Cani
In Somalia, I lived with my mom and my dad. I was born in 1990, and 1990 is the year that the Somali government collapsed. We used to have a strong government, and people used to be proud of Somalia. There used to be peace. These are all stories I've heard, but I never saw Somalia like that because I was born the year it collapsed. All I've seen is no government, no administration, and people killing one another. I went to school and people would tell me about our country before it collapsed, but that is not what I saw.
I grew up in Hudur, a small city in southern Somalia. Hudur is a beautiful city that I love, no matter what goes on there, but what I witnessed in my childhood is not easy to forget. When I was 12 years old, people started fighting over tribes and clans. I witnessed neighbors being killed because of their tribe, land, money, and political opinions. I never felt that it was right, and I wanted to know if other people thought the same things as I did.
One of the worst experiences I had was when people were talking as a clan about how one of their members was killed. They wanted revenge, to kill another person. They were trying to decide who to kill, and they wanted their revenge to be equal to the crime committed against them. Since a well-educated person from their clan was killed, they wanted to kill a well-educated person. I didn't want to run away - I wanted to change it. I wanted my people to understand that we are all human. Everything that I experienced got worse and worse.
My father had not worked since the central Somali government collapsed. My mom had to pay the fees for all my siblings to go to school. She is the reason that we went to school. I went to school throughout my childhood, and most of the parents were happy to send the boys to school, but not the girls. It's so unfair, and I didn't feel good about it because I have five sisters. My two brothers and I were going to school, but I felt like my sisters were smarter than I was. I knew they could be even smarter if they went to school. I had this conversation with my grandfather because he was the leader, but everyone was laughing at me, telling me that it was not something that I could change. He told me to stop talking about it, so when I was 10 years old, I stopped going to school. My mom really wanted me to go to school, but I told her that I would stop going until my sisters were allowed to go. When I was 12 years old, I began working to build a nonprofit organization, and while it was not very formal, it was focused on women's empowerment with my biggest goal being getting girls to go to school.
By the time I was 17, I had successfully created an organization for peace and human rights. This organization was able to send 306 girls to school. My grandfather had asked if I would go to school if we created a school for girls. I told them I would; if they didn't want boys and girls coming together, a school only for girls was better than nothing. They started the school and times have changed: school is just school now. In fact, there are more girls than boys that now go to school.
I really like watching and playing soccer. I've played since I was six years old. I started playing through my school, but I ended up playing with my city. Then I played on the state team. In 2007, I was about to try joining the national team, but because of a lot of insecurity going on, I did not.
It was getting more dangerous in Somalia. People that I loved and people that I worked with were being killed. I knew I was going to be next, and the people who were killing told me that. I decided that I must flee. At that time, my aim was not even to come to America - it was not one of the countries on my list. In Africa, people first think of Europe when they think of safety, maybe because it's closer than America. When I was trying to leave my country, I was trying to get anywhere else. All I needed was to be away from my homeland because of security reasons. After I paid people to help me get out, I spent four months in Kenya, which is a neighboring country of Somalia. It was hard to be there, too. During the process of getting further away, I ended up in one of the Latin American countries. I was in Colombia at the moment I knew I would be coming to America. I passed through about 20 countries on my way to get here.
I traveled for a month and a half, and during that time, I experienced so many new things. I had faced risks when I was back home, but when I was coming here, I thought to myself that I should have stayed and died in my hometown. Coming to America was a different kind of risk. People lose themselves on the way, and people die in the street. People die in the jungles that I walked through for four days and four nights. If you get injured, they will just leave you there. I ran away from my country to avoid being killed, but I was killing myself on my journey here. When I was in Panama, I asked a commander from the army if I could use his phone. I called back home, and they told me my grandma had passed away. If I hadn’t asked, I would have never known.
I didn't travel with anyone that I knew, but there were about 50 people from different countries, some Latin American, some African, and some Asian countries, who were also making the journey to the United States. When we came close to the Mexican border, people chose which state they wanted to cross into. Some went to California and Arizona, and I went to Texas.
Immigrants are different - some people come through visas, and some people come as refugees, but I came as an asylum seeker. Once you cross the border, there is a long process you have to go through, and one step is to go to a detention center. You have to go there when you come through Mexico as an asylum seeker because they have to make sure it is safe for you to be in the community. When I arrived at the American detention center, I told my family that I was safe.
I had to tell immigration officials my story, and I had to go through an interview that established a credible fear of returning to my home country. I ended up in a detention center for 30 days before they gave me credible fear. They decided what I told them was true. Then they sent me to another detention center near Buffalo, New York.
Being in a detention center was something that I had never experienced before. Going to America, I never thought I would be detained. When I met the first detention officer, they treated me well. They asked where I came from and if I had a passport. I told them that I didn't have anything. They offered for me to sit down, and they offered me something to eat. The way they treated me was good. When I went to the detention center, it was totally different than the way the officer treated me, and my experience was not something that I was expecting. I had to sleep next to other people, wake up next to other people, and eat with other people.
It wasn't a good time for me to be a Muslim person because it was fasting time, and I wanted to fast because I was healthy. I didn't want to miss fasting, but we were only given three times a day to eat in the detention center, and one of those times was 5:00 am. Even if you didn't want to eat, you had to wake up and sit at the table. It was a complicated thing for me because I didn't want to eat or drink from the sunset until 12 or 16 hours later. Our meal times were 5:00 am, 11:00 am, and 5:00 pm. We had lockers, but we couldn't put food in them. Security guards went in and out to check the lockers for food, so I couldn't save it. I didn't eat breakfast or lunch because of the fasting times, so I would only eat dinner. It was hard for the first couple of days, but my body adapted and I lost a lot of weight. I carried on that way for a month.
I met a lot of different people. I met people who had been in jail for eight or ten years. Sometimes I wondered what I was doing there. People fought. I was scared a lot. There were times I didn't talk to anyone because I didn't want to get in trouble. There were some kind people, too, and they would talk to me and give me advice. They had been there for a long time. I was happy the day they told me I would be leaving after I had spent about 40 days there. I was sent to Fargo-Moorhead because I have relatives here.
I arrived in Minnesota in October 2015. There was no snow outside, but it was cold. Coming to the United States, everything was new, but the hardest thing to get used to was the weather. It was terrible for me the first year. I would watch people run to their cars, run inside, and run to their cars again. Now, I have adapted to it. The culture, food, and people are also different. When I was in Somalia, I used to speak British English, which basically means I knew zero English when I came to America, but I have adjusted.
Three days after I arrived in the Fargo-Moorhead area, I started volunteering with the community. I cannot be at home because I want to work. It makes me feel happy. I sleep better at night if I help people. After three days, I started the long process to get papers to work in America. I waited seven months, and in that time, I was working eight or nine hours a day with zero pay. The first job I applied for in America was for a custodial position. I went to talk to my supervisor, and I heard him and one of the employees talking about me, the new guy. He called me a slur. I didn't even know what it meant, so I Googled it. The slur is an old racist comment for Muslims. I didn't want to file a report on my first day, so I did nothing. I eventually became a supervisor. After working there for two years, I was talking to my boss and the coworker that he was speaking with that day. I told them that I heard everything that day, and they were shocked. My coworker apologized, and I know he would never say something like that about me now. If I had just reported it, my coworker and friend would have lost his job, and maybe he would have hated Muslims until the day he died. I forgave him, and I got love back. He is my friend now. Even though he's retired, we call one another, and he is the one who asked me if I wanted to go ice fishing. I had never gone before, so I went. I hope to change the Fargo Moorhead area into an environment where people forgive one another. I want to see zero hate crimes in the Fargo-Moorhead area. I want to see people love one another, neighbors love one another, no matter who you are.
I work at the Afro American Development Association, a nonprofit organization, and I have moved to a higher position. We work with the immigrant community. It's hard to specify what we do because they come with a lot of needs. Typically, we show them the resources, help them apply for jobs, and provide interpreters. Sometimes we end up doing everything for them because they come with a lot of problems. Generally, we help them enter the workforce or enroll them in English classes that we put on every Saturday and Sunday.
I learned about diversity here in America. In Somalia, there is one faith and one language. As a community leader in the Fargo-Moorhead area, I have witnessed a lot of hate crimes happening around me. Some of the people who have experienced a hate crime happening to them come to me to share their stories and ask how to move forward. My philosophy in approaching those situations came to be while I was in Kenya, which is a Christian country. On my soccer team in Kenya, I was the only Muslim. Those who were Christian were very respectful to me. We stored the soccer goals inside a church, and every Sunday morning I went inside the church to get the goals. I saw the preacher talking to people with his loud voice, so sometimes I stopped and listened to them, and they got to know me. I've learned the differences between the religions, and I respect both of them. I read the Quran every day. I debate with my friends in a good way. My faith as a Muslim teaches me that forgiveness is a fundamental idea for human beings. I use that idea in my work against hate crime. We sit down and talk with the people who committed them, and we forgive them. I have found that they're less likely to continue what they're doing if you forgive them.
I really love my country. I love my hometown. I am so grateful to be here in America and that I can do whatever I want, but I would have never left my home city if it had remained peaceful. One of the things that I want to do is help people. If I could help people in my hometown, I would not be in America today. I'm happy with my work here helping people, but I would be happier if I was helping people from my hometown. Sometimes when I'm falling asleep, I ask myself if I did anything for my people, and then I remember that the school that we built there is running, and almost 200 students, boys and girls, go there. I have created a system where people from my hometown, some in Europe and some in America, pay the teachers' salaries so that the school can thrive.
It is hard to keep your culture in America, and I have seen people who do not keep their culture anymore. The main struggle is that there's only a small number of people who represent your culture, and there's not a strong place to go where you can practice your culture. I have a lot of friends here who are also from Africa. They bring me to traditional cultural events, so sometimes I dress or dance the way they do. I am learning a lot now. I found a Somali community, and I've also found different groups like the Congolese, Kenyan, Cameroonian, Nepalese, and Indian communities.
I wish I could go back to Somalia, but it is still not safe for me. In Somalia, someone like me should have bodyguards. I don't have bodyguards, and I cannot hire them, so I would be at risk. I want to go back home and I want to see my people. Now I have gained experience and education. I want to go back home and spread awareness and direct them in a good way. There is a shortage of food and water happening there, especially in my hometown, but they are working on solutions.
My goal for the Fargo-Moorhead community is to see diverse employees in local institutions and companies, and for immigrants to be further represented in workplaces and schools. I want to see a Somali mom or a Congolese mom, who came from somewhere in the world with zero English, feel comfortable going to work. I want them to feel comfortable talking to their non-Somali and non-Congolese neighbors. If we love one another, even if there is a language barrier, we are creating connections within the community. I have created love in my neighborhood.
I had a neighbor in Moorhead. He is a white Christian man, and I am a Black Muslim man, but despite our differences, we have a very good relationship. We share food, call each other for help, and look out for one another. He always helped me fix my car. Sometimes all you have to do is listen to your neighbor and give them the space and time to create a strong relationship.
To support new Americans, all you need to do is try to understand their situation and be accepting of cultural differences. At the Afro American Development Association, we have English classes taught by NDSU and Moorhead Public Schools faculty as well as other community members. I cannot believe some of the relationships that have been built between Somali women and their professors. During COVID, professors went to Walmart and got them food, rang their doorbell, and dropped it off. Others have even helped a student move. Usually, they would call me for everything, but now, they have started calling their professor to tell them good news they don't even share with me. I now get calls from the teachers they have made connections with to share important news. Just being welcoming and inviting builds connections, and those connections are what I hope people find.
Because I missed peace in my hometown, and I found it here in Moorhead, I understand the value of the United States Army, the government, and the people. I wish people born here knew what they have. There are kids out in the world somewhere who have no education and no food. If they saw what you had here, they would work really hard when they went to school because it's something they never had.
