Every time 26-year-old Wajeeha visits New York, she jokes that she's an "honorary New Yorker." Growing up in Toronto as the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, her family made frequent trips to the city, enough that childhood photos in New York have become part of her own family history.
When she compares the two cities, what stands out is the way communities interact. In Toronto, immigrant communities often remain within their own ethnic circles. "The Pakistani and Indian communities are very tight-knit and stay within their own circles, and the Arab communities and so on." Because the city is more spread out, there are fewer opportunities for communities to overlap naturally. New York feels different to her, since its density creates more opportunities for people of different backgrounds to share neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and public spaces. As a result, she sees Muslim communities here as more interconnected, more part of the city, and more open to one another, which includes communities dissimilar from their own.
Although she was born and raised in Canada, Wajeeha dreams of moving to New York City. Her story reminds us that New York continues to represent possibility not only for immigrants themselves, but also for the generations that follow. For many children of immigrants, the city remains a place where different identities can coexist, and where belonging is shaped less by ethnicity alone than by the experience of becoming part of the city’s identity

– Ariba Hassan

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant