SPECIAL FEATURE
AFGHAN AMERICANS: DIPTYCHS by Andrea Bruce
Introduction
Aman Mojadidi’s long beard, styled like those of traditional Afghan men, is grayer than his age should permit. When he speaks, his soft, small-town, Florida-grown accent belies his appearance, conjuring images of malls and high school prom. He smiles in an open, American way, rubbing his beard in contemplation. He is an artist. He watches the way people react to him, in the United States and in Afghanistan. Playing with his identity, and how others react to their culture-formed stereotypes, is one of his most brilliant pieces of art.
When I asked him what most signifies Afghanistan to him, he said the Kabul River. Its ever-changing state is like the country, he said. At times it seems to disappear in dust, trash and sewage. Then, the season changes and it floods, tearing at the land.
Like many Afghan Americans, Aman returned to Afghanistan soon after the fall of the Taliban to help rebuild a country that is home to much to his family. Of the Afghan Americans I followed, there are businessmen and artists, politicians and aid workers. Many are idealistic believers in the democracy the United States promised. Now, faced with governmental corruption and increasing violence in Afghanistan, some are considering a move back to the United States. Their decisions have made many look at how they define themselves and how to bridge the two very different cultures that they love, but often find to be at odds. This is a notion I deeply relate to – bridging the gap between two very different cultures.
For the past decade I have focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as many other war-torn countries. But when I started my career as a photographer, I never imagined covering war. I was a community journalist interested in investigative and in‑depth coverage to help a local audience. When 9/11 happened, my life changed dramatically, as it did for many. I was a staff photographer for The Washington Post and was quickly whisked away to Iraq. I rarely came home. In 2009, I moved to Afghanistan.
The first few years of the war in Iraq was an almost routine coverage of death. I woke up almost every morning to the sound of a suicide bombing. My driver Omar and I would chase the smoke throughout Baghdad to find the site of the bombing. Death tolls were often over 100. Then we went to the hospitals. Then, the morgue. Around Baghdad and while embedded with the U.S. military, the scenes of violence were heartbreaking and heavy. I showed the violence with unapologetic honesty. I don’t believe in sheltering viewers from the reality of death and war. I believe people, especially in the United States, have a responsibility to see the destruction and heartbreak left in war’s wake.
Returning to the States was infuriating. I quickly realized how little my photos impacted people. No one paid attention to these images of war. They couldn’t relate.
How do I get audiences to empathize with people who they believe are so different from themselves? I decided I needed to cover war in a fundamentally different way.
I needed to show that Iraqis weren’t all that different than our readers. I needed to show that they, too, love their children. They care about education. They have to deal with traffic, and health care, in surprisingly similar ways that Americans do.
Intimacy was my tool. I spent the night with families, tried to live the life they live, in order to represent the intricacies of their situation with the sensitive eye of the community journalist I was in the States. I started a column consisting of a large image and a short story called “Unseen Iraq.”
I paired this more intimate work with the everyday violence that I still found necessary to cover, intending to bridge the gap between cultures. People must relate on a personal level, empathetically, before they can care about tragedies in a world so different from theirs. I continue to use this approach to journalism everywhere I go, in every war zone I photograph.
The duality of this approach – using intimacy to convey the complex horror of war – is what drew me to Afghan Americans. What made their families leave Afghanistan? What did they feel, while living in the United States on 9/11, when people close to Afghanistan were blamed for the tragedy? What is it like to balance two different cultures?
In several cases, these portraits show the struggle each person has had dealing with their two nationalities. For instance, Koukaba Mojadidi, growing up in Florida, says “The minute I came into my house, I was living in a different set of rules, a different context. And the minute I left my house, I was living in the real world. Having to consider both cultures at the same time, all the time.”
Aman takes us on his journey. Ever changing, like the Afghanistan he sees. For now, he hasn’t made peace with the idea of being from either culture.
“It took growing up in the United States to feel Afghan, and it took living in Afghanistan for eight years to feel American. In the end, I feel neither place is home.”
Each of the following images is paired with a quote and mirrored by an image of what each Afghan American said represented their experience with Afghanistan. These photos offer a detail of Afghanistan through their eyes and supplement to the “daily news” from Afghanistan. Each diptych explores a unique and complex connection between two countries and cultures seemingly at war, every day, embodied in individual Afghan Americans.
Andrea Bruce/NOOR Images. This project was completed with help from the Alicia Patterson Foundation.
**After “Afghan Americans: Diptychs ” appeared in AQR, The New Yorker published an excerpted version of this special feature under the title of “Afghan Americans: A Study in Duality.” The full feature is only available in AQR’s print edition. View the excerpted version of AQR’s feature on The New Yorker site.
Andrea Bruce is a documentary photographer who focuses primarily on people living in the aftermath of war. She is a co‑owner and member of the photo agency NOOR. Previously, as a staff photographer for The Washington Post for eight years, she chronicled many of the world’s most troubled areas, including in‑depth coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq. Her sensitive yet unflinching coverage of intricacies of the latter conflict, experienced by both Iraqis and the U.S. military, was turned into a weekly column for The Post called “Unseen Iraq.” Her awards include top honors from the White House News Photographers Association (where she was named Photographer of the Year four times), awards from the International Pictures of the Year contest, and the John Faber Award from the Overseas Press Club. She is also the recipient of a White House News Photographers Association grant (2010), the Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship (2011), and in 2012 she received the first Chris Hondros Fund Award for the “commitment, willingness and sacrifice shown in her work.”