT, I wouldn't imagine, but that's interesting. When you start teaching, do you plan on
staying like within Minneapolis?
Amal Issa 21:09
That's a hard question. I'd love to travel outside, but at the same time Minneapolis is my home.
I'd like to sort of give back in a way. So I think I'd teach here first, for at least a couple of years.
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 21:25
Nice. You said there's problems with the youth like, do you? Can you pinpoint them? Or likeAmal Issa 21:34
There's a lot of problems with opioids right now. And I went to an event at Brian Coyle, a couple
weeks ago, and they were just opening up the floor to bring like questions that the youth have
forward about it. And they were just also educating the youth and their parents about the
different types of drugs and how they affect you. And if you see someone having an overdose,
what you could do. And they were like handing out in narcan too. So I thought that was very
interesting and it's just like- It's been something that's been like kept quiet for so long. It feels- It
feels nice to see it being brought up into the open and hear people talking about it and like trying
to take steps forward to see how they could help people who are suffering from like with drug
abuse.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 22:33
Um, I think- Because we did watch a video. It was like by Somali TV, in class, and it was like this
woman talking about her addiction, so i think, i don't know if that was like from them?
Amal Issa 22:45
Was she sitting?
Chyanne Phravoraxay 22:46
She was sitting and there's like two guys or like, I don't know.
Amal Issa 22:51
Um, they held that like a week or- Two or three weeks after the one I went to. So I didn't really
see that one.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 22:58
Oh, but they were not connected like by an organization or?
Amal Issa 23:01
I think they were. There's this group called, like the- Changing the Narrative, and they're the
ones that held the first one and I think they might have helped organize that one too.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 23:12
Okay and why do you think this is happening within the- within the community?
Amal Issa 23:18
I really do not know. I don't know. It's- it's kind of like, a new topic to me too, because it's not
something like, I've heard of. But where I grew up- Where we live right now, it's not really the
safest and we like see things that people shouldn't be seeing. So it's like, not that new to me.
But it's new to me, in the sense that I haven't heard of it happening in the Somali community as
much.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 23:49
Oh, okay. Thank you so much for coming them all. Are there any last things you'd like to say?
Amal Issa 23:57
Not really.
Chyanne Phravoraxay 23:57
No? Okay. Thank you very much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Sabrin Gadow 0:01
Hi, this is Sabrin Gadow. I'm interviewing Ash Farah. Can you introduce yourself?
Ash Farah 0:06
Hi, my name is Ash Farah.
My pronouns are he/him/his and I attend Augsburg.
Sabrin Gadow 0:14
Can you tell us about your childhood?
Ash Farah 0:16
Oh, umm so I --- What about i... Show more
Sabrin Gadow 0:01
Hi, this is Sabrin Gadow. I'm interviewing Ash Farah. Can you introduce yourself?
Ash Farah 0:06
Hi, my name is Ash Farah.
My pronouns are he/him/his and I attend Augsburg.
Sabrin Gadow 0:14
Can you tell us about your childhood?
Ash Farah 0:16
Oh, umm so I --- What about it?
Sabrin Gadow 0:24
Yeah for example were you born in America?
Ash Farah 0:30
Oh no, I'm so I was born in Gadow, which is between the Borderlands of Somalia, Kenya and
Ethiopia. I was born in a village there with my mom. And we came to America actually through
--- I forget what exact humanitarian organization it was, but it was through them and we got to
re-located over to the United States.
Sabrin Gadow 0:52
That’s nice!
Okay, so what was your family like?
Ash Farah 1:00
Well, I'm the oldest I'm like, I'm the oldest son.
I also I come from a relatively small family for a Somali family. My siblings are Rahma, Ayub,
and Mohammed and I'm the oldest of them. I also have a stepbrother and stepsister, but they
were much older than I was so.
Sabrin Gadow 1:20
So what was your neighborhood growing up like?
Ash Farah 1:28
It was very Somalia. I grew up around a lot of somali people and my just you know, generally
very low income, we grew up on section eight and you know, like, there was no Eid gifts. The
Eid gifts were that you got to eat that day. You know that type of teas. Like it's pretty, pretty
simple.
Sabrin Gadow 1:40
Yeah. How's it like growing up in a Somali neighborhood, was it Muslim majority?
Ash Farah 1:47
Yeah, it was definitely Muslim majority, like Somalis are like 99.9% Sunni Muslim so yeah.
Sabrin Gadow 1:55
Yeah did you like that? Was it the sense of community? Did it make you feel safer? Was it just
was a nice for your mom?
Ash Farah 2:00
Yeah, it was very nice for my mom because she was a single mom. My dad left two years after
we like relocated. So it was very nice for her to be surrounded by other Somali women. And
it was very nice for her to be surrounded by other members of the community and from our tribe
and stuff like that, because they helped with like, childcare, getting a job, all the things that
make it really hard to relocate to a foreign country with children. You know, like, it's very hard.
So she didn't feel alone. She obviously grew up very Muslim and found solace in the masjid
and, you know, we went Dugsi [Islamic school] every like, I think, every Wednesday, Saturday,
Sunday, and on Friday and Sunday. Yeah, if my mom could afford it, she would send us even
more. But she's like, you know, and that kind of thing. She just really really loved Islam. And it
was very clear because everybody around me loved Islam.
Unknown Speaker 3:00
Yeah, you said growing up in Islam. How did growing up in Minnesota a sort of shape you? Do
feel like you've been on different path and if you grew up in this area that was so highly
concentrated in Somalis as well as Muslims?
Ash Farah 3:12
It's because of the like, certain. Like, I've met a lot of like, Somali queers across the world, UK,
London. I'm just friends, even Toronto, like just all these places that all these people, you know,
ran off to, and I think Minneapolis causes a certain socio political background that allows for it to
be very different than if I grew up in let's say, Denmark and was Muslim, there's less of a social
pressure to be more like ultra conservative in your interpretation of Islam. Like there are people
who have no problems with like, people not wearing Hijabs. You know like not wearing
traditional garments and stuff like that, at all. Umm just because of the you know, of the mixing
of culture there? Also because there's different Muslims, and it isn't just like the majority of
Muslim population there isn't Somali only. It's like there's Arabs, there’s people from Palestine. It
was, more you know, black Muslims, there’s you know converts and stuff like that. There was
like more diversity so that causes a little more lax opinions when it comes to like groupthink in
the community and stuff like that. So there's less, I don’t want to say less prejudice because
prejudice exists consistently throughout whatever society you go to but less rigidity I’d say.
Sabrin Gadow 4:38
You said the term ran off to what do you mean by that? Either term run off as in, like, places
they went off to?
Ash Farah 4:44
Oh yeah … Yeah! Like, um, you know, where people have ran off to. Like, you know,
displacement from the Civil War, so it makes sense for most people to have fled to the nearest
place that they could flee too. For example there’s Somali Queers that are living in Yemen or
Kenya, or Denmark and UK or Toronto and here. All very different in their experiences because
of the different environments that they are growing up in.
Sabrin Gadow 5:07
So you use a term Groupthink when referring to this close knit community of relations to find
that sense of this my community and stuff like that. How do you feel group think affects people
who aren't like, how do I phrase this in a nice way, people who aren’t like the typical idea of
what Somali Muslim should be?
Ash Farah 5:30
Mmmh, To put it lightly, I've learned a lot of things in my life, which is, if you go against the
majority opinion on faith based issues, people respond very emotionally very, like personally
and personally attacked because this is something that is very, very, close to their heart and
they think this is right. Particularly it was harmful for me growing up because of being a child
and stuff like that. So people see you as saveable, as fixable, and they don't want you to go
through what they see it as the worst punishment on earth for all of eternity. So they want to
help the this kid out by any means necessary and sometimes those means are violent.
Sometimes they're ostracizing. Sometimes they're, you know, like conversion therapy. So by
any means necessary to help another like member of your community out. And I am at the age
where now I know that it comes from this place -- it comes from like a kind of a good hearted
place despite the impact that had on me growing up. And it makes sense for people especially
here in Minneapolis, especially in the somali population, and the older Somali population here in
Minneapolis to cling on to their faith even more so than they would back home because they
literally had to give up so much of themselves and Minneapolis is vastly different than where
they're growing up. I like had this conversation with my mom and she was explaining how much
she missed she missed sugar canes and how much she missed like the masjid that she would
go to and like just the how vastly different growing up in Somalia versus living here in this
tundra! with no sun, like, just off. Even the food's off! All this, so it's very understandable, they
would cling on to their faith even harder, like even more strict because that’s one of the only
things they got to keep. Not their houses and no they're --- like my mom witnessed, you know
soldiers break down Hawo Tako [Statue] not even their culture when it came down to it. You
know, so they have this one very, very, tangible thing that they can hold on to and to see their
kids either rejecting from that path or from their particular interpretations very, very, very harmful
to them. And it makes sense. It does. But it doesn't make it right, but yeah.
Sabrin Gadow 7:50
Yeah. Such a nice way to think of it.