Hudur is my home, but Moorhead is also my home. I never thought I would love a city like the way I love my hometown, but I love Moorhead. I don't think I will go anywhere.
I choose forgiveness, and I ask you to do the same.
I grew up in Hudur, a small city in southern Somalia. Hudur is a beautiful city that I love, no matter what goes on there, but what I witnessed in my childhood is not easy to forget. When I was 12 years old, people started fighting over tribes and clans. I witnessed neighbors being killed because of their tribe, land, money, and political opinions. I never felt that it was right, and I wanted to know if other people thought the same things as I did.
One of the worst experiences I had was when people were talking as a clan about how one of their members was killed. They wanted revenge, to kill another person. They were trying to decide who to kill, and they wanted their revenge to be equal to the crime committed against them. Since a well-educated person from their clan was killed, they wanted to kill a well-educated person. I didn't want to run away - I wanted to change it. I wanted my people to understand that we are all human. Everything that I experienced got worse and worse.
My father had not worked since the central Somali government collapsed. My mom had to pay the fees for all my siblings to go to school. She is the reason that we went to school. I went to school throughout my childhood, and most of the parents were happy to send the boys to school, but not the girls. It's so unfair, and I didn't feel good about it because I have five sisters. My two brothers and I were going to school, but I felt like my sisters were smarter than I was. I knew they could be even smarter if they went to school. I had this conversation with my grandfather because he was the leader, but everyone was laughing at me, telling me that it was not something that I could change. He told me to stop talking about it, so when I was 10 years old, I stopped going to school. My mom really wanted me to go to school, but I told her that I would stop going until my sisters were allowed to go. When I was 12 years old, I began working to build a nonprofit organization, and while it was not very formal, it was focused on women's empowerment with my biggest goal being getting girls to go to school.
By the time I was 17, I had successfully created an organization for peace and human rights. This organization was able to send 306 girls to school. My grandfather had asked if I would go to school if we created a school for girls. I told them I would; if they didn't want boys and girls coming together, a school only for girls was better than nothing. They started the school and times have changed: school is just school now. In fact, there are more girls than boys that now go to school.
I really like watching and playing soccer. I've played since I was six years old. I started playing through my school, but I ended up playing with my city. Then I played on the state team. In 2007, I was about to try joining the national team, but because of a lot of insecurity going on, I did not.
It was getting more dangerous in Somalia. People that I loved and people that I worked with were being killed. I knew I was going to be next, and the people who were killing told me that. I decided that I must flee. At that time, my aim was not even to come to America - it was not one of the countries on my list. In Africa, people first think of Europe when they think of safety, maybe because it's closer than America. When I was trying to leave my country, I was trying to get anywhere else. All I needed was to be away from my homeland because of security reasons. After I paid people to help me get out, I spent four months in Kenya, which is a neighboring country of Somalia. It was hard to be there, too. During the process of getting further away, I ended up in one of the Latin American countries. I was in Colombia at the moment I knew I would be coming to America. I passed through about 20 countries on my way to get here.
I traveled for a month and a half, and during that time, I experienced so many new things. I had faced risks when I was back home, but when I was coming here, I thought to myself that I should have stayed and died in my hometown. Coming to America was a different kind of risk. People lose themselves on the way, and people die in the street. People die in the jungles that I walked through for four days and four nights. If you get injured, they will just leave you there. I ran away from my country to avoid being killed, but I was killing myself on my journey here. When I was in Panama, I asked a commander from the army if I could use his phone. I called back home, and they told me my grandma had passed away. If I hadn’t asked, I would have never known.
I didn't travel with anyone that I knew, but there were about 50 people from different countries, some Latin American, some African, and some Asian countries, who were also making the journey to the United States. When we came close to the Mexican border, people chose which state they wanted to cross into. Some went to California and Arizona, and I went to Texas.
Immigrants are different - some people come through visas, and some people come as refugees, but I came as an asylum seeker. Once you cross the border, there is a long process you have to go through, and one step is to go to a detention center. You have to go there when you come through Mexico as an asylum seeker because they have to make sure it is safe for you to be in the community. When I arrived at the American detention center, I told my family that I was safe.
I had to tell immigration officials my story, and I had to go through an interview that established a credible fear of returning to my home country. I ended up in a detention center for 30 days before they gave me credible fear. They decided what I told them was true. Then they sent me to another detention center near Buffalo, New York.
Being in a detention center was something that I had never experienced before. Going to America, I never thought I would be detained. When I met the first detention officer, they treated me well. They asked where I came from and if I had a passport. I told them that I didn't have anything. They offered for me to sit down, and they offered me something to eat. The way they treated me was good. When I went to the detention center, it was totally different than the way the officer treated me, and my experience was not something that I was expecting. I had to sleep next to other people, wake up next to other people, and eat with other people.
It wasn't a good time for me to be a Muslim person because it was fasting time, and I wanted to fast because I was healthy. I didn't want to miss fasting, but we were only given three times a day to eat in the detention center, and one of those times was 5:00 am. Even if you didn't want to eat, you had to wake up and sit at the table. It was a complicated thing for me because I didn't want to eat or drink from the sunset until 12 or 16 hours later. Our meal times were 5:00 am, 11:00 am, and 5:00 pm. We had lockers, but we couldn't put food in them. Security guards went in and out to check the lockers for food, so I couldn't save it. I didn't eat breakfast or lunch because of the fasting times, so I would only eat dinner. It was hard for the first couple of days, but my body adapted and I lost a lot of weight. I carried on that way for a month.
I met a lot of different people. I met people who had been in jail for eight or ten years. Sometimes I wondered what I was doing there. People fought. I was scared a lot. There were times I didn't talk to anyone because I didn't want to get in trouble. There were some kind people, too, and they would talk to me and give me advice. They had been there for a long time. I was happy the day they told me I would be leaving after I had spent about 40 days there. I was sent to Fargo-Moorhead because I have relatives here.
I arrived in Minnesota in October 2015. There was no snow outside, but it was cold. Coming to the United States, everything was new, but the hardest thing to get used to was the weather. It was terrible for me the first year. I would watch people run to their cars, run inside, and run to their cars again. Now, I have adapted to it. The culture, food, and people are also different. When I was in Somalia, I used to speak British English, which basically means I knew zero English when I came to America, but I have adjusted.
Three days after I arrived in the Fargo-Moorhead area, I started volunteering with the community. I cannot be at home because I want to work. It makes me feel happy. I sleep better at night if I help people. After three days, I started the long process to get papers to work in America. I waited seven months, and in that time, I was working eight or nine hours a day with zero pay. The first job I applied for in America was for a custodial position. I went to talk to my supervisor, and I heard him and one of the employees talking about me, the new guy. He called me a slur. I didn't even know what it meant, so I Googled it. The slur is an old racist comment for Muslims. I didn't want to file a report on my first day, so I did nothing. I eventually became a supervisor. After working there for two years, I was talking to my boss and the coworker that he was speaking with that day. I told them that I heard everything that day, and they were shocked. My coworker apologized, and I know he would never say something like that about me now. If I had just reported it, my coworker and friend would have lost his job, and maybe he would have hated Muslims until the day he died. I forgave him, and I got love back. He is my friend now. Even though he's retired, we call one another, and he is the one who asked me if I wanted to go ice fishing. I had never gone before, so I went. I hope to change the Fargo Moorhead area into an environment where people forgive one another. I want to see zero hate crimes in the Fargo-Moorhead area. I want to see people love one another, neighbors love one another, no matter who you are.
I work at the Afro American Development Association, a nonprofit organization, and I have moved to a higher position. We work with the immigrant community. It's hard to specify what we do because they come with a lot of needs. Typically, we show them the resources, help them apply for jobs, and provide interpreters. Sometimes we end up doing everything for them because they come with a lot of problems. Generally, we help them enter the workforce or enroll them in English classes that we put on every Saturday and Sunday.
I learned about diversity here in America. In Somalia, there is one faith and one language. As a community leader in the Fargo-Moorhead area, I have witnessed a lot of hate crimes happening around me. Some of the people who have experienced a hate crime happening to them come to me to share their stories and ask how to move forward. My philosophy in approaching those situations came to be while I was in Kenya, which is a Christian country. On my soccer team in Kenya, I was the only Muslim. Those who were Christian were very respectful to me. We stored the soccer goals inside a church, and every Sunday morning I went inside the church to get the goals. I saw the preacher talking to people with his loud voice, so sometimes I stopped and listened to them, and they got to know me. I've learned the differences between the religions, and I respect both of them. I read the Quran every day. I debate with my friends in a good way. My faith as a Muslim teaches me that forgiveness is a fundamental idea for human beings. I use that idea in my work against hate crime. We sit down and talk with the people who committed them, and we forgive them. I have found that they're less likely to continue what they're doing if you forgive them.
I really love my country. I love my hometown. I am so grateful to be here in America and that I can do whatever I want, but I would have never left my home city if it had remained peaceful. One of the things that I want to do is help people. If I could help people in my hometown, I would not be in America today. I'm happy with my work here helping people, but I would be happier if I was helping people from my hometown. Sometimes when I'm falling asleep, I ask myself if I did anything for my people, and then I remember that the school that we built there is running, and almost 200 students, boys and girls, go there. I have created a system where people from my hometown, some in Europe and some in America, pay the teachers' salaries so that the school can thrive.
It is hard to keep your culture in America, and I have seen people who do not keep their culture anymore. The main struggle is that there's only a small number of people who represent your culture, and there's not a strong place to go where you can practice your culture. I have a lot of friends here who are also from Africa. They bring me to traditional cultural events, so sometimes I dress or dance the way they do. I am learning a lot now. I found a Somali community, and I've also found different groups like the Congolese, Kenyan, Cameroonian, Nepalese, and Indian communities.
I wish I could go back to Somalia, but it is still not safe for me. In Somalia, someone like me should have bodyguards. I don't have bodyguards, and I cannot hire them, so I would be at risk. I want to go back home and I want to see my people. Now I have gained experience and education. I want to go back home and spread awareness and direct them in a good way. There is a shortage of food and water happening there, especially in my hometown, but they are working on solutions.
My goal for the Fargo-Moorhead community is to see diverse employees in local institutions and companies, and for immigrants to be further represented in workplaces and schools. I want to see a Somali mom or a Congolese mom, who came from somewhere in the world with zero English, feel comfortable going to work. I want them to feel comfortable talking to their non-Somali and non-Congolese neighbors. If we love one another, even if there is a language barrier, we are creating connections within the community. I have created love in my neighborhood.
I had a neighbor in Moorhead. He is a white Christian man, and I am a Black Muslim man, but despite our differences, we have a very good relationship. We share food, call each other for help, and look out for one another. He always helped me fix my car. Sometimes all you have to do is listen to your neighbor and give them the space and time to create a strong relationship.
To support new Americans, all you need to do is try to understand their situation and be accepting of cultural differences. At the Afro American Development Association, we have English classes taught by NDSU and Moorhead Public Schools faculty as well as other community members. I cannot believe some of the relationships that have been built between Somali women and their professors. During COVID, professors went to Walmart and got them food, rang their doorbell, and dropped it off. Others have even helped a student move. Usually, they would call me for everything, but now, they have started calling their professor to tell them good news they don't even share with me. I now get calls from the teachers they have made connections with to share important news. Just being welcoming and inviting builds connections, and those connections are what I hope people find.
Because I missed peace in my hometown, and I found it here in Moorhead, I understand the value of the United States Army, the government, and the people. I wish people born here knew what they have. There are kids out in the world somewhere who have no education and no food. If they saw what you had here, they would work really hard when they went to school because it's something they never had.
Hudur is my home, but Moorhead is also my home. I never thought I would love a city like the way I love my hometown, but I love Moorhead. I don't think I will go anywhere.
I choose forgiveness, and I ask you to do the same.