City of Residence:
Minneapolis, MN
Occupation:
Radio & TV Host
Excerpt:
“I have been host for them for the past almost four years, and on topics that are most of the time chosen by people like the Minnesota Department of Health, and other healthcare-related organizations, or safety—we also covered topics that are related to safety in case of emergency preparedness and stuff like that. So the topic is chosen based on whatever the need is or information that otherwise those communities won’t get from mainstream media. So, we host a monthly show through TPT—TPT Minnesota, Twin Cities Public Television Minnesota.Shows such as cancer, such as what would you do if there was tornado warning?; or, let’s say if there’s a fire, or children’s dental health—it’s a really wide—wide variety of topics here that are covered, and it’s really important work because I feel like the ECHO show is more popular than my radio show because every time I walk into a shopping center, Somali shopping center, or a place where the community—there are at least one or two people that watch the show and they were like, oh, we say you on TV! Or, have I seen you somewhere? And I’m like, probably ECHO TV. So, a lot of people watch it, a lot of people benefit from it, and I even benefit from it; every time I’m at those meetings prepping for the show, or doing the actual show, I’m learning one or two things.
Well, my relationship with being—well, I view myself to be somewhat both, you know, Somali but then as Minnesotan as it gets. I work with them, I go to school with them, I’m one of them. When I’m at school, I can hardly differentiate between the two. So I feel like I, especially with my work at KFAI, I get to learn a lot of things for my own good, which is, you know, basically the view of people that are not necessarily Somali, of the Somali community, view of my community, of the others and just—I feel like I live in the best of both worlds and I really enjoy it.
I feel like right now, although it’s a really tough time for Muslims in Minnesota, I somehow feel good about the future because every new wave of immigrants in this country went through what we’re going through—it’s not really specific and special to us. Of course, when things are happening with you, they’re specific and special to you, but you know, going again, back to history, the Italians went through this, the Jews went through this, so we’re really not the only ones that’s going through this—it’s just America and its history of giving hard time to the new-comers. So, soon, insha’Allah, we’re going to, you know, prosper and it’s going to be history that we’ll remember and tell our kids, I guess.”
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