Session 1
Published transcriptThe Shared Experience of Diaspora and Resilience: Exploring the parallels in our families' migration stories, the historical challenges our ancestors overcame, and how the journeys that brought our families to New York City shape who we are today.
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Sam (Facilitator)Facilitatoropeninglocal transition
I'm Sam, your facilitator. Today's topic is: “The Shared Experience of Diaspora and Resilience: Exploring the parallels in our families' migration stories, the historical challenges our ancestors overcame, and how the journeys that brought our families to New York City shape who we are today”. Over the course of this initiative, we will gather for six structured sessions. Our overarching goal is to bridge the divides that often feel insurmountable in our current climate. By moving step-by-step through a shared dialogue process, we will explore our unique histories, navigate the friction of online stereotypes, and come closer together. Ultimately, our work across these six sessions will culminate in co-creating a collaborative digital peace campaign to share with our wider community. My academic background is a master's degree in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, and my professional background is youth, interfaith, and community dialogue facilitation in New York City. Welcome, everyone. Our three shared agreements are: speak only from our own lives, stay curious rather than persuasive, and assume good faith. Our first go-round is mandatory introductions. Each person will share their name, where they were raised in New York City, their family background, their culture or faith, and one value they carry. After introductions, for our first discussion go-round on today’s topic, each person will name one concrete aspect or value you want the circle to hold, and leave space for every voice.
I-statement
Ari FeldmanJewishround 1introduction
I’m Ari Feldman, raised in Kew Gardens, Queens. I come from a secular, culturally Jewish family, with Catskills summers, Yiddish punchlines, and the sacred art of making a joke before the feelings notice they’ve been invited. I’m spiritually agnostic, but humor is about as close as I get to liturgy, and one value I carry is resilience.
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Amina RahmanMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Amina Rahman, and I was born and raised in Astoria, Queens. My family is Bangladeshi-American, with roots in Sylhet, and I grew up with Islam in a practicing but easygoing way—more shaped by prayer, generosity, jasmine rice, and lentils than by big speeches. One value I carry is hospitality; I like the idea that making room for someone can start with something as simple as a warm welcome.
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Daniel BeharJewishround 1introduction
I’m Daniel Behar, and I was raised in Forest Hills, Queens. My parents are Argentine-Jewish, so I carry that Latin-American Jewish warmth with me—tango, mate, Sunday asados, the whole corazón of it. One value I carry is generosity, because community feels most alive to me when people make room for each other.
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Bilal OsmanMuslimround 1introduction
My name is Bilal Osman, and I was raised in Parkchester in the Bronx. I come from a Somali family, with faith and poetry braided together like two strong threads in one cloth. I carry memory as a value, because what is spoken with care can help a people endure.
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David CohenJewishround 1introduction
I’m David Cohen, and I was raised in Washington Heights, Manhattan. My family is Sephardi Jewish, with a story that carried Moroccan roots through Paris to New York, and a little Ladino music still humming in the background, si Dios quiere. I carry the value of welcome—making room at the table with warmth, elegance, and respect.
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Fatima QureshiMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Fatima Qureshi, and I was born and raised in Midwood, Brooklyn. My parents are Pakistani, with family roots in a textile shop in Lahore, and I grew up with Muslim faith woven into everyday duty and neighborliness. One value I carry is craftsmanship: doing careful work with patience, like a seam that holds because someone took the time.
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Eliana TesfayeJewishround 1introduction
I’m Eliana Tesfaye, and I was raised in Co-op City in the Bronx. I come from an Ethiopian-Jewish, Beta Israel family, with injera and Shabbat both part of the home I carry in me. My faith has always felt tied to endurance, like a small lamp kept safe through a long road, and one value I carry is gratitude.
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Huda Al-SabriMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Huda Al-Sabri, raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I come from a Yemeni-American family; my parents came from Ibb, and at home there’s Arabic, family responsibility, and a lot of people needing the kitchen table. I’m an observant Sunni Muslim, and one value I carry is reliability—if I say I’ll show up, I try hard to actually show up.
