City of Residence:
Woodbury, MN
Occupation:
Runs In-Home Daycare Preschool
Excerpt:
“Apartheid. I guess, growing up in apartheid in South Africa was different. We had to live in certain areas, we had to go to certain schools, we had different movie theaters that we would go to, different parks that we were allowed to go to, getting on to, even the transportation system, we could only use specific buses. We couldn’t get onto the buses that were for whites. It didn’t really affect us that much I guess when we were younger, but as we grew up, we started seeing the unfairness of things. Because, we were part of a community and a country that we all contributed towards and, I guess, you know, during high school time, there were a lot of protests and things started changing, but it took a long time to change. It didn’t affect us religiously anyway, politically I guess, it did. It made us, I think it made us stronger Muslims too, because wanting to fight for what was right.
My life in Minnesota today is very fulfilling. I volunteer a lot in different organizations. I’m also mentor for a youth group and I try to keep busy in a good way by trying to give back to the community, Muslim and non-Muslim communities.
I think the nice thing about Minnesota, it is a very family orientated state. There’s a lot of things for families to do. The summers here are really nice, the parks, the biking trails, the walking trails. We do a lot of outdoor stuff in the summer. We go camping. So, for me, in the summer, Minnesota is the nicest place.”
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