Stories As We Move: A HOME Interview Series

Mala Nan Leth (Myanmar/Milwaukee, WI) in conversation with Asma Osman (Myanmar/Milwaukee, WI) on April 26, 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 April 26, 2024, two friends share their experiences resettling to the U.S. as children, and their experiences transitioning from high school to college.

About Mala Nan Leth
Mala Nan Leth is a first-generation university masters graduate. As a Karen refugee, she was born in Bangkok, Thailand, and grew up on the Thai/Myanmar border in a refugee camp, Ban Dom Yan (BDY) for 10 years. Her family resettled in Milwaukee in 2014 as refugee newcomers. She achieved her bachelor’s degree in Social Work with Honors from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2022, and during this time, served on the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and is a member of the Rohingya American Society. Mala recently obtained her Master of Sustainable Peacebuilding degree from UW-Milwaukee in May 2024. She has worked with refugee communities in Milwaukee, focusing on community building, education, and empowerment through the International Institutional of Wisconsin and Sebastian Family Psychologist Practice. She aims to work with the United Nations to empower, educate, and advocate for people that are forced to flee war and persecution around the world.

About Asma Osman
Asma Osman, a proud graduate of Milwaukee High School of the Arts, and is a dedicated first-generation university student majoring in Social Work with a minor in Criminal Justice. As a Rohingya refugee, she was born and raised in the Rakhine State camp in the small town of Kyaukphyu in southeast Burma. Asma and her family fled to Thailand and Malaysia before resettling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2015 when she was around 9 years of age. Despite the challenges, Asma excelled academically, graduating with honors and ranking among the top ten students in her high school and was one of 32 Milwaukee Public School high-achieving graduates to be awarded the prestigious scholarship under the MPS Foundation. Her passion for helping others drives her ambition to complete her degree and work with refugees, striving to create meaningful and positive changes in their lives.

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