This is Home

Monday, May 2, 2011, was cold. The high was 40 degrees and the low 33 degrees. In February, those temperatures feel warm, but in May they are just plain cold. Ellie was born on St. Patrick’s Day that year, and I was on maternity leave. That night, Joe offered to put Andy and Sam to bed, so I could take our dog Coco out for one last walk before turning in for the night. My plan was to take her for a short walk and then get home and get some sleep before Ellie woke up around midnight for her first feeding.

It was close to 8 PM, when Coco and I got out the door, and getting dark. I was tired and crabby to still be wearing my winter jacket, hat and gloves. We were a block away from home when we encountered a couple walking toward us. As a courtesy, I moved over to the boulevard with Coco to pass them, but as we got closer, they stopped and in halting English, asked if I could help them.

It turned out they were from Somalia and recently arrived in Minnesota. They were looking for their friend’s apartment where they planned to spend the night. Neither of them were dressed for how cold it was, and I remember thinking they must be freezing. They had a slip of paper with their friend's address on it, which they showed me. I realized they were at least a half mile from where their friend lived and walking in the opposite direction from where they wanted to be. I offered to drive them there thinking I could run home and get my car and come back and get them, but they seemed unsure. So I offered to walk them there, and they happily accepted. 

As we walked, Coco and I were in front and the couple was a few feet behind us. I could hear them talking, but I didn’t understand what they were saying. When we were a half block from their friend’s address, I saw a woman standing in front of a building. I stepped aside, pointed and asked, “Is that your friend?” Before quickly walking away, they stopped and said, “Thank you so much! We are so happy to be here and make this our home!” Coco and I stayed put to make sure it was their friend, which it was. There was a joyful reunion before all three of them went inside. 

A little over 15 years later, I sat across from Nahdiya in a coffee shop in St. Paul. Nahdiya is smart, funny, kind and deeply committed to doing good in the community where she and her  family made their home after they fled Somalia when civil war broke out. We met years earlier when she expressed interest in applying for a fellowship from the program I was working with. We met several times over the next five years to discuss her interest in applying. She never did end up applying, but over the course of those meetings, we got to know one another and bonded over our love of Prince.

When we met for coffee last May, it was the first time seeing each other since before the pandemic, and we had a lot to catch up on. In the fall of 2023, Nahdiya and her family moved to their “dream” house in the south metro. As she talked about their move though, her voice became shaky and her eyes filled with tears. When I asked her what was making her so sad, she said that even though there was much they loved about their home and many of their neighbors, the move hadn’t been without its challenges.

A few months after moving in, Nahdiya and her husband’s cars, which were in their driveway overnight, were keyed. When they checked with neighbors who’d also left cars in their driveway, no one else reported any damage. A few months after that, someone threw garbage in their yard. Someone else filed an anonymous complaint with the city about the vegetable garden Nahdiya and her son created claiming it was an eye soar overgrown with weeds, which was completely false. In October of last year, Nahdiya woke up to discover the planters that she had planted with mums the day before tipped over, broken and the mums scattered all over. None of their neighbors were vandalized. 

Nahdiya said the biggest challenge has been the attitudes of certain neighbors toward her and her family. Shortly after they moved in, a neighbor felt the need to tell her that her family didn’t dress and smell weird like other Somalis she had met. At a party after the Feeding Our Future story broke, one of their neighbors made a “joke” to Nahdiya and her husband implying they made their money through fraudulent activity. Another neighbor asked if they knew any of the Feeding Our Future defendants. Late last year, a neighbor they barely know left them a note saying if they planned to sell their house to please contact her because she knew someone interested in buying it. Nahdiya and her husband had no plans to sell their house, so they put the note in their recycling. With time to reflect on the incident, Nahdiya said the woman likely meant no harm, but in the moment it felt like one more attempt at making them feel unwelcome.

After their planters were broken, Nahdiya and her husband installed security cameras around the exterior of their home. No incidents have happened since their installation and Nahdiya is thankful for that. She is working on not being so on guard. But the increased presence of ICE this past winter didn’t help with those efforts. I shared with her my experience with the Somali couple I met 15 years earlier. Nahdiya’s eyes got big and her face became bright and she said, “It is hope for a better future that draws immigrants and refugees to this country. Minnesota has been a welcoming place for so many to call home. I don’t want that to be lost.”

This summer a video showing a white couple harassing a Somali family that was house hunting made headlines. Then Representative Tom Emmer, the Majority Whip of the United States House of Representatives, made headlines when he said at a town hall that Somalis “who don’t assimilate” should “go the hell back to where they came from.” When Nahdiya and I parted ways in May, we promised to stay in touch and not let so much time pass before our next get together. In early July, I emailed her to see how she was doing.

Nahdiya responded by sharing how she’d been busy making sure Somalis get out and vote in the midterm elections. Through the course of that work, a lot of the people she talked to feel like Somalis have a target on their back. There are people that want to make all of them guilty for the actions of a few and would like nothing better than to see all Somalis leave Minnesota. She said things are really hard right now, but she refuses to give in to anger, cynicism and fear. Big and small acts of kindness keep her hopeful and feeling like she belongs. She shared that a group of neighbors that she walks with in the morning three times a week recently gave her a generous gift card to purchase two new planters for her house. Nahdiya ended her email by saying, “Minnesota isn’t the easiest place to live because as Prince said, Sometimes it Snows in April, and as you know, it can be bitterly cold in May, but this is home.”