I am a Somali-American urban history scholar, podcaster, and architectural historian living in Ohio.
My scholarly research interests are specific to mid-twentieth century African-American home life and the history of urban development. I want to make tangible changes in urban America and be broad-reaching in doing so. I want to improve the lives of immigrants like those in my family who have come as refugees from Somaliland through gradual assimilation rather than being forced to quickly conform to American living standards. Their integration into American society has been impaired by antiquated procedures such as immigrant housing placement, social barriers in language, and physical barriers such as transportation and access to services. Moreover, I find that as a first-generation African American, I have the ability to see the history of disenfranchisement in America in a unique way; not from personal experiences but from lessons in history. Public record archives, late 19th and early 20th century newspapers, oral histories, and census information can be used to ascertain to what extent governmental policies bred segregated neighborhoods and marginalized people based on race, gender, and economic status. I have dug into these types of records only to find devastating details about the brutality towards minorities in America. For me, in-depth analysis and continued discourse on people and place is integral if American society has the potential to rectify the mistakes of the past specific to social welfare and racial equity. Today, the atrocities of Jim Crow Era segregation and displacement practices are seen as problematic, yet they are subtlety replicated through the gentrification of urban neighborhoods. Through scholarly writing, journalistic action, and media attention, I firmly believe we may have a chance to reach an American audience willing to understand that our shared social, political, and cultural history should not be overlooked.
I believe that historic preservation and URBAN GEOGRAPHY
can be used to promote inclusive-minded COMMUNITY PLANNING.
I strive to accomplish this through PUBLIC HISTORY.
To do this I use DIGITAL MEDIA
to tell stories about our URBAN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY