Zeena Aljawad

Therapist and social worker. Her dedication to documenting narratives, especially ones related to her homeland, is connected to her passion for social work, where stories of individuals and communities are powerful and provide great insight and lessons for current happenings and future generations.

Shawk Alani

Writer whose very personal entanglement with storytelling fuels her desire to document Iraqi life stories in this project. Completed her master’s degree in the Graduate Liberal Studies program at Simon Fraser University, with a thesis on Iraqi storytelling. Her community work has been covered by the CBC and Rabble.ca. Her writing has been published in The Puritan, Banat Collective, Jadaliyya and Ajam Media Collective.

Yousef K. Baker, Ph. D.

Assistant Professor at the International
Studies Program at California State University, Long Beach
. Co-Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program. He received his Doctorate degree in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara where he focused on the study of political economy, development, nationalism, and coloniality. He is currently studying the political economy of the 2003 American invasion and occupation of Iraq. 

Noor Aljawad

Student of social work passionate about raising awareness on the negative impacts of US imperialism and other forms of institutional, global-scale oppression on the world, and its impact on Iraqi mental health in particular. She is passionate about collecting our stories because they reflect our community's resilience.

Mostafa Fadhl

Student of Sociology at Lund university. He is currently undergoing an internship as an urban planner in a small municipality in Sweden, and is working with citizen participation. He finds himself drawn to the stories of Iraqis, as he pursues to understand the world around him.

Sana Aljailawi

Pharmaceutical student at Gothenburg University, with an interest in the interplay between health and culture. She has a passion for stories from Iraqis and sees limitless value in listening to and learning from their personal histories.

Sara Ahmad

Educator, writer, and food blogger based in Los Angeles. Her food blog Add a Little Lemon focuses on Iraqi food stories in the diaspora as a way to reverse stigmatizing and dehumanizing narratives of Iraq and Iraqis.

 

Thank you to

Iraqi Transnational Collective

Ali Iğmen, Ph.D.
Director of Oral History Program at California State University, Long Beach

Stephanie Jabri
Technology Assistant

Ahmed Twaij, M.D.
Instagram: @twaiji