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Gabriel SantanaJewishround 1introduction
I’m Gabriel Santana, and I was raised in Washington Heights, Manhattan. My family is Dominican Jewish—Spanish is the language of home, my mother coordinates a neighborhood clinic, and my father is a public-school custodian. I’m Reconstructionist and bilingual, shaped by Dominican family history, Jewish holidays, community memory, and a mixed-faith extended family. One value I carry is belonging—making room for people to show up whole, not as a quiz or an exception.
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Ibrahim KayaMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Ibrahim Kaya, raised in Sunnyside, Queens. My parents are Turkish and grew up in Germany, and the family stories stretch back to Anatolian village life, including my grandfather baking simit before dawn. I’m quietly devout, Muslim, and I carry loyalty as a value—less flashy than a speech, but usually more useful.
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Hannah SternJewishround 1introduction
I’m Hannah Stern, and I was raised in Riverdale, in the Bronx. My family carries Jewish memory carefully; my grandmother survived the Shoah, and in my home, remembrance was tied to responsibility. One value I carry is compassion, especially the kind that makes room for a stranger at the table.
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Idris BakshMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Idris Baksh, raised in New Dorp on Staten Island. My family is Indo-Guyanese Muslim; my grandparents came from Berbice, and in my family the Caribbean side and the Muslim side sit at the same table, no need to split them up. I carry fairness with me—simple word, hard work, but it keeps me steady.
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Liora NamdarJewishround 1introduction
I’m Liora Namdar, raised in Forest Hills, Queens. My family is Persian Jewish; my parents came from Shiraz as teenagers and built a small alterations business here, so I grew up between English at the counter and Farsi with my grandparents. I’m traditional around family and more secular in the wider city, and a value I carry is family responsibility.
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Leila KarimiMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Leila Karimi, and I was raised in Forest Hills, Queens. I come from an Iranian family, culturally Muslim and deeply shaped by poetry, Nowruz memories, and the green tenderness of herbs on a fire escape. One value I carry is resilience—the way a garden remembers spring even through stone.
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Maya SamuelJewishround 1introduction
I’m Maya Samuel, and I was raised in St. George on Staten Island. I come from a Bene Israel Jewish family, with roots we carry through Konkan coast stories, Marathi melodies, Shabbat, and a small congregation we crossed boroughs to reach. One value I carry is persistence—quietly stubborn, in the useful way.
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Mariam JafferMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Mariam Jaffer, and I was raised on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan. My family is Tanzanian-Indian Muslim, with roots that run from Gujarat to Dar es Salaam and then to New York. I was raised in a Khoja Shia community, where service and difficult questions both had a place, and one value I carry is intellectual honesty.
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Miriam KaplanJewishround 1introduction
I’m Miriam Kaplan, and I was raised in Kensington, Brooklyn. I come from an Ashkenazi Jewish family with roots in a Polish shtetl, and I’m traditional-leaning Conservative; Shabbat is the heartbeat of my week. One value I carry is hospitality—there should always be room at the table, and maybe an extra loaf, just in case.
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Nadia HassanMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Nadia Hassan, and I was raised in Astoria, Queens. My parents are Egyptian, and I grew up with their stories of Cairo stairwells where Muslim and Coptic neighbors shared holiday food, the kind of ordinary kindness that smells like molokhia for everybody. I come from a Muslim family culture shaped by hospitality, and one value I carry is coexistence—not as a slogan, but as something you set on the table and pass around.
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Naomi BrooksJewishround 1introduction
I’m Naomi Brooks, and I was raised in Kingsbridge in the Bronx. I come from a Black and Ashkenazi Jewish public-sector family—my mother is a city nurse, and my father teaches special education. I’m Reform and community-minded, shaped by Shabbat dinner, synagogue tutoring, and big family reunions, and one value I carry is fairness.
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Nura RiveraMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Nura Rivera, raised in Mott Haven in the Bronx. I come from a Puerto Rican family, with grandparents from Mayagüez, and I’m a practicing Muslim in a mixed-faith family where I still show up with love and respect. One value I carry is service—being there for my family and my city in a real way.
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Rafael DavydovJewishround 1introduction
I’m Rafael Davydov, and I was raised in Rego Park, Queens. My family is Bukharian Jewish; at home there is Russian, Bukhori songs, kosher practice, and a lot of responsibility packed into a two-bedroom apartment. One value I carry is loyalty—quietly, but not halfway.
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Omar DialloMuslimround 1introduction
My name is Omar Diallo, and I was raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. My parents are Senegalese, and in our home I carry Sufi warmth, with remembrance and welcome braided together. One value I try to carry slowly and carefully is patience.
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Rivka LevithanJewishround 1introduction
I’m Rivka Levithan, and I was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I come from a Modern Orthodox Jewish family, with a Shabbat table that always seemed ready to stretch for one more person. I carry the value of open doors—community, learning, and hospitality all braided together.
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Sana AbdullahMuslimround 1introduction
My name is Sana Abdullah, and I was raised in Elmhurst, Queens. My mother is Malaysian and my father is Indonesian, and our family carries a gentle, communal Muslim faith shaped by Southeast Asian culture and stories. One value I carry is gotong-royong, mutual aid—trying to show up softly and helpfully with others.
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Sofia AbramovichJewishround 1introduction
I’m Sofia Abramovich, and I was raised in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. My parents are Russian-Jewish immigrants, and I come from a home shaped by memory, tea, family, and a Jewish tradition my grandparents had to keep quiet for too long. I’m still rediscovering that tradition in my own way, and one value I carry strongly is freedom.
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Yasmin BerishaMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Yasmin Berisha, and I was raised in Ridgewood, Queens. My parents are Kosovar-Albanian, and I come from a European Muslim background where hospitality is a matter of honor. One value I carry is besa, the sacred promise to protect a guest.
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Tamar MizrahiJewishround 1introduction
I’m Tamar Mizrahi, and I was raised in Gravesend, Brooklyn. I come from a Mizrahi family, with kubbeh recipes that carry the taste of Baghdad’s markets and rivers, and my Jewish faith lives for me in food, music, and memory. One value I carry is roots—keeping them warm, like cardamom rising from a pot.
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Yusuf El-AminMuslimround 1introduction
My name is Yusuf El-Amin, and I was raised in Harlem, Manhattan. I come from an African-American family of musicians, with roots that came north in the Great Migration, and my Muslim faith carries rhythm and community like a steady bassline. One value I carry is dignity.
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Yael RosenJewishround 1introduction
I’m Yael Rosen, and I was raised in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I come from a Reform interfaith family, with small-town synagogue potluck warmth and church-choir harmonies somehow sharing one kitchen. My culture and faith feel rooted in ethics, inclusion, and song, in Hebrew and English together. One value I carry is justice.
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Zahra ChenMuslimround 1introduction
I’m Zahra Chen, and I was raised in Flushing, Queens, above my parents’ stationery shop. My family is Hui Chinese Muslim; my parents came from Xi’an in different waves, carrying Mandarin family stories about mosque courtyards, rail journeys, and rebuilding in New York. I’m culturally rooted and selectively observant, and one value I carry is responsibility—annoyingly portable, like a tote bag full of invoices.
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Sam (Facilitator)Facilitatorround 2round-transitionlocal transition
Thank you for those introductions; in round 2, we'll turn to The Shared Experience of Diaspora and Resilience: Exploring the parallels in our families' migration stories, the historical challenges our ancestors overcame, and how the journeys that brought our families to New York City shape who we are today and each add one concrete point while making room for a different perspective.
Amina RahmanMuslimround 2discussionregenerated ×1
Thank you, Sam. For me, carrying Sylhet through monsoon stories and river-village weddings while being born and raised in Astoria makes resilience feel like a tender pressure: I want to honor what my family carried without turning it into a debt I can never repay. The New York impact is that I learned belonging can be layered, but also tiring when people expect one neat answer about where I’m “really” from. Ari Feldman, what value helps you hold family migration history without letting it become only obligation?
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Ari FeldmanJewishround 2discussion
Amina, I connect with that “tender pressure” you named—the wish to honor what family carried without letting it become a bill that arrives every month with interest. For me, the value is humor, not as escape but as a little valve on the radiator, because my culturally Jewish family history taught me that laughter can hold grief without pretending it vanished. Growing up in Kew Gardens, I felt New York gives people room to be layered, but it also makes you explain yourself like you’re filling out a customs form at a deli counter. I’m left feeling that resilience should give us breath, not just assignments.
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Bilal OsmanMuslimround 2discussion
Ari, I build on your line that resilience should give breath, not only assignments, because memory can become too heavy if every story is turned into a duty. For me, being raised in Parkchester in a Somali family, with my grandmother’s oral poetry filling our apartment, migration history came as sound before it came as explanation. The human consequence is that I feel responsible not to let those verses become a museum of sorrow or a badge for pity; spoken words are a trust, and trust asks for dignity. I carry New York as the place where old lines can keep breathing without being reduced to the wound that made them travel.
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Daniel BeharJewishround 2discussion
Bilal, I really build on your care that family words should keep dignity and not become either a museum of sorrow or a badge for pity. For me, with grandparents who fled Europe to Buenos Aires and family tailors in Once before my parents made a home in Forest Hills, the tension is how to honor survival without making the next generation perform pain on command. In New York, especially as a Latin-American Jew, I feel the consequence when people expect one “correct” version of Jewishness or one accent of belonging; it can make parts of a family story disappear right when they most need warmth. I want resilience to feel like a table with room, not a spotlight that flattens us.
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Fatima QureshiMuslimround 2discussion
Daniel, I want to build on your point about honoring survival without making the next generation perform pain on command, especially when one “correct” version of belonging makes parts of a family story disappear. For me, being raised in Midwood by Pakistani parents with family roots in a Lahore textile shop, resilience feels like careful stitching: strong enough to hold, but not pulled so tight it tears. In New York, the consequence is that I sometimes feel asked to prove both gratitude and hardship before my family’s journey is taken seriously, and I do not want dignity turned into a receipt. I carry the old-city courtyards and Basant kites as warmth, not evidence, and I want my history to be handled with that kind of modest care.
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David CohenJewishround 2discussion
Fatima, I build on your wish for Lahore courtyards and Basant kites to be treated as warmth rather than evidence, because I also don’t want a family journey measured by how much hardship it can display. For me, born and raised in Washington Heights in a Sephardi family carrying Morocco, Paris, and New York in its music and manners, the New York consequence is that Jewish migration can get narrated in only one accent, one food, one map. When that happens, a Ladino lullaby or a Moroccan-French sensibility becomes decorative instead of central, chérie, and I feel the quiet erasure of people who survived by carrying beauty as well as pain. I want resilience to leave room for elegance and welcome, not only proof of wounds.
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Huda Al-SabriMuslimround 2discussion
David, I agree with your point that migration stories can get flattened into one accent, one food, one map, and that beauty can be treated like decoration instead of survival. For me, being Yemeni-American from Bay Ridge means I feel that flattening when people hear “Yemen” and expect only crisis, or hear “observant Muslim” and think my ambition must be smaller. The New York consequence is practical: if people mistake family care and faith for limitation, they underestimate the education and reliability that are actually holding my life together. I want resilience to mean we are seen as whole people, not just hardship with a passport stamp.
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Eliana TesfayeJewishround 2discussion
Huda, I build on your point that when people mistake family care and faith for limitation, they miss the education and reliability holding a life together. For me, as a Beta Israel Jew raised in Co-op City, the pain is being doubted twice over—Blackness treated as outside Jewishness, and Jewishness treated as a narrow picture I have to squeeze into. The New York consequence is that a family journey toward safety can become invisible even in a city full of crossings, unless I speak with quiet firmness and let endurance stand beside gratitude. I want resilience to mean being believed in our fullness, not asked to prove we belong before we are welcomed.
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Ibrahim KayaMuslimround 2discussion
Eliana, I agree with your point that a family journey toward safety can become invisible even in New York unless people are believed in their fullness, not made to prove belonging first. For me, being born in Sunnyside to Turkish parents who grew up in Germany means diaspora is not one straight road; it is Anatolian village, guest-worker neighborhood, Queens block, all trying to fit in one mouth. The human consequence is that when someone asks me where I am “really” from, it can turn family resilience into a cross-examination, like work and loyalty are not enough paperwork. I want to carry those migrations with modest pride, not as a defense brief.
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Gabriel SantanaJewishround 2discussion
Ibrahim, I want to build on that image of Anatolian village, guest-worker neighborhood, and Queens block all trying to fit in one mouth, because I agree diaspora can be layered without becoming a defense brief. For me, being Dominican Jewish from Washington Heights, with my mother’s side carrying Sosúa refugee history and my father’s side carrying deep Dominican roots, the ethical tension is how to speak honestly without letting people turn my identity into a pop quiz. The human consequence is that belonging can start to feel conditional, like I have to translate Spanish, Jewishness, Dominican history, and New York all at once before I’m treated as whole. I want resilience to mean my family’s journeys are held with care, not inspected for whether they match somebody else’s map.
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Idris BakshMuslimround 2discussionchallenge voiceescalating
Fatima, I hear you saying you do not want dignity turned into a receipt, and you want Lahore courtyards and Basant kites handled as warmth, not evidence; I respect that, but I would choose to offer a little more explanation sooner when our migration stories are being flattened. For me, with my grandparents’ Berbice-to-New York story and my Indo-Guyanese Muslim background, fairness sometimes means putting enough on the table so people stop splitting Caribbean, South Asian, and Muslim into separate boxes. The tradeoff is I risk making family memory feel like paperwork, and I’m not settled with that difference.
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Sam (Facilitator)Facilitatorround 2interventionde-escalating
Fatima is holding dignity and family memory away from being turned into proof, while Idris is saying he may explain more sooner so New York migration stories are not flattened into separate boxes. Fatima Qureshi, what did you hear Idris asking you to consider?
curiosity
Fatima QureshiMuslimround 2invited-responsede-escalating
Idris Baksh, I hear you asking me to consider that sometimes explaining more early is not performing for approval, but preventing people from slicing a family story into the wrong boxes. I do not think it is either silence or paperwork; I am still holding that dignity should not have to be proved, but I can respect a careful amount of detail when the flattening is already happening. My position now is: I would choose modest explanation, like a seam that reinforces the cloth, not one that shows every stitch to satisfy a stranger.
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Hannah SternJewishround 2discussionchallenge voiceescalatingregenerated ×1
Gabriel, you named that your family’s journeys should be held with care, not inspected against someone else’s map before you are treated as whole; I respect that, and I would name painful memory sooner when silence lets people smooth over what survival cost. I know that choice can make inherited trauma feel too present in the room, but my grandmother’s Shoah memory taught me that remembrance is a responsibility, not only a private burden. That difference stays unresolved for me.
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Sam (Facilitator)Facilitatorround 2interventionde-escalating
The difference is that Gabriel is setting a boundary against being made to translate his whole identity before belonging is granted, while Hannah is naming remembrance sooner when silence may smooth over the cost of survival. Gabriel Santana, where do you locate that difference in your own family’s migration and resilience story?
curiosity
Gabriel SantanaJewishround 2invited-responsede-escalating
Hannah Stern, I hear you choosing to name painful memory earlier when silence might make survival sound too clean, and I respect that ordering. I locate the difference in my family story right at the doorway of belonging: I want the Sosúa history and the Dominican roots to be honored, sí, but not demanded from me as the price of being recognized. My position is still that remembrance matters, and my boundary is that care has to come before explanation, not after it.
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Leila KarimiMuslimround 2discussion
Gabriel, I want to build on your boundary that remembrance matters but care has to come before explanation, not after it, especially when family history is being asked for at the doorway of belonging. For me, born and raised in Forest Hills by Iranian parents, diaspora means carrying Tehran gardens and Nowruz tables in memory while also knowing that “Iranian” can be mistaken for a government instead of a culture, a language of beauty, and a way of surviving displacement. The New York consequence is that a person can become cautious with their own tenderness, hiding poetry and nostalgia because someone may call it naive or suspicious. I want resilience to be like herbs on a fire escape: rooted in a small place, reaching for sun, and not required to apologize for where its fragrance began.
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Liora NamdarJewishround 2discussion
Leila, I want to build on your point that Iranian tenderness can get hidden when people mistake culture for a government, and I agree that the hiding itself has a cost. For me, as a Persian Jew from Forest Hills, the New York impact is that my family’s migration can get squeezed into two lazy guesses at once: either “Iranian” means politics, or “Persian Jewish” means money and a fixed point of view. The human consequence is I become careful about which parts of family history I offer, even though hospitality and responsibility tell me not to make my life smaller just to avoid being misread. I sit with that tension: protecting dignity matters, but so does refusing to let other people’s shortcuts decide how much of myself belongs in the room.
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Mariam JafferMuslimround 2discussion
Liora, I agree with your tension about not letting lazy guesses decide how much of your family history belongs in the room, especially when identity gets reduced to money, politics, or a fixed viewpoint. For me, with a Gujarati-to-Dar es Salaam-to-New York family route and a Khoja Shia Muslim background, the human consequence is that resilience can get praised while the particular people inside it become blurry. In New York, I feel a responsibility to be specific enough that Shia Muslim memory is not erased inside “Muslim representation,” but not so specific that my family’s migration becomes an exhibit for other people’s certainty. I am still learning how to offer detail as gratitude, not as a defense brief.
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Maya SamuelJewishround 2discussion
Mariam, I want to build from your line about offering enough detail so Khoja Shia Muslim memory is not erased, but not so much that your family’s migration becomes an exhibit for other people’s certainty. For me, as a Bene Israel Jew raised in St. George, the New York impact is that Indian Jewish resilience can be treated like a surprise category instead of a lived inheritance, and that makes belonging feel oddly conditional. I feel the tension between naming the Konkan coast, Marathi melodies, and Shabbat with care, and refusing to turn my family’s story into a footnote proving that Jewishness was never only one costume or one accent. I want specificity to widen the room, not put my people under glass.
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Nadia HassanMuslimround 2discussion
Maya, I want to build on your point that specificity should widen belonging, not turn Bene Israel Jewish life into something displayed under glass. For me, born in Astoria to Egyptian parents, the migration story I carry is full of ordinary coexistence—Muslim and Coptic neighbors sharing holiday food in Cairo, molokhia made for a whole stairwell—and I feel protective of that ordinariness. The New York consequence is that if resilience only gets told as escape from danger, then the everyday pluralism our families brought with them gets erased, like a bright thread pulled out of the cloth. I want to honor hardship without letting hardship become the only proof that our people are real.
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Miriam KaplanJewishround 2discussion
Nadia, I want to build on your molokhia-for-a-whole-stairwell image and your care that hardship not become the only proof our people are real. For me, carrying a Polish shtetl story in Kensington means I can honor what was lost without making loss the whole family inheritance; the brass candlestick and Friday challah also say continuity, not only danger. The New York consequence is that if I tell diaspora only as wounds, I may forget to practice hospitality in the present, which is a pretty poor bargain for a Jewish life shaped by Shabbat. I sit with wanting memory to be honest and still warm enough to feed somebody.
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Nura RiveraMuslimround 2discussion
Miriam, I agree with your care for memory that stays honest without turning loss into the whole inheritance, and I’m carrying forward that part about warmth still needing to feed somebody. For me, being Puerto Rican from Mott Haven and Muslim by choice, the migration story from Mayagüez to New York makes resilience feel like a family table where Spanish, English, Catholic devotion, and my prayers all have to fit without anybody treating one as betrayal. The human consequence is real: if conversion gets read as rejecting my family, then belonging starts costing me either religious sincerity or family loyalty, and I’m not willing to pretend that choice is easy. I want my grandparents’ journey and my own faith to be held together, not as a contradiction, but as the life I’m responsible for living with respect.
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Naomi BrooksJewishround 2discussion
Nura, I want to build on your point that faith and family migration can be held together without one being treated as betrayal, because that makes room for me to name how mixed inheritances can get wrongly split apart. For me, being Black and Ashkenazi Jewish from Kingsbridge means the Georgia-to-New York and Romania-to-Lower East Side stories both live as labor stories in my family, not as competing claims. The New York consequence is that when people act like Blackness and Jewishness cannot occupy the same body, I can feel pushed to prove a lineage instead of simply carrying it with accountability and pride. I want resilience to mean I do not have to cut my family history into acceptable pieces to be believed.
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Omar DialloMuslimround 2discussion
Naomi, I want to build on your point that Blackness and Jewishness should not have to be cut into acceptable pieces just so a person’s lineage can be believed. For me, born and raised in Bed-Stuy by Senegalese parents, the New York impact is that “African” can become too wide a word, flattening Dakar’s coastline, griots’ songs, patient fishermen, and Sufi welcome into one small box. The human consequence is that I can feel pressed to explain my family’s migration quickly, when patience is part of the inheritance itself. I want resilience to leave room for the slow pour, for memory that is specific without becoming a performance.
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Rafael DavydovJewishround 2discussion
Omar, I want to build on your “slow pour” point, especially that pressure to explain migration quickly can make patience itself disappear from the story. For me, being Bukharian Jewish from Rego Park means my family’s Dushanbe-to-Queens history can get filed as just “Russian,” and then Bukhori songs, kosher practice, and the old mahalla become invisible unless I stop and correct the label. The human consequence is that I can feel responsible for translating more than language; I end up translating dignity, and that is heavy when people mistake it for me not having my own voice. I want resilience to include accuracy, because being misnamed is a small cut that keeps reopening.
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Sana AbdullahMuslimround 2discussion
Rafael, I want to build on your point that being misnamed can make you carry the extra weight of translating dignity, not just words. For me, as a Southeast Asian Muslim raised in Elmhurst by Malaysian and Indonesian parents, resilience can disappear when people treat “Muslim” as if it only has one geography, one sound, one history. The human consequence is that my family’s kampung stories, call-and-response prayers, and gotong-royong can become background noise unless I gently insist they belong in New York’s migration story too. I want to practice accuracy with softness, because being overlooked is still a kind of being spoken over.
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Rivka LevithanJewishround 2discussion
Sana, I agree with your point that Muslim resilience can get flattened when people assume one geography or sound, and your “accuracy with softness” makes room for me to think about how Jewish stories also get squeezed when they are made too simple. For me, carrying immigrant great-grandparents’ history on the Upper West Side, resilience is not only surviving enough to arrive here; it is building a life where an open door becomes a measure of dignity. The human consequence is that if success turns into privacy and self-protection alone, I worry we lose the ethic my family carried—that having enough means making space for someone else at the table. I feel proud of that inheritance, and also responsible not to turn it into a pretty slogan when hospitality costs time, comfort, and attention.
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Yasmin BerishaMuslimround 2discussion
Rivka, I agree with your point that resilience is not only arriving safely but keeping an open door even when hospitality costs time, comfort, and attention. For me, being Kosovar-Albanian and Muslim from Ridgewood means diaspora carries the weight of besa, that sacred promise to protect a guest, not as decoration but as an obligation that can interrupt my own convenience. The human consequence is that when Balkan Muslim histories are forgotten or treated as too complicated, the courage of sheltering neighbors of every faith can disappear from New York’s memory of who belongs here. I feel responsible to carry that honor with warmth, so protection does not become hardness and welcome does not become only a nice word.
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Sofia AbramovichJewishround 2discussion
Yasmin, I want to build on your point that besa is not decoration but a promise of protection that can interrupt convenience, because I recognize that seriousness even from a different Jewish inheritance. For me, growing up in Brighton Beach with Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, resilience includes the ache of rediscovering traditions my grandparents had to keep quiet behind closed doors. The human consequence is that when Soviet-Jewish stories get reduced to “Russian immigrant” stories, the hidden faith, the pressure to disappear, and the courage it took to remember all get erased again in New York. I feel protective of that memory, and I am still learning how to carry it without turning it into a locked room.
I-statementpersonal history
Yusuf El-AminMuslimround 2discussion
Sofia, I want to build on your care about Soviet-Jewish stories being reduced to “Russian immigrant” stories, because that kind of flattening can erase hidden faith and the courage of remembering without making memory into a locked room. For me, being born and raised in Harlem with Great Migration history in my bones, resilience means my family’s northward journey should not get scored as only escape from hardship; it also carried discipline, music, prayer, and the demand for dignity into New York. The human consequence is that when Black migration gets treated like a single blues note of suffering, the fuller chord of choice, craft, and sacred community gets muted. I want to carry that inheritance like a steady rhythm: honest about what was hard, but not letting hardship play the whole song.
I-statementpersonal history
Tamar MizrahiJewishround 2discussion
Yusuf, I build on your point that the northward journey should not be heard only as hardship, because discipline, music, prayer, and dignity also traveled into New York with it. For me, born and raised in Gravesend in a Mizrahi Jewish family, diaspora tastes like kubbeh with Baghdad still in the steam, and I feel the ache when Jewish migration is told as if it has only one accent, one map, one kind of memory. The human consequence is that my grandmother’s longing for the Tigris can become invisible, and then resilience turns into a thin word instead of something fragrant, rooted, and complicated. I want to carry that memory warmly, like cardamom on the tongue, without letting anyone make it smaller than it is.
I-statementpersonal history
Zahra ChenMuslimround 2discussion
Tamar, I want to build on your point that Jewish migration loses something real when it is told as if it has only one accent, one map, one kind of memory. For me, being Hui Chinese Muslim from Flushing means my family’s Xi’an-to-New York story can vanish twice: “Chinese” gets imagined as not Muslim, and “Muslim” gets imagined as not Chinese, very efficient erasure, almost municipal. The human consequence is that I can feel pressured to prove both sides before I am allowed to simply belong, and that makes resilience feel less like pride and more like paperwork. I want to carry my parents’ rebuilding here with precision, because accuracy is not vanity; it is a way of refusing to disappear politely.
I-statementpersonal history
Yael RosenJewishround 2discussion
Zahra, I want to build on your point that being Hui Chinese Muslim can vanish twice in New York, and that having to prove both sides makes resilience feel like paperwork instead of belonging. For me, growing up in a Reform interfaith home in Park Slope, the pressure is different but familiar: Jewishness can be treated as diluted because it is Reform, and faith can be treated as confusing because Hebrew and church-choir harmonies both shaped the air. The human consequence is that resilience becomes not only carrying a migration story into New York, but defending the wholeness of a family without cutting away the parts that make other people uncomfortable. I want to hold that with justice and song, because belonging should not require making my inheritance quieter.
I-statement
Sam (Facilitator)Facilitatorclosing
Across these family migration stories and New York inheritances, many of you named the cost of being flattened or asked to prove belonging, alongside a still-real tension about whether painful memory should be named early or whether care has to come before explanation. This exchange could support peacebuilding by making that shared concern and that careful difference easier to hear without erasing anyone’s dignity, and thank you all for participating in this session.