Ash Farah 8:00
For example, my mom had this first incident like the moment we got here, like of course, we
landed in New York. We're on this escalator and she was holding me and a man decided to
yank her hijab. And this is, like yeah.
Sabrin Gadow 8:10
So sorry!
Ash Farah 8:12
And it was, you know, it was post 9/11. My mom was wearing a huge Jilbab, which is, you know,
like, you know, she's 6’1’. So she sticks out of the crowd and stuff. Like that this guy got a rise
out of it. He was drinking too much at the airport. And I fell, tumbled on all these steps on this
escalator and my mom, a) has never seen an escalator. And that was her first like, initiation into
American culture, which is very violent and very against your faith. So what people do when
there's an opposition and an oppression, is they cling on to it even more. And over time, I got to
see my very, very liberal mother become more and more of a literalist, when it came to the
Koran, and when it came to faith and stuff like that, because of just the concentration of the way
American bigotry is against Muslims in particular. Where else you might not see that as much.
Like you do see some islamophobia but it does not come off as directly violent as American
Islamophobia is.
Sabrin Gadow 9:14
American Islamophobia is truly something different. You mentioned something about growing up
with a liberal mother and her changing into more of a literalist, because of the community she
was apart of and the community that she held ties to. How did that feel growing up and going
into somali spaces and having different ideals and values based on you?
Ash Farah 9:33
Oh, it was very, very difficult.
I was a young child, ahhh, weird child. I did not speak till the age of eight. I just had all these like
external issues going on in my life that my mom had to deal with having a kid that had needs
that needed to be met like I needed a speech therapist and it was a mysterious came --- due to
an illness I had as a kid. Just had no answers and had to navigate the system by herself in this
country by herself. So, I watched her become this very laissez faire, like, mother of like, you can
play with Barbies, you can play with GI Joes. And you can, like watch. We used to watch john,
john wayne westerns, because she used to love those together and stuff like that and watch her
become very, very anti-westernization and more like faith based and like literalist Islam, stuff like
that. Like I want my children to be hafiz. I want them to go to Dugsi all the time because the
counter effect would be like they'd end up like the kids in my neighborhood, the black kids she
saw in the neighborhood who were dealing with socio economic issues that like lead them down
certain paths. So she really honned that in.
Ash Farah 10:56
Of course, it was very unlucky for me because I'm a trans man. So I was born female and
assigned female at birth. And I was trying to communicate that with no words to my mom. So it
wasn't very --- AND to my peers who obviously picked it up really quickly. It's kind of hard to like,
not pick up on that, especially since the more literalist interpretations of Islam have stricter like
gender roles and gender guidelines. So it quickly became very, very hard for me to focus on
Fiqh and like learning about Islam, and going to Dugsi and stuff like that when there was literally
a partition, deciding if I was like, what roles I would have to play and do all that. And it was very,
very, very difficult because I felt like there was something wrong with me. That my entire
community was trying to help me because I was flawed and broken and a burden onto my mom.
Ash Farah 12:00
My mom would get a lot of help and support because people would see, you know, her like,
weird kid and stuff like that. So it was a mutual. Like I saw the benefit of that, but also meant
that through egging on of various community members, my mom, so shovel me into Quran
Saar, which is like people reading Quran over, you know, children usually have, you know,
illnesses or like something wrong with them or just or being seen as possessed. So I dealt with
that. And it got increasingly worse, because my mom started to notice she had more of a
community around her. And that’s what she really needed as a single mom who literally just
could not afford much, and it led me down to having a really, really harsh ‘bout with Islam.
Sabrin Gadow 12:58
You talked a little bit about you being a transman, do identify with any other communities?
Ash Farah 13:02
I---- this is a par, or a question that I get a lot. I really do identify as being Somali. Identify with
the muslim identity. I identify as trans identify, I identify as LGBT, and I don't see how, I know a
lot of people see that as like in, incomprehensibly, untetherable like you cannot tether those
identities together, they cannot exist in a human being. I even get it from somali people like you
are either Muslim or your gay, or you can't be trans and Muslim. You know, like Somalis don't
have gay people or something like that. That's white people shit, and all that kind of stuff. But I
really truly hold, hold all those things. So.
Sabrin Gadow 13:57
So beautiful. You hear a lot about Somali hate being gay. But we definitely do hear something
about Somalis queers, who don’t have faith and Somali Queers who do have faith.
Who talk about feeling like they couldn't be somali and clear and also have Muslim as well. Do
you feel like you fit into that? In the sense that -- I’ll rephrase the question, how does it feel to be
ostracized in multiple communities and do you feel that you had to build a community from that?
As in a sense where it's like being a Somali Queer openly, like a visibly queer person, trans
person, and also living with that as well. But how do you feel because your ostracized in those
that small intersections.
Ash Farah 14:42
Right? Like I felt since I couldn't find family and I couldn't find ummah basically, I couldn't find
community in Islam, because of you know, various interpretations of the faith deciding that I
could not --- that my existence was non congruent with their form of Islam.
I decided to not listen to any of that.
Sabrin Gadow 15:05
How does it feel to be consistently told that your existence is untrue? Nah, like that its like an
idea that's a made up and came from forced westernization. And how did you find community
within that?
Ash Farah 15:17
I forced it. I figured out a young age since couldn’t find ummah within Islam. And I couldn't find
solidarity in my blackness. Because I, you know, as a kid, I like really was trying to find a space
where I wasn't seen as “other” entirely, um, I would try out like black identity and stuff like that,
but it's very hard because African Americans and African people have this long going, you
know, issue between the two. And it's just due to coming from different experiences of
Pan-African identity. I did a civil rights research tour, in order to like, better known about, you
know, the struggle of black African Americans and stuff like and found that I was within that, but
also separate and had to unpack that. I also had to unpack that in LGBT spaces that I went to
Minneapolis, were very white centric, very had various ideas of what it meant to be Muslim. And
I encountered a lot of Islamophobia. And a lot of racism too. So I felt great. So I'm too, I'm too
black, and too African and too Muslim, to be an LGBT spaces consistently, I'm to LGBT to be in
Islamic spaces, I'm too, you know, like, African and queer to be in black spaces. So I decided,
fuck it, I'm going to find and forge, and make community and make a chosen family and, like
make spaces for us to be, you know, for people like me to seek them out. Even though it's very
much, people say it's very much in your best interest to not claim all three of those identities
because even one of them. Islamophobia alone kills, homophobia alone kills, transphobia alone
kills, and anti blackness kills. But to claim all three and to be looking for other people like you, is
to literally, literally, paint a target on your head and say that's better. Maybe if I find two other
people like me, it'll be worth being consistently shot at.
Ash Farah 17:29
And I decided that at a very young age.
Sabrin Gadow. 17:36
Is this where your activism stems from?
Ash Farah 17:40
Ummm yeah actually. Yeah, like one thing of the things that I really liked about Islam, was it
that. I'm actually thankful for it because I love the story and Nabi [prophet] Mohammed.
Sabrin Gadow 17:51
Oh, could you explain the story?
Ash Farah 17:52
I'm as if we're not both. Okay. I don't know.
All right.
Ash Farah 18:00
He was the last prophet according to the Quran, and he grew up in Mecca during the time of
like, political strife. He was from the Quraish tribe even though he was an orphan, and he
literally been he started. He like was anti-idolatry. So this worship of idols and the trade of idols,
which was a lot of commerce to Mecca at the time, on against the various political and social
issues, like slavery, and the mistreatment of slaves and mistreatment of women and
mistreatment of orphans like himself and was very much a social, a social, like activist if you
really think about it, because I'm only an activist will be exiled out of a country for political
reasons. You know, asylum status alone. Literally went to Medina because his message was
just not sitting well with the people in power, because the message was of peace and it was of
like very very, very stark social change. And people were just not having it. And I found his story
to be really inspiring because even though people call him a madman, crazy like, called him a
liar, said he was possessed, all the things from like, for literally you know, for nothing more than
being honest and what he was known for being honest. And these are all traits that I, you know,
growing up really, really like held onto. And, you know, he spoke for a lot of broken people, and
even in war times had all these rules and I just really inspired to be like him.
Sabrin Gadow 20:00
You mentioned something about him being for the people, social activists and a comment you
said was that only an activist would do something like this, do you think because you were so
visibly queer, visibly trans that you and all that stuff that you kinda even chose this path and
more like directed to it and lead on it?
Ash Farah 20:16
Yeah.
Also, what I liked about him and his story was, he didn't have a say in being Nabi. He really
didn't have the say in being a prophet, an angel like just decided. Okay, you're going to read
today, even though he couldn't, um, and stuff like that. I just, he didn't have a say in the role he
was put in. I don't think I did really like I think I had to speak for a lot of people who are able to
speak for themselves. I met a lot of queers and somali queers that were silenced or were being
killed or were, you know, one way or the other forced back into the closet through finances
through just threats of absolute violence and All these, you know different things. So I decided
— I like when I learned to speak, I decided to actually speak for people who needed to be
spoken for. And I held that. And that's the type of activism I do.
Sabrin Gadow 21:20
Is that how you define activism?
Ash Farah 21:23
Now, I feel like activism is just an individual who's trying to create social change. And that's like
when people say, well, that's very vague. That's true, because there's different forms of
activism. What type of activism I like to focus on and do is called healing justice. And healing
justice is mainly focused on trying to heal and create spaces for people and communities who
don't have space for those who are being under attack or ostracized or things like that. And
don't have spaces where they can be themselves, access resources, heal them deal with their
mental like, find housing resources, very direct action type teas when you meet up with people.
And because there's — no one really gets it better than someone who's going through it.
Ash Farah 22:18
So that's the type I do. There's different types. There's, of course demonstrative which was the
type you see when you see people protesting. There's media, which is more based on
awareness and getting the word out. There's journalism, there's direct, direct line journalism,
which you can see people at Gaza, you know, partaking in. There’s, you know, charitable based
or like, income based or people who work in lobbying, which I have done work in. Like all these
different things.
Sabrin Gadow 22:35
Do you prefer doing like more active work and creating more healing spaces or just doing the
work to heal people with their own traumas up, of just being consistently being attacked or
harmed, rather than things like lobbying or more demonstrative work?
Ash Farah 23:00
Um, yeah, like I got to work with out front. And as they are an LGBT lobby group in Minnesota
against conversion therapy and trying to get a band. Luckily this year they got a ban after
literally, since I was 15 pushing this. I'm so very excited about that. I'm like, I saw the
administrative stuff like the overarching side of activism. I've also partaken in demonstrations
like how I've actually held rallies at the state capitol, I've interviewed politicians and talk to them.
Like I sat down with Ilhan for God knows how long trying to explain LGBT him some issues. And
I got to see that and I got to see lobbying firsthand. I worked in anti violence for a minute. I also
did a lot of you know, I was a kid. So I did a lot of LGBT activism through my school. I did a
documentary based on the experiences of a trans student going through local education system
Minneapolis. I also did over 200 teacher trainings to educate educators on how to better support
and aid trans and LGBT students. I like went to various schools, there were some very, very
against the message that I was trying to do and the say, which was simply just the best policies
is to be inclusive.
Um, there's also I also got to see, like gone to countless protests, for BLM, for Black Lives
Matter. I've gone to black immigrant collective and helping here. I've done direct service work
with Minneapolis Transgender Health Coalition, and they're shot clinic and trying to reduce harm
to trans and LGBT folks through medicine. So I got to see a lot of different types of activism and
truly and honestly, nothing would bring me more joy and more impact than directly meeting with
people in crisis and helping them get resources that they need. I'm talking with 13 year olds, 14
year olds, who are just kicked out of their house and need to be connected with various
resources. And you know, we'll have someone there to show them that hey, it does get better
even if it's consistently shitty.
Ash Farah 25:49
And like just having umm like having people call you for and reach out being like hey I’m Muslim
and queer. I don't know how my family is going to be like this. How do I go about getting
financial independence? Various like, helping like people online, trying to get resources for visas
and visa help an asylum status and get into the US from Kenya. I briefly worked on this project
with mossier which involved a chicken farm in Kenya where a lot of LGBT women, lesbian
women, with their children and of course because you know, like it's a product of the situation
they're in, like, get gainful employment, because gainful employment allows people to have a lot
more safety net and be less targeted. And obviously I'm supposed to go do that documentary
project over in Kenya but umm my immigration status at the time was not going to be left to test.
It is one thing to go help another thing to permanently stay.
But yes, it’s truth.
Sabrin Gadow 26:50
Umm yeah that’s definitely valid.
Ash Farah 26:55
But yeah, I don't know. I like I've seen a lot of it. I think nothing helps more than what I'm doing
now, which is directly connecting with muslim queers on a one to one basis and giving them
hope and resources.
Sabrin Gadow 27:11
That is definitely important work considering how it’s very not talked about.
Ash Farah 27:13
It’s not very glamorous, it's not like, and it's good that it's not talked about often times, like, I
think one of the most horrifying times in my life was, I was in this one documentary called out
north. A lot of people may have seen it. It's about LGBT history in Minnesota.
And I was helping the director, as a high schooler, like just, you know, like, interview folks,
cameras and all that. And I decided and he decided to throw me in and talk about the Somali
LGBT experience I had growing up. I talked about how Brian Cole the center was named after a
gay man, a gay man publicly against the Vietnam War. And things like that would affect like, anti
war myself. So it worked out
and I only learn this because I wanted to know how, because that was a center I grew up with,
like, it's right around, cedar and it's majority Muslim base and stuff like that. And I remember
being literally shoved behind the bleachers, for being nothing more than myself. And I found it
weird that that was the name associated with the building. And if he knew what was happening,
how he would feel, and I talked about that. And of course, I didn't know that TPT which was on
was free TV, and the entirety of my neighborhood saw it. And I got a flood of like, threats and
death threats and people being obviously righteously mad.
Sabrin Gadow 27:44
And what do you mean righteously mad?
Ash Farah 27:50
They're just mad because they were like, how dare this person speak on the unspeakable. This
is an unspeakable, shameful issue. You know, like, how can you? can't be both LGBT and
Muslim and you can also keep the community out your mouth and that kind of stuff because
we're still black and anti-snitching.
Sabrin Gadow 29:03
Say that period!
Ash Farah 29:16
God, um, and there's just. Umm it was at a time where the community was facing a lot more
police surveillance and CVE and a lot of friends working on it and, you know, countering CVE in
that process and it was just, I found it very, very, very difficult to hold all my intersections and
push for intersectionality in activism in all these different ways, because I was literally being
attacked for nothing more than, you know, posing a question and talking about, you know,
talking about my own experiences. And honesty, I learned at a young age really gets people like
hurt and killed and I worried for my family because my brothers and sisters were being chased
from school. Umm like, it was a horrific time. And now I realize, hey, since this is —
it brought like, yes, the visibility brought a lot of good things. But it brought me a lot of direct
physical harm, a lot of mental strife. So, I decided right then and there that I wasn't going to stop
activism. I was just going to target the people I wanted to target. I didn't care about those, you
know, white queers are watching this documentary, they're not the ones that I need to like,
reach out to or share this story with,
those real people who needed real help, which I would much rather do so yes, my activism is in
more of the shadows now.
But guess what, so are these people so I'm going where it goes, where the work is needed to
go.
Sabrin Gadow 30:45
I respect that. First, you talk about CVE and for those who don't know CVE is Countering Violent
extremism a program the government created to infiltrate like schools, public programs, things
that like they're getting federal grant money for. To like surveil people who are like being seen
as like being susceptible to joining terrorist groups. Things can seem simple as like people like
putting on hijab and not putting hijab has been more interesting in school life, things Iike being
more interested in Islam so like literally that was punishing curiosity. So as someone who was
around during this time with this documentary were you apart of part of the active against fight
against CVE.
Ash Farah 31:23
Yeah and I remember specifically going to um, I think Ilhan was speaking at this event at the
Bryant Cole about it and was confronted by a bunch of students like myself about this issue and
I remember sitting there in that room like in like, in that set like in front row sitting there with
myself like by myself, just like realizing that I look to the left of me, and I saw the Macalin that
like, you know, those Islamic school teacher that would torture me. Crying for their own kids and
worried about their own issues and just like, I remember that moment, like, I don't get to pick my
communities. But I wanted to be there for all sides of me.
Sabrin Gadow 32:19
That’s such an interesting thing to say all sides of you. Wouldn’t you consider it hard to sit there
and be in that kind of space, were you able to look yo you left and look yo your right and there’s
people have actively harmed you. We've been a whole situations or violence situations, and try
to fight with something that not only harms you, but your community as well, while they're
actively harming you. Like, for example, the out north one, the documentary that you came out
talking about being queer, and all that intersection of being queer, Muslim, and smally. And now
you're being harassed because of that, and then receiving, like threats because of that, and
then not being the space where you're actively advocating for people who wouldn't think for
you?
Ash Farah 33:00
Because that's the thing about justice you. You either want justice for everyone regardless of
how they are to you or you? You're not, you're not you don't just advocate and, like, wish good
things upon people because they like you. You know, like, I made peace with the fact that I
wasn't going to be liked by my community early on. But that doesn't mean people should be
surveyed. It doesn't mean people should be, you know, having Muslim bans and it doesn't mean
that, you know, like, our community should be pushed out through housing issues and initiatives
without their voice, you know, and all those things like, doesn't matter if they don't like me, or if
they wanted me dead, because that's more reflection on them than it is on me.
Sabrin Gadow 32:57
And that’s on period.
Ash Farah 33:43
You know, and, like, I just I remember, there's been so many like, I loved Islamic studies, and
Islamic stories as a kid. Because, literally if you —- Nabi Mohammed literally had the closest
saxabas [disciples] who were his closest companions were men who wanted him gone, who
wanted him dead, who wanted him you know, for better like during their times when they were
not Muslim. You know, like they truly believed all those horrible things and still reached out, still
did but did not resort to immediate violence and all that so I just found that admirable and you
kind of grew in with me and within my own philosophies of life.
