This shoot is full circle for me. In 2004 when I first applied for a US visa my application was suspended indefinitely as my name was run through a background check on FBI terrorist lists. It made me feel depressed and hopeless to be racially profiled in such an overreaching global way and to be negatively stereotyped for an horrendous act committed by a group that I and most Arabs had nothing to do with and had never heard of.
I had friends with European names get their visas in 2 weeks. I unknowingly waited 7 months, I thought I was never going to get it.
Even when I did have a visa I always feared entering at US immigration as I would always get pulled aside by border security and kept in a room called Secondary Screening for hours whilst my name would be run through the system again. The process always felt humiliating and illogical. The price I had to pay for living in a city I love.
20 years later I’m an American, a New Yorker at heart, and with this shoot I get to use my work to celebrate Arab American New Yorkers - showing Arabs for their beauty and humanity, not being conflated with terrorism and other negative narratives.
I love this city 🗽everyone I know is some sort immigrant here. We coexist. …….
41 emerging faces from the diaspora are captured through the lens of acclaimed photographer
@SharifHamza with creative direction by
@Ruba and styled by
@malinajoseph and casting by
@lizgoldson_casting . Hair by
@bobrecine and make up by
@tuddynana
“What’s so interesting is that the three of us got emotional on that day because we realised we had never seen that much representation in one room, in one place, at any point in our lives” says Ruba Abu-Nimah (
@ruba ). “The intention here is to exemplify us as a people in the West with a true identity.”
🙏🏽
@ahmadaswaid @gqmiddleeast