Projects about my family’s origin has always be quite hard for me because I come from a family where we don’t exactly know our family’s history and how our ancestors arrived in this country. When my mother was twelve year old her mother was murdered. My grandmother being only twenty-seven and heavily addicted to drugs when she was taken away from this earth never had the opportunity to teach her five children about their origin. One might ask how this jewelry box I present to you now has to do with my family’s origin. This wooden jewelry box was given to me by my eldest brother in the mid 2000’s. When my brother was stationed in Iraq from 3 years he brought several jewelry boxes. Each box was given to an important women in this life (our, mother, our sister, his wife, and myself.) These jewelry boxes have an origin all within themselves before being sold on the streets of Iraq to an American soldier, they were hand crafted in Turkey, traveled throughout the Middle East, and now all the wooden boxes exist in different parts of the United States with their owners. These boxes don’t tell the story of my family’s origin. However, my jewelry box has become sacred to me. This wooden box unfortunately can’t help me discover my origin but it has helped my family and I establish new beginnings and a family heirloom.

– Aliyah Pair

Relationship:  unknown unknown