Portfolio: Personal Projects: Behind the Veil

These photographs look at the lives of Muslim, Somali teenage girls straddling the line between Islam and western culture, living on both sides of the veil, in Portland, Maine

Muslim, immigrant women are expected to concurrently uphold their home culture traditions and carve new pathways for the family into their westernized culture–through language, education and employment. A family's reputation is often judged by the actions of their daughter. As they carve these pathways, their own values often create conflict with the surrounding culture and it’s heightened sexuality. I am looking at how they integrate, how they don't, how they carry out their culture, what they keep and what they leave behind.

The non-Muslim world often sees Muslim women as voicelessly oppressed and while the world has seen this in practice, through examples such as the Taliban, many Muslim women desire a different story to be told. Going behind the veil offers an opportunity to show the complex role Muslim women play in their communities and within the American culture as a whole.