PORTRAITS

Das Ranendra

I was growing up in Bangladesh, I learned about Manhattan, the skyscrapers, World Trade Center, and Empire State Building. And I tried to see them by going to the roof  – to see if I could see the Empire State Building. But it never happened – until – I won a lottery visa, and here I am.

Home was like the Andy Griffith show? So it’s like that. I grew up with– people. They knows each other, but also when something goes on they all come together and help each other. And if anybody have something, so everybody share. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, or whatever– it’s all we’re the same, so just helping each other. Shocking part was here, like cultural shock. It’s like nobody cares even when their apartment is next door, they don’t even look each other at all. So it’s just kind of you’re on your own. It’s kind of troubling [laughter] at first. But I got used to it.

I never thought that United States had soil or land. I thought like, “Wow–” I don’t even know what I was thinking [laughter]. But first when I arrived in JFK, I was like, “Wow they have land [laughter].” It was surprising and a sort of cultural shock. All the buildings, High skyscrapers, yes, the big buildings, Yes. Yes. Of course. Mind-blowing?

Mahmood

My name is Mahmood Mahmood. I’m 18 years old. I’m from Iraq, Baghdad. I born in Baghdad, 1999. In 2012, my brother became 18 years old, and he decided to work with the US military as a contractor. We thought that is an amazing job. Everybody wanted to be like that. My father accepted. He said, “It is a great job,” and just like, “Do it,” and there’s no problem. So my brother starts working with the US military for 9 months. And during that 9 months, he started to get bothered a lot because of other people. They said like, “Why you are working with these people? These people are bad. Are you maybe a spy on us with these kind of people? Because they ruin our country. This is not good. Be careful. Be careful. Be careful.” From this word, we didn’t know. What does it mean? You just say like, “Be careful.” After that, we started receiving billets in the mail in the front of the doors of the house. And so my father decided to just like ignore them, don’t care about them. After almost 11 months of his job– so, my father was going out from his job and then another car get close to his car and they just shoot the whole car. And who is those people? We didn’t know. Who are they? He came back home and he said, “I was almost died,” because of my brother. That would happen and all this stuff.

Gladys Mwilelo

Being a refugee in someone else’s country is never easy because you never know who likes you and who doesn’t.  As a kid in Burundi, I was called names.  Some people, instead of calling me by my name, would call me by my home country in a sarcastic way. That hurt because as a kid, I wanted to fit in, but eventually I learned to ignore what I was going through.  In my experience, if you don’t ignore the bad things, it’s going to affect you and you won’t move on.  So my job is always just to look forward instead of looking back because I’m trying to move on.

We cannot go back to the DRC.  People are still dying there because of the conflict going on right now.  What my family is doing is just looking for a place that maybe we can start again to call a home.  I believe that a home is the place we lose the most as refugees and immigrants.  I hope the United States will be our new forever home.

Paulina with Child

It took me three weeks to get to the United States from Guatemala.  My nine year old son and I traveled by bus and the “Train of the Beast” to get here.  It was called the Train of the Beast because you have to ride on the top of the train, not inside, and sometimes people fall off because it is traveling at such a high speed. I am very thankful that we arrived safely.

I left Guatemala because I could not sustain myself there and because of there is a lot of conflict  – gun fights, houses set on fire – as a result of conflict between my town and another town from which we wanted independence.  It is very different here.  It is much more expensive than I realized but now I have a job, I live a good life with my son.  I can go on with my life.  I am not afraid.

Aldabaan Issa

Alsaleh Aminah