I didn’t think we could just sit here idly and say, ‘Let those people die.’ We wouldn’t want the rest of the world to say that about us if we were in the same situation. … Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.”
–Gov. Robert D. Ray in 1975, when he led an initiative to resettle 13,000 Southeast Asian refugees in Iowa.
When Fatuma Aynab was just 13, she left her home in Mogadishu, Somalia, and made her way to Kenya by herself, despite a debilitating medical condition that requires her to use crutches to walk. She lived in refugee camps for eight years until she was granted refugee status in 2008 and moved to Des Moines on her own. She earned a bachelor’s degree in human services from Grand View University in 2014 and now works at Lutheran Services in Iowa. Photographer: Ben Easter.
