Stories As We Move: A HOME Interview Series

Khatera Nazari (Afghanistan/Milwaukee, WI) in conversation with Mielat Zeray (Eritrea/Milwaukee, WI) on September 3, 2024

Stories As We Move: A HOME Interview Series is an ongoing project that launched in 2020 as part of Lynden's HOME virtual platform. Previously named HOME Conversations with Ourselves, the series pairs individuals that have faced forced displacement and its changing forms in a conversational setting that is both purposeful and informational to interviewer, interviewee and their audience. Refugees, asylum seekers and migrants interview those that have resettled to the United States, including friends and family that are based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as well as those that remain overseas, covering various backgrounds and narrative identities, and professions, expertise and interests, including but not limited to artists, community members, advocates and leaders, healthcare workers, caseworkers, interpreters, and students and educators. These interviews are reflections of relationships and conversations that we continue to have long after resettlement; they explore issues that our refugee friends and family members continue to face as they remain in their country of origin or interim country.

In this episode, recorded on September 3, 2024, two college students who are (virtually) meeting each other for the first time, share their experiences resettling to the U.S. at different points of their lives and the culture shock that ensues. They discuss their passions and studies, and they end their interview with a promise to connect with each other in-person and on campus.

Special thanks to Yosan Yosief, youth leader participant of HOME: Be the Change!(2023-2024) and HOME intern (Summer 2024), who assisted with setting up this interview.

About Khatera Nazari
Khatera Nazari is involved in global education and refugee advocacy. She serves as a coordinator and interpreter for the Hanan Refugee Relief Group, working with children from Afghanistan, the Rohingya community, Burmese refugees, and Indonesians. Additionally, she is a member of the AI Taskforce at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) whilst enhancing her skills through an AI BootCamp.

In her professional journey, she has been a research coordinator at UWM, collaborating on the Afghanistan Oral History Project with the vice chancellor of UWM, and an officer in UWM’s Data Science Club. During the Taliban takeover in 2021, she co-founded and instructed at the Women and Children’s Center at Fort McCoy, assisting Afghan refugees in their transition while she was transitioning herself. Prior to that, she founded the Hazara School in Afghanistan, supporting students in career development and English language acquisition.

She is pursuing a degree in Data Science at UWM, where she has been on the Dean’s Honor List and received the Dr. Ahmad Naser Scholarship. Her literary work includes an essay featured in the 2022 Afghan American Artists and Writers Association publication at UC Berkeley. She is expanding her knowledge through the Data Science BootCamp by Women in Tech Afghanistan and DevLab, and a Coding Bootcamp at the Zomia Center.

About Mielat Zeray
Mielat Zeray is a freshman at UW-Milwaukee majoring in Bio-Chem. Though she is just a starter in college and in her professional life, she has been involved in intensive work in journalism during her high school career. She first moved to America during 7th grade, where, not knowing the language and anyone her age she could openly talk to, it was difficult adjusting to her new life in America,

A few years later, with support from those around her, she became well-adjusted to her life here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was able to confidently communicate. During her junior year of high school, she joined a journalism club at her school, which made announcements each week. In the summer before her senior year of high school, she received a full scholarship to go on a summer workshop with PBS NewsHour at Boston. and during her time there, she worked with a team to produce a story that covered the affects of neighborhood segregation and its connection the discrepancies of how grocery stores priced their items.

Up until she graduated high school, she was a producer, a team leader, and an editor to the Journalism Club. Even though she loved journalism and enjoyed every second of her time editing and producing stories, she decided to take the medicine route due to her huge passion and hope to someday be a dentist. As of 2023, she has just started college and aims to get involved in various organizations around the school.

Check out the entire collection of Stories As We Move: A HOME Interview Series here.