Also, liked Isa [Jesus], but you know, like you can't be saying that too loud and in a masjid like
this, you know, because that's kinda like you riding a little Christian line there. What do you
mean Isa? But like, yeah, that like sense of like, turn your cheek sometimes.
It's not about you.
Sabrin Gadow 34:00
I like that because at the end of the day it’s for the community. Yeah.
Ash Farah 34:19
And part of it, whatever affects them, will affect me. It will affect my siblings, it will affect my
sister. So I am of the community like I got here through asylum status. So Muslim ban is very
serious. Like it's, you know, that kind of stuff. So, definitely.
Sabrin Gadow 35:18
You talk something — when you spoke about activism you do you spoke about healing and
healing through that, how's that relate to the major you chose at Augsburg?
Ash Farah 35:28
Well, I'm not gonna lie. The major I chose that Augsburg was bio psychology, because it was
the closest to neuro psychology because it was the study of the human mind. And I'm pre-med
because I am an African stereotype. And despite that, my mom really wanted me to be Poli-sci.
I like a lot of people thought it was going to be Poli-Sci because of, you know, just my interest in
activism and advocacy and all those sorts of things. But I just thought that I couldn't have both.
But I feel like you can pursue medicine. You can't pursue medicine without knowing the
communities that you serve, and stuff like that. So I think it made me more well rounded person
like, Yes, I wrote curriculum. The moment — that was the first job I got out of high school for the
superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools by asked me after all the basically unpaid
trainings and work that I did to help create curriculum around LGBT history, and I was the
youngest person to be able to do so just because of that sort of work. And I found that policy
and politics and lobbying and working anti violence directly and working with youth all that did
not bring me the same.
It all had the same overarching theme of healing that I was trying to get. And I think the closest
to you know, a traditional healer is a doctor. So I really am hoping to become a doctor so that I
could help support a lot of non like a lot of nonprofits. I wrote a very —- I was a grant writer for a
minute. So I know the struggle of trying to get funding for your communities when they're like,
poor low income, stuff like that. So having a little couple names before your name, to like, push
something along to help your community really does help. Also, we literally have the worst
outcomes for, you know, Somali people here and there's a lot of like medicine, misinformation
that was given out by shitty people to vulnerable members of our community, and referring to
the antivaxxers who and also like, there's just not a lot of mental health advocates in our
community, even though for a vast majority of our elders are suffering from PTSD.
Ash Farah 38:00
You can't watch your entire family drown in a ferry and expect to be normal and then dropped
into a random country, that the only thing you have is faith in your religion, and expect and strife
and you know and expect to be normal with a lot of, you know, a lot of the female. A lot of older
people, all the females in our community have had issues of sexual assault or witness sexual
assault, there are more times I have a ricochet bullet from where my mom, got shot, it's just not,
you know, like it's just not talked about because and we need to have people who look like us
be able to address these issues. So it's not just, you know, just pray on it. Because that's the
only way to stop these cycles of trauma and stuff like that. So I would love and love to be that
person. And also guess what trans people also horrific outcomes when it comes to health care,
and so do black people.
So I figured it was the perfect calling for me.
Sabrin Gadow 39:00
That’s amazing, you talk a lot about unspoken, and things that are not talked about and is that
underlying theme that you’ve noticed a lot? Like what things you don't want to talk about things
we don't want to see we push aside and let that bubble until we actually have to address it.
Ash Farah 39:20
Yes, I think um, there's a lot of issues like that, but in particular, like queer Muslims have existed
and will continue to exist. It's just we choose not to talk about that because it's much easier to
tell your family that that cousin or that sibling
left or disappeared or got sick, then deal with the fact that this is a problem that needs the like
Reformation that we need to change the way we view the way, the way we accept treatment of
LGBT Muslims in our community.
Because that is not a reflection on the deen [faith] but a reflection of us.
Sabrin Gadow 40:10
You talk a lot about change. Do you think that the younger generation will bring about this kind
of change?
Ash Farah 40:12
Yeah, like the younger generations, I've already noticed have been more accepting and more
like conscious and aware of these issues and stuff like that it just comes down to if there will be
less of a literalist interpretation, and less, you know, hatred, but in, you know, we say, with every
generation, it'll get better and stuff like that. But, you know, hatred has a way of being taught as
a way of like, being propagated like Frederick Douglass said, it's easier to build a boy and make
a man or something like that, you know, it gets really, you know, and I think we shouldn't be
reaching out to youth, if people see like, that gay people cause diseases or like, they'll be like
Sodom and Gomorrah, like Qumul-lut [The People of Lot] you know, and stuff like that. And that
they are just generally bad people.
And they'll believe it because we're only 7% of the population. So it's not that many and even
trans people is even less. But even then we're still the same amount of people that have red
hair, you know, but like, youth aren't seeing positive, like impacts and positive, like members of
the community and stuff like that, who are out, who are visible or doing things that are, like
consciously positive. We're not going to we're not going to spark change.
Ash Farah 41:29
Where were we?
Sabrin Gadow 41:31
Sorry for the small break we took. We had to go grab a drink of water. You talk a lot about
visibility, and you talk a lot about the things that aren't talking about, and spoken about but you
think you made the chose to be more visible or did you feel like you had to like it was a duty you
owed?
Ash Farah 41:41
Here's the thing about visibility. I came out to my entire family at five. I wrote down. I'm a boy! I
loved Vikings, I loved all sorts of more masculine things, and what the immediate assumption
was, was that I had a jinn.
That I was possessed with a jinn and a masculine jinn and stuff like that or that I had an evil
eye or something. So they of course started you know, conversion therapies and stuff like that
to help and eventually, like it became I was a very, very honest kid so that obviously didn't really
didn't work at all because it was nothing wrong with me. And I this, I don't think there was a point
in my life where I decided to not be visible, I think I was always visible except under threats of
violence. That was it and I would, in a wouldn't even be a threat to me, it would be a threat to
either my siblings or my mom. And at that point, I started to like realize around the age of like,
nine or so that I needed to not be as visible not be as loud about it because it actually had
terrible effects on my mother and my siblings and my family in general. And it was, you know,
like, and I went along with it, I acted like I was consistently cured. I delved into Islam trying to
find some loophole, some something, some Hadith that like, show that I wasn't just this, you
know, weird, pariah! That there had to be something to explain my existence. You know, and
because I knew was true, and I wasn't lying and all those things, eventually found out the
Hamza one of the Saxaba [disciple] was performed a gender reassignment surgery on what
they would call them Mukannahth, which are, you know, like men who resemble women is the
direct translation, but which are trans women and of course, you know, transmen existed too at
that time and even in our and then I started to
Think. Okay, well, if the Quran doesn't obviously have anything against being like trans andthe
only Hadith I found was for it. I figured out right then that there was nothing and that Allah didn't
hate me, but that my people did. And honestly, people have hated a lot of people over time for
stupid reasons, you know people just love to hate. And I decided right then and I wasn't going to
be ashamed of anything that I had. Because I knew that if there was an Allah, that Allah was
merciful. Because I always read those the first line before any Sura [Chapter]. Do you know the
Most Merciful so I’m like if that is really true, then I am going to be fine. And those who wish
violence upon me, will have to account for it on the Day of Judgment. I found very that was very
faithful in that sense.
And I decided not to hide anything because Allah made me the way I was.
And I decided to be visible. And in the sense of I decided not to lie, which was a sin anyway.
You know? And that's okay. AndI just and I got to the point where like, I had no choice but to be
visible because not to be visible was going to kill my soul. It was just, I would have to pretend to
be someone I was completely not to everybody that I love and that they would start to love this
random person that I created. And I was not what I wanted. I wanted people to either hate the
authentic me or love the authentic me, then to love with this image, I propagate and hide out of
fear.
So if it was a choice, I don't even think it was a choice. I think the idea that it can be a choice to
hide yourself is actually really harmful, because so many Muslim queers I hear are just like, oh
yeah. Yeah!
Just go back in the closet!
When it's detrimental to your health and your physical well being, and your will to live because
why would you live if you can't sustain love or be authentic to your loved ones, or be honest like
that's not a life you're just living in a shell of a person, even though for but it's justified for safety
and I just realized I had nothing to lose and when it came to, obviously I had my life to lose. I
had like family to lose it like I had to leave at 13 I was homeless throughout my entirety of my
teen years. I've been beaten more like more times than I can remember.
I just —- in the sense of I had nothing to lose in the sense of the only thing I would have lost
was a fake life
I'd rather die a real one.
[RADIO SILENCE]
Okay? Hi.
Nothing???
Sabrin Gadow 47:30
Ohh (laughter)!
Going off your comment of dying a real one.
How do you feel? Headass.
You talk about you know that you had nothing to lose, you talk about your work and activism
and how it affected your family, and what does your family think of your work?
Ash Farah 47:50
It took, I'm not gonna lie I was disowned. It took a long while for me to get to a point where like,
where my mom and I can sit down and talk and do all that because was the once I left like it got
slightly better for them and over time it did get better for them in terms of being targeted and
having these effects but the fact that I continuously reached out and was doing work and I mean
I was like 16 doing it trans rally at the Capitol like it was you know, I was they doing teacher
workshop so it was entering classrooms you know, I was going against conversion therapy. And
that included Islamic conversion therapy, and stuff like that. So it was very much like can’t you
just go away and being gay somewhere else? Can’t you just not claiming to be somali, I just
change your name, change everything about you become fully Americanized, to be able to be,
you know, and I said, No, because I love my culture, and I love my people. I'm going to keep
this about me.
And then my mom was like, well I don't want you to come back in a body bag, please stop
speaking out with this is really, who does this help? Who does this help? And I'm, like, you
know, stuff like that because all it's doing is like harming you and I had my ribs are smashed and
I was, you know, like sleeping from bench the bench and like, like during school it was just not
good. It was not a good time and but I don't know like I just got it took literally until I was 20 to be
able to, for my entire family to realize that my leaving was to protect them so they weren't as
much of a target because I could not live there. And still, you know, I'd rather starve begging but
like doing that then have my family affected by a choice that I made a choice that I thought was
living the honest life, you know, and it took a conversation with my Mom to be like, hooyo, Abu
Talib, loved his nephew Nabi Mohammed, even though he was literally causing hell for him, his
tribe, his well being, and being called the daily like a crazy person or possessed by literally
everybody in his life, but he still defended a man who went against his core faith, he still died a
Kufar, he still died a disbeliever. You know, he still doesn't know he's still worship idols, you
know, but it was because of my family means more than that, if you don’t see that, I will find
family, and it just won't be you. And it just we had that, you know, moment of like, catharsis
between us. It took literally me making it into adulthood, making it my way in, you know, living to
tell them story about it. For her to realize that I made a good decision for her, the Family and
ultimately myself, because I'm in a good place now.
Sabrin Gadow 51:11
You referring to a prophet of like his life stuff like that making awesome letters to his life in your
life? Do you feel like you were chosen as well?
Ash Farah 51:23
No no no noooo. As much as I am borderline Kufar, now I'm not committing shirk, I just found
inspiring. That's all! I just found him inspiring and I find it like a good metaphor and stuff like that
for me to like, talk to my mom and talk to people that will view me as like this weird opposing
like, crazy person talking about like, Oh yeah, you can be queer Muslim, you can not be Queer
you can be queer and from some background and decide not to be Muslim. You can be Muslim
and do X, Y, Z because from diverse people, you know, and stuff like that.
While trying to remind people that through their own faith and stuff like that, like
People have been like people have been closed minded before in the Quran and it's not ended
up well for them. So maybe don't be like that?
Unknown Speaker 52:13
How does it feel to be told that because of your multiple identities and that you can’t be Muslim
when you’re like an Islamic scholar —Ash Farah 52:23
Oh I’m not an Islamic scholar.
Sabrin Gadow 52:26
I mean, like you’d win at a lot of conventions and you’re great reciter and things like that.
Like does it feel to know literally so much about the Quran, how does it feel to have someone
quiet literally struggled through their alif, ba, ta, [arabic alphabet] looking you dead in the face
and say that you cannot exist.
Ash Farah 52:44
I love that because it's not that you cannot exist is that my brain does not want you to exist
because then they will have to come up with this idea that Islam is more than their narrow
definition of the faith. At the end of the day is supposed to be easy.
Like, there was, you know, the story of like maybe Mohammed going into, you know, riding and
the baqra. You know, like, going on, you know, going to up to Jannah [heaven] and seeing all
the prophets and from Adam to you know himself and stuff like that and Allah saying that, listen,
this was prescribed I forget the exact number 40 times a day or something like that and moses
of being like, Nah man, if you're going back because my people couldn’t do even less than that,
so go back and back and forth between him and allah and he stopped at 5, the they decided
upon five daily prayers. And the lesson behind was Islam supposed to be an easy faith
accessible to all, regardless of race, gender, orientation, all that and I just until they grasp that
concept over there need to be you know,
Superior or their own prejudice with using justify justifying through the Quran they can I don't
think they ever will wrap their head around my existence?
… and I'm okay making people's heads explode because every fourth person starts to realize
well yes you can have both because like you know allah created people like me. So and that
you don't know everything you're just a stupid human being so follow your faith and be kind to
others
Sabrin Gadow 53:41
we're humans we live learn and make mistakes and grow and prosper. So as you a student at
Augsburg, can you talk about what kind of work you do here or that you are involved in?
Ash Farah 54:59
okay man. Um so I was a part of QIPOC like queer indigenous people of color which is a
student group here created to make space for queer indigenous people of color, of course, it
became a branched off of QPA, which is the main LGBT organization on campus. I'm the
current president and was on the board last year, really to create a space where queer people
of color can come together, chill, find solace in each other find community and get provided with
the resources that they need through and be able to come to social events during the campus
and stuff like that find people who have stories similar to them. It is a space for people who are
out and not out on campus, which is one of the you know, only spaces where people are
allowed to do that.
We make sure events are for the healing of the fundamental healing of our community, you
know, and we do various activities. We do various fun you normally do. Come together type
things because, you know, like, I want to create a sense of community here because in a
predominantly white institution and within those two, the two intersections alone, there's a lot of
ways that becomes a barrier to accessing the four year education here at this university. So it's
the least we can do as students to support each other through this horrific process, especially
since the majority of QIPOC are first generation and don't, you know, get this process at all so
it's better to go through it together.
That's what we do. QIPOC also has done resolutions for student government, for the protection
of trans people and trans day of remembrance. We also are part of the Equity Council, right
thing on campus and just various other student group collaborations with emphasis or this just
to insight a sense of intentional inclusivity, even in our Multicultural Student orgs.
Sabrin Gadow 55:01
I like how you say the word intentional inclusivity because (not just footnotes!) not just footnotes
because you're LGBT regardless.
LGBTQIA student services officially entered into MSS which was an intentional move to make
sure that we're including queer people who do have the identity where your a person of color too
so that is will not be treated like two separate identities.
How do you feel QIPOC is now navigating with the more boost of this new change?
Well, that LGBTQIA services included in MSS events being able to be under their wing not
either way, we'll be able to be like working closely with them despite that like do you feel that
this is a good move for QIPOC?
Ash Farah 57:54
I feel like this was ultimately a good move for QIPOC and was a move created and initiated and
pushed for by students last year.
We just did not like QIPOC only fitting really under on the LGBT student services or only under
multicultural services, which makes it really hard to find an advisor. Because, you know, like we
fit under both and I find that ultimately it'll be good for QIPOC students to be able to have
access to both things. Like and also have a space where they can be themselves among people
like them. So it's ultimately a good thing. Let's see.
Sabrin Gadow 58:26
How do you remain connected to your community or the causes you represent
Ash Farah 58:47
How do I remain connected to my community?
Well, I for now, due to a hate crime that was pretty recent and just trying to regain my own
health. I've been doing a lot of the direct direct activism that’s what I've been doing the last six
months.
Yeah, for the last couple months, um, but I just Yeah, but for the last couple months, but that's
Okay, because one way that I remain connected to the community that I want to represent and
that I am part of is through my student activism and student work.
So one way that I remain connected while trying to finish the course load of a pre med student is
through just like I had that horrific hate crimes. Sixth months ago.
Was it six months? I felt like no, it was July 4, actually.
About four months. Yeah, and the resulting concussion made school really hard to do so. I've
not been doing a lot of their direct activism that I've normally done but I've been active with
QIPOC on campus and creating groups and resources and reaching out to MSS groups and
stuff like that. So, students, the student group is one way that I have access to my community.
Another way that I like to remain connected to my community is through a book that I'm working
on. That I've been working on for about six months. And it's called, I don't know, I don't have a
title right now, but it will be basically be the Forgotten and 99 names, the other forgotten like the
other 99 names or something like that, where I would using the prompts of the you know, the
allah’s 99 names to showcase short stories and short interviews with Muslim individuals who
aren't typically included in the traditional narrative of what it means to be a Muslim. I mean, Like
for the obviously the most merciful, I will be talking about a friend miski, who in conversion
therapy had to had was literally taken back home for even more, you know, like conversion
therapy and stuff like that due to being a trans woman, which was seen as a form of
homosexuality and detestable by their parents. And she have not seen her since then. But, you
know, writing her story and what I know about her and how she did, and how she taught me
what, like, what mercy really like meant, that kind of thing on there's for the other 99 names, just
various, like queer Muslims or single moms or victim, Muslim women who've been assaulted,
sexually assaulted and all this by you know, just using the and interrogating these otherwise
forgotten stories and narratives into a, you know, short novel. And it's a process because it
involves interviewing a lot of people on a lot of topics that are very, you know, close to their
heart and not openly talked about in a lot of like Islamic circles, at least traditionally Islamic
circles that I've been in. And I think it'll be one way that I still remain connected in the
community, whatever presents also, another way that I'm remaining connected hopefully is by
the time I graduate, to start a another nonprofit.
Ash Farah 1:02:45
I co founded one early last year, which was for trans youth. Um, but another one which is we're
trying to come up with a name or debate debating whether we should say RUNTA which means
truth in Somali or come up with a more you know more pan-Islamic you know name for it but to
be an org dedicated for most queer Muslims and people from Muslim backgrounds who
happened to be queer and stuff like that so and just working on how that might look or what
types of events or things that might do so those are ways that I'm trying to stay connected.
Sabrin Gadow 1:03:29
Yeah, thank you and I as many other fans are, like can not wait for the book to drop
(laughter) thank you so much and thank you for your time. Thank you for sitting here with me
and talking about your path and your journey and it has been very informative and I want to
thank you for your time.
Sabrin 0:00
This is Sabrin doing an oral history project. Um Can you introduce yourself real quick?
Mustafa:
Yeah, this is Mustafa Jumale. Um yeah, uh 29. Black Immigrant organizer
Sabrin:
What identities or communities do you identify as being a part of?
Mustafa:
I am, I would say I am being apart of the Black immigrant communities. Um, also apart of the
queer community. And, you know, I think like I’m most connected to black organizers and
organizations, both like um multi generational African Americans and uh um black immigrant
folks I would say those are like my people really, you know? Yeah
Sabrin 0:48:
Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood?
Unknown Speaker 0:53
Yeah, um uh what do I wanna say about my childhood. Yeah, you know, um it was great, to be
honest. Of course, you know, growing up poor growing up as a, you know, as refugees fleeing
conflicts, having older parents who have to, like restart their life in a foreign country with new
customs and a language challenging but you know Alhamdulillah, like my parents pushed, oh,
you know, you know provided us with everything that we needed. Um I have 11 other siblings,
most of us live in the US. I have two siblings who live in Canada and one in Somalia.
Yeah, so my most of my life I've been in Minnesota, but when we first came to the US, we
settled in Kansas, Missouri, and then we live-moved to San Diego. Some of my siblings and my
cousin moved to Minnesota where they heard their jobs and then uh yeah. My brother got into
some trouble and was arrested and subsequently deported. And so my mom was doing a lot of
commuting back and forth between San Diego and Minneapolis and then ended up feeling like
Minnesota a better option for us as a family. So we moved to rural Minnesota, which was crazy
and in a city called Mankota and uh not very welcoming environment at all. And we were there
for like two years and then we moved to suburban Minneapolis, and Eden Prairie. And, you
know actually , some of my siblings still, one of them just moved out, the last sibling just moved
out of the complex that we had originally settled in the early 2000s. But yeah, so we moved to
Eden Prairie there was a larger Somali population, larger immigrant population. And went to like
middle school there and high school in Eden Prairie and transferred to Edina. Cause it was like
a shitshow for black migrant youth, particularly Somali youth. School was just being xenophobic
so I left and have yeah had a really better time in a Edina public schools and yeah.
Sabrin 3:37
Um, ok after you went to Edina public schools you went to the U of M, can you talk a little bit
about your experience at the U?
Mustafa 3:45
Yeah the U of M was great, I would say I had an overall a great experience. Of course, it’s a
historically white university, I mean, a predominantly white university so there the challenges of
being a student of color and immigrants in this space. You know, a lot of issues around policing,
particularly like the West Bank is like closest to the largest Somali population outside of
Mogadishu. Cedar Riverside, you know so the police just criminalize all Somalis basically on
the West Bank didn't know who was a student, some Somali kids, or some Black kids did
something, you know, does not mean you have to like criminalize all of the Somali students on
campus. So that was a particularly challenging thing. Otherwise, I would say adequate
experience. Was in the Somali Student Association, did a ton of research, met wonderful
friends. Some of them I’m still connected to. Uh, travelled to South Africa. Yeah, just like really
opened my eyes to many, many different things and opportunities.
Sabrin 4:53:
Yeah. So your apart of the Somali Student Association, at what capacity were you involved with
them?
Mustafa 4:56:
I was the outreach coordinator and I want to say at one time I was at, I was a secretary. Yeah.
And so yeah, I did it for one year, it was good. There was challenges, you know, because
they're just like different perspectives are just like different perspectives of the group, right? You
have people who are very liberal, people who were moderates, people who were conservatives.
So sometimes making decisions around like dancing, doing Dhaanto, cultural social things
where men and women were mixing were challenging, you know, but we got through it through
difficult dialogue, you know. Yeah the SomalI Student Association really,I think is a backbone for
Somali students not only in the capacity that they have to like just convene students, but to do
advocacy for them to, you know. And so I remember, like uniting as Somali students when the
Somali Student Association president, my sophomore year in college was like dragged out of
the Wilson Library on the West Bank of the U of M. An It was just that the University of
Minnesota police departments just at the time and I don't know these days probably the same
was just so Zena phobic and racist towards Somali students Yeah. I worked on a like oral
history project with immigration history Research Center at University of Minnesota. And that I
think was a significant project for me to like really understand other Somali identity, other Somali
youth identities and what there experiencing compared to what I was experiencing, transitioning,
again, part of being part of the 1.5 generation.
Sabrin 7:09
What do you mean by 1.5?
Mustafa 7:13
Uh 1.5 is like folks who were like born in Somalia, but raised in the US, like myself. So, you
know, like, I don't really have much of a memory of my time in Somalia. So, I would say that a
lot of like the 1.5 generation, we do a really good job of like, constantly negotiating, you know
the space between Somali culture and the US.
Sabrin 7:50
Yeah, so that's such an interesting way to say that. So you start a little bit about studying racism
in South Africa. How did that shape you as a person today?
Unknown Speaker 8:00
I think I my South African experience was really significant. You know, to like understand their
history about like, the trauma during apartheid that they had experience. It really helped kind of,
like inform my understanding and complexity around racism. You know, how racism can be so
complex and how racist ideology really like, is deeply embedded in these societies. And I will
say, you know, also like, just the way even that racism in South Africa is more complex, and like
different than other places. So that experience was really good for me like it helped me not only
understand like how the students in South Africa were being treated at what where historically
white universities and now are, you know, more and more becoming blacker and blacker. And
so at the time I was working on a research project with about the experiences of African
American and African students, predominantly white, and historically white University. So I
interviewed some South African students, you know about their experiences at these
universities and it's very similar experiences, you know, that you would imagine. White students
and fraternities doing ridiculously racist things, like the same things that you see on some of
these campuses in the US. I would say the way in which South African universities responded to
the violence that these white folks were perpetuating was much more progressive than how like
a lot of these US institutions and universities responded to. Really, I think like that tradition
comes out of their peace and reconciliation process. There was, God I forget his name now, but
I used to really be involved deeply in some of this research. But yeah, there was a minister of a
university that like some really fucked up, xenaphobic things happen. And he convened a whole
like reconciliation process, you know, obviously, the students were, I think, expelled and
punished but like, moving forward there needed to be a conversation. So going back to like
South Africa last year, and my own, a lot of the same issues, honestly, that I saw in all nine. So
10 years later, or eight years later, or nine years later. Xenophobia is still rampant over there
and the wealth still held by white folks. You know, there's definitely like the youth and listening to
what the youth and the like next set of leaders and how they will work around reparations issues
around land and money, you know. So now there's some really like progressive conversations
happening around that. But I don't think the current like South African Leadership would be,
would engaged in actually providing reparations for folks or taking land, taking and giving people
their land back, you know, from the apartheid.
Sabrin 11:49
No, definitely. The experience you had in South Africa really is a great one. How did that help
you when you came back to America and the next steps that you took towards your career?
Mustafa 11:56
Yeah, so when I came back, I just like continued to do that research. Do you know it helped me
realize, like, how interconnected the world is, you know, and how a lot of our challenges are
similar. And you know, at the time I had always had never left US, like aside from going to
Canada and so it was like really powerful experience for me. And so I just continue that
trajectory of like research did some more research on like, Somali history, Somali oral history
projects. And then yeah, and then I, I ended up like, you know, like being really connected to
some of those people. I'm in South Africa. So we're still in touch and you know, I still connect
with them.
Sabrin 13:01
That’s so nice. How would you define activism?
Mustafa:
I would say activism really is, is… Activism for me, it means, the way it manifests in my life is
that I pretty much have been working in public policy around human rights and humanitarian
issues. And the public policy work that I do now with Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI),
and the black immigrant collective work, and the consultation that I've been doing, I think, is the
form of activism because a lot of my work is just it’s mainly around issues that impact me and
my people and my community and I'm privileged in that sense to, you know, get to be paid for
the things I'm passionate about. For other people activism could be anything, you know,
anything that they're passionate about, like supporting in any way that makes us in their life.
Activism does not have to be like you showing up and risking your life in action. It could be you
donating, it could be you guys, whatever capacity you folks have. So, activism to me is
obviously like standing up for our fellow human beings really looking and making sure people
you know, have dignity in their lives and are not placed in a position where like, you know, I
guess the state violence will forever continue in this country but yeah.
Sabrin 14:55
Yeah, excuse me. Yeah, no that was really great. You talk a lot about the work in activism you
do is policy work and that really contributes back to like the policy work you did back in, when
you used to work for Congress, Congressman Ellison and the work that you do for your current
organization called Khrye Solutions. Can you talk a bit about both those experiences?
Mustafa 15:16
Yeah, I had a really good time working at Congressman Ellison’s office. I mean, obviously, it
was really challenging. I was very young, and I was dealing with some, like, big community
issues, you know, like a lot of the work that I did was around foreign policy around human rights,
and so particularly around Somalia, Ethiopia, a lot of work on remittances. And remittances are
like money that's permitted back to people in their home countries, we call it in Somali hawala. Is
like and so basically people are sending, you know, maybe like monthly or weekly funds to their
families back home to support their basic living. And so I've done a lot of work on that. Me and
my colleagues were really leading the charge on remittances, on Somali remittances. And we
were able to pass a bill that provided like banks, a technical fix that they were asking about, that
they thought would help with the Somalia situation. Ultimately, it really did not help it. So the
deal that we worked on allows regulators to, to share information, you know, that state and the
federal regulators can now share audit that they do on remittances. And so did that.
And then did a lot of work on Ethiopian human rights. In 2015, you know, we had a bunch of like
folks who've been killed in Ethiopia, and there's a large Ethiopian population here in Minnesota
and so I wanted to build community to do advocacy around that issue. And really making sure
that that, you know, the US government holds these Ethiopian governments accountable, like
pressure to the Ethiopian government to not be killing its own constituents or its own citizens. I
worked with the Oakland Institute that's based in Oakland, California, on a resolution that was
passed last year in in Congress basically condemning the Ethiopian government for the killings,
the killings of the Oromo youth, Anuak youth, you name it. We did a lot of work also around O.
Chela, who's the Anuak leader in Ethiopia. And Chela was kidnapped by the Ethiopian
government, detained and tortured. And so we wrote a lot of letters to the administration, to the
White House, urging them to advocate for the release of Chela. Ultimately, he was released
when, you know, there was a big, like revolution like this, those uprisings that were happening
led to a huge shift in Ethiopian government, you know. Apparently so there's a new prime
minister, and upon when he joined, he released Chela and other political leaders, a lot of Oromo
leaders. So I remember reading that on Twitter, and this was after I had left Congressman
Ellison's office last year and just breaking down and crying, you know, just because I could not
believe Chela was released. I had never met Chela Amitabh at the Oakland Institute, helped me
figure out how to do advocacy around Ethiopia, in Congress, and they were working on his
campaign Campaign to get a Chela released. So that's how that's connected to that. But yeah, I
did that. And then so like really working for Congressman Ellison and other elected officials
really allowed me to like understand how state and federal policy works and how to move policy,
got to meet a lot of powerful leaders. And so that led me to like leaving Congressman Ellison’s
office and starting data Khyre solutions with my friend and then going I'm kind of like a retreat to
like a little time off to just relax. Because I was burnout. We were doing a lot of work around a lot
of work around voter engagement, a lot of work around the humanitarian lobbying. And so
ultimately, it didn't really work out for my friend. She was not interested in this type of work. And
I ended up continuing on my own. And then you know, Trump was elected. And as a result of
that, a bunch of us got together and established the black immigrant collective. Which is a
collective that is based in Minnesota that does community based advocacy work on black
immigration issues. It's mainly led by black immigrant women. So I've been doing that for almost
three years. And then through that I got connected to and more involved in immigration work.
There's also like several, like a lot of our work has been around Liberian DED (Deferred Enforced
Departure) because there's several Nigerians who are part of the collective. And so collective,
the collective started really after the Muslim ban was put in place like a bunch of us kept getting
calls and what like going on? You know, people who were worried that they were not going to
be reunited with their families and things like that because of this ban. Then from there, we
ended up working on immigration policies working on something called Liberian DED, Deferred
Enforced Departure. I call it Deferred Enforced Deportation. Yeah, so BAJI, the Black Alliance
for Just Immigration, reached out to them on us kind of thinking through like how we want to go
about doing this advocacy work. And so they flew out to educate us on some training. We got to
know them better, what they do. And then they invited us to DC to advocate for Haitian
temporary protected status. And temporary protected status is a status that folks are given when
the country that they're from experiences a man made crisis like a civil conflict or environmental
crisis, you know, like the hurricane, earthquake, things like that.
And so the administration so --Trump administration-- is terminating TPS for terminated TPS for
Haiti. So what that meant is that you know, close like 56 or 58,000 Hatiain TPS holders were
gonna become undocumented and be required to leave the country. And that's not even
including their children who would leave with them problaby, who are US born children. And so,
yeah, and so from there, we went to other convenings. And so they were there was a lot of, you
know, as the cookie at the time around Liberian DED, like a small group of people, Liberians, I
think we're working on it and other advocacy organizations. But we really came in there and just
like really uplifted the Liberian DED situation. And so Liberian DED is similar to TPS except that
the President of the United States has to extend it every year, so it's a discussion of the
president to extend, terminate or to terminate. So he decided to in 2018, he decided to
terminate it and provide people with like a year to get out of the country.
**techincal difficulties from 24:34 to 25:20 **
Sabrin:
Ok, we were talking about the president deciding to terminate DED in 2019 or 2018.
Mustafa 25:29
Yeah, so what he did was that, you know, he put the Liberians on noticed who were on DED.
Which, for us, we think it's about 4000 or 5000 Liberains who have that status. There are a lot
more eligible for that status. However, because of the, because of the fees associated with it, it's
expensive. You're talking about $400 $500 every year a pop applying for this. And so and we're
talking about people who are poor working class immigrants, and so some families have to
make the tough decision of deciding who in their family, usually the breadwinner is going to get
renewed. And so, and for others, they become undocumented. So, thankfully, you know, like, for
the past several years, you know, DED has been continued to be renewed every year.
And so, because of our advocacy, we actually were able to get DED comprehensive
immigration. Wait not the comprehensive immigration bill that was discussed a couple of years
ago in Congress. Okay, let me pause. I’m confusing myself. Okay, so what I'm trying to say is
that Congress earlier this year passed a bill called the Dream and Promise Act. It provides a
pathway to permanent status for DACA dreamers, TPS holders and DED holders. And so DED
is really only like 4000-5000. We got it to the point where they were included in that major piece
of legislation. We uplifted it as like a bigger issue with an immigration policy. And then all of a
sudden you have people like Nancy Pelosi and others speaking about the DED anytime they
talked about TPS. And that's how they talked about DED, which is great. And so as a result of
many, many years, I've only been involved in this for like the past three and a half years,
Liberian DED work. But many Liberian aunties, predominantly - and women, Liberian womenhave been doing this work for many years, for the past 20 years. And so in the past three years,
we're able to make a lot of strides. I think because the environments that we were put into
require us to act quickly and aggressively to protect our people. And so as a result of that
Congress last week passed a defense bill, defense bill passed in the House and then passed in
the Senate. And so the in that bill- first of all that bill is toxic. That bill is basically like, providing
funding to people, you know, military support for foreign governments, expanding our military
industrial complex here. But within this bill, there's language that Senator Jack Reed put in that
provides permanent status for Liberian DED holders. So that bill was passed in the House last
week, it's kind of tomorrow, the Senate is gonna vote on it. They expect the President to sign it
sometime this week. And just like that, you know, Liberians who have been undocumented for
20 years, in a couple of weeks can apply for a green card.
Sabrin:
That’s amazing.
Mustafa:
I know, this is such a big deal, you know, and so, I mean, this is probably one of the only
progressive immigration themes that have passed in this administration you know, and so I,
yeah. You know, for me, I've been doing this a while, and so I have the technical experience, so
do other people in the collective. So , yeah, it's just been simply amazing to see what we’ve
been able to do
Sabrin 30:09
Yeah, it's so nice to see your hard work and other people's hard work actually amount to
something, especially in this administration. And not only but an administration whose past
things like the Muslim ban, so that this got past is absolutely amazing. I am so happy for
everyone who affected. Okay, so you talk a lot about how you got into activism through policy
work and stuff and like activism through your schools, Somali Student Association and the
programs and jobs you've worked afterward. Do you think that you actively chose to become an
activist or do you think that fell into your lap and not fall into your lap but, like fell into your path
as you got older? And if so why?
Mustafa 30:42
So I've always been interested in like, human rights I've always been interested in protecting
and advocating for vulnerable communities and people. I think what really saved my
understanding around the complexities and the challenges we face as people of color in this
world when I went to college, and so I would say that, that really pushed me into working on
issues that are impacted by, you know, working on issues that people are being impacted by.
And from there, you know, I was gonna go to graduate school and become a professor. That
was a track. That was the idea. And then I decided not to out of circumstances. And I didn't get
funding to go to graduate school, you know, I was admitted to Cambridge University in the UK. I
was going to study African, get a MA (masters) in African Studies and didn't get funding so I
decided to work for the Minnesota DFL. I was TAing (teacher’s assistant) for a class at the U,
and one of my students encouraged me to apply for it. So I organized around East African
issues. And then from there that led me to working in politics and working in policy. I mean, it
was not an easy experience. I experienced a lot of trauma in this process. You know, I fell down
and burnt out myself one too many times, but continue to like, get up and try again, keep going.
The racism and xenophobia inside the Minnesota DFL and Minnesota politics in general. It’s
Crazy. The work that needs to get done, you know, around it to really make sure that we are
seen as equal partners in the Democratic party here. And so I'm no longer really organizing
around Democratic electoral work. I mainly now just focus on issue based teamwork, you know,
like immigration, other issues, the policies of those things so, and, you know, doing some
advocacy and activism around that. I'm not, I don’t foresee myself, like ever getting involved in
the Minnesota DFL. Again, just because I don't have I mean, I don't have time for that. I think
people are trying to change here. Hopefully, it becomes a more inclusive organization. But yeah,
I mean, like working at the state legislature and organizing what them, these people really don't
understand. Like these people, I would say are really taking advantage of people of color, but
are not coming through for us when it comes to issues that matter to us.
Sabrin:
That’s definitely true, especially with the DFL it always feels like they’re there for us during like,
when it's time to vote, and when we have to like elect our officials, but after that they kind of
seem to just fade out and not be some concerned are like our policies or issues that affect us. It
just feels like we're being used, which really sucks. And it caused a lot of burnout and frustration
because it feels like not being supported by the community or political group that’s supposed to
support you. And it’s really frustrating. Moving onMustafa 34:18
Yeah,
Sabrin 34:19
Oh, sorry keep going.
Mustafa 34:21
Yeah, no you're right it’s frustrating. That was my DFL experience.
Sabrin:
Moving on to our next part. Do you still, are you still part of the faith?
Mustafa 34:37
Yeah, I consider myself Muslim. You know, I grew up in a Sufi household and so I really like the
Sufi tradition. I was lucky enough to go to Somalia with my father in the last couple of months of
his life. And from that experience, I really got embed myself in the tradition of the Sufis in
central Somalia in particular, and it just really like opened my mind a lot of their traditions and
their practices. And then you know, I was going through a crisis you know, like my dad was
dying so I started reading the Quran
Sabrin:
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Mustafa 35:20
No, thank you. Yeah, my friend. And so my I started like reading the Quran, but the English
version of it. And I remember like my uncle and my other relatives being so fascinated and so
shady about me reading the Quran in English. They were just like really surprised, they were
like ‘Wow. How can you do this?’
Sabrin 35:52
It's almost as if Old Arabic is such an easy language to pick up like, I know people who have like
master the Quran, but there's no one single thing about it because they don't understand the
language in it. So the fact that you can even read it in English is such a good way to learn more
about it but still have a connection where it's like I know it's going on in other words, I know how
it relates to me and my life.
Mustafa 36:13
Yes, I consider myself, I, you know, like, really value the experiences like that I had with the Sufi
tradition. And a lot of it was like meditative to be honest I got involved in meditation center for a
while and a lot of it reminded me of that, you know, chanting, sitting in silence, meditating to
this very rural, very rural place called Burroraqadi, I think it’s called that. I’m probably
mispronouncing it but, like I think it translates to like a place where a lot of people died. But I
went to a Sufi university, that one of my relatives was teaching. And I was like, it was so
beautiful, you know? It was so tranquil, like, so peaceful. And the women had their own mosque.
First time I ever saw that. And because most times, you know, you see the mosques like they
don't provide a lot of space for women.
Sabrin 37:39
Oh, it's always like they’ll have the men’s side decked out 10/10 beautiful, clean head to toe.
And the women’s side will be like an empty broom closet Two rugs in there and they say, why
are you upset? You’re lucky you are even being allowed into here and you're like, ‘Oh, my bad.
How dare I expect right oopsie never again. But, no, it's really nice they have their own
mosque, that’s something they don't really see. Yeah, so how does being Muslim cosign with
your activism?
Mustafa 38:06
Oh, I think it's part of my faith calls me to it. Yeah. For sure. Like to like, stand up for people's
dignity and humanity and rights and being struggle together across communities and in an
intersectional way. Yeah, I really do believe that my faith is really what caused for us to be
involved in our communities.
Sabrin:
Islam is a religion of peace.
Mustafa:
Oh yeah, just tell that to the administration.
Sabrin 38:51
Hoepfully they’ll understand soon enough. What is your experience as a queer Muslim activist?
Mustafa 38:57
I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.
Sabrin 39:02
Oh, I’m sorry. What is your experince as a queer Muslim activist?
Mustafa:
Oh, I would say, good. You know, funnyliy enough like a lot of the people even leading the
liberation work are queer black folks in black communities tend to be queer. So like, for
example, if you look at the National Immigration advocacy world, particularly the folks that do
advocacy around black immigration issues, most the majority of the folks network are queer
black migrants are leading that work. And so I would say, like, the ways that it intersects,
honestly, is that it allows us to, like view some of these issues in a more complex way, you
know. So, for example, like we, I was recently writing a letter on Somali temporary protective
status for a member of Congress. Basically they're sending that letter to the administration to
advocate for Somali TPS status to be reinstated. And in that letter, I wrote like, if Somali TPS
holders, are sent back to Somalia, you know, like women and people from marginalized
communities, like queer Somalis, will be persecuted and girls. You know, and, so I think it just,
it layers, like the kind of work that we do. I would say it's also challenging because, you know,
some people are stuck in their ways around queerness. like as if so, like, as if, like, I don't know,
I actually don't know how to explain this. Like, I think it's just homophobia, you know. I'm like
trying to figure out a nice way to say this but it’s homophobia.
Sabrin 41:01
Some of the most complex feelings and emotions can really boil down to homophobia. And
that's really sad. But it really is a-
Mustafa 41:07
It’s homophobia because yeah.
Sabrin:
It really is.
Mustafa:
YeahSabrin:
Oh, I’m sorry did you have something else to say? Ok, so you talk a lot about about the reasons
why you do this and your experiences and like the work you've done. How does your family
think of your work? What does your family think of your work?
Mustafa 41:37
Yes, just to like finish that thought on the queer Somalis. I'm used to queer activism.
Sabrin:
Oh, Im sorry
Mustafa:
Yeah, no, the only thing I was gonna add is that like the word so I was telling you how like the
majority of the people, the black migrant organizing nationally, and leading the policy work on
queer black migrants, the people that we work with directly impacted based on my experience
has really welcomed us and accepted us you know as who we are, and are grateful for the work
that we do. You know, and I've really become like kind of like family to us. I think there are some
people who may be intimidated by you know, queer folks and don't want to work with us. And
that's that, we can’t do anything about that.
Sabrin:
Yeah I’ve definitely realized growing older and like, like moving more into my adulthood is, when
you get people by themselves, their gonna be really cool and their understanding but group
dynamic or group think belief, because the majority will only sway the few and that real sucks.
Going off that, what does your family Think of your work?
Mustafa:
My family is very supportive of my work. I think they're very supportive of my work and I've
always been honestly like. You know, they've heard my broken English, I mean broken Somali,
on BBC Somalia talking about remittances and TPS for Somalia. Other issues so they're proud
that I'm able to like, work on issues that our communities. Yeah.
Sabrin 43:23
That’s so nice. Ok, Any final thoughts or statements you'd like to add?
Mustafa 43:39
But what I would say is like, I'm really inspired by the Somali queers youths that are up and
coming right now. I'm really looking forward to seeing that the work that they lead in the future.
Like over the weekend, I was just observing stuff on Twitter, that like a bunch of Somali queer
youth were just engaging in like, just dialogue around, like queerness and sexuality, you know.
Like this, this young Somali queer woman or femme? I want to say probably probably like 19 or
20 or 20. Posted a pic of her and her girlfriend, you know, some of the Somali Twitter just kind
of went south.
Sabrin:
Yeah. Some people, are just jobless and have so much time to comment.
Mustafa:
Yeah, but its so inspiring to see how the Somali queer youth are responding. How they are
likeI'm here and not afraid. It really brings a lot of warmth to my heart.
Sabrin:
That’s such a beautiful way to end things off. People as always say the youth are our future, and
it's so nice seeing the Somali youth stand for themselves and who they are and undeniably live
their best life.
Mustafa:
I know right? And for a lot of them, I feel like Canada is where it’s at for Somali queers right
now.
Sabrin:
The way Toronto is popping for no reason.
Mustafa:
I know! You see that?
Unknown Speaker 45:23
Thank you so much time with me. I really do appreciate it.
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