The Singer scissors have been sitting in the same sewing box for nearly thirty years, the plastic container now yellowing and dusty. Samina received them from her mother as part of her jahez, a collection of belongings a bride takes with her when she marries. In her family, the jahez was something her mother prepared over the years with clothes, linens, kitchenware, jewelry. Her mother bought a pair of Singer scissors for each of her daughters. 
Samina got married in Pakistan in 1992 and moved to New York in 1993. They settled in Jackson Heights. “When we had freshly moved, my husband bought me a sewing machine from some second hand store in the area and I loved it so much.” With little else to do to with her time, Samina spent her days sewing. When money was tight, she sewed alterations for neighbors and making clothes for weddings and Eid. Samina says she sometimes thought about how differently the scissors ended up being used from what her mother imagined. They were given to her as part of preparing her for life as a housewife, but they ended up as a tool through which she earned money for her family.
Earning her own, even when it was only a little, gave her autonomy in an unfamiliar country where she would otherwise rely entirely on her husband. It also gave her a way into the neighborhood as her network grew through word of mouth. People knew her and sent their friends and family her way. She said, “It felt like I was a park of New York instead of, sort of on the outs.”

– Ariba Hassan

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant