05/10/2020
After I finished my call with Zahra, I had to sit back and process everything that I had heard. I was moved by this woman’s trials, her perseverance, and her relentless hope in humanity. Her compassion and strength took the form of sparks in her eyes, something that I will feel forever honored to have photographed.
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Zahra opened the conversation by sharing with me a glimpse of her childhood in Somalia during the civil war in the early 1990’s. After experiencing life in a severely unstable environment, her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was 15 years old. Since then, she has made a life for herself in the United States, raising a family and pursuing a masters in Mental Health Counseling from Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education & Counseling in Portland, Oregon. She went on to explain how systemic flaws and social hostility has made a direct impact on both her and her family. In regards to her decision to send her children back to Somalia with her parents: “At the time, having my children go back home felt like the best option for our family. This stuff is impactful. I grew up around bullets, but this stuff is also as emotionally damaging as those bullets. It’s been really hard for me here because I’m alone now. What gives me strength is that there are a lot of really good people in this country who give me a lot of love and help me forget and ignore all of the hardship. There are days when I go for a walk in my area - it’s a safe area - but there are times when someone will go out of their way, get out of their car and tell me to go back to Africa. Seriously. Even then, I meet so many great people that feel like family. And that’s the walk. We’re going to have great experiences with people who are meant to be loving and kind, and there will also be those people who have had their own experiences and have that intense energy that they want to express outwards, and they don’t know how to do that lovingly. I really cherish the good people in the world.”
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These two sessions were shot separately; Zahra in the U.S. and her children in Somalia. Photographed virtually by me, using my Nikon DSLR through a video call with their camera phones.
