Please note: This is a transcript of the audio interview. It is generated by a speech-to-text computer program and includes many grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and inaccurate words for non-English words. This is only meant to be a reference point with a time code accompanying the video.
Host 00:06
All right. Hello, everyone. You guys are watching another episode where we talk with Afghan Americans get to know their lives. So you can see how similar or different we are, and what we share in common with the rest of the world. What’s unique to Afghans and being Afghan? And today I’m really excited to have Fallon’s Zuhal Ferguson with me and get to know all about her. You’re gonna start the little bit of brief background starting with your grandma, if that’s okay. So, Fallon, why didn’t you? Yeah, tell us tell us about your grandma.
Fallon 00:49
Yeah, well, my grandmother, her name was heavy bass, she she’s the very first example of feminism to me. She left the she left Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. Right after she had lost her husband, my grandfather, she had three children to care for in the middle of Pavle. And she decided that, because the occupation because of the war, and because of her circumstance, she this isn’t a life for her kids. So she decided that she has to leave behind her home that she loved very much and set foot to America. And when she decided to leave to America was a very long process, she had to stop in Iran, and from Iran to Germany, and then from Germany, finally to America. And she had to bring her children over one at a time. And then they would all finally settle in America. And it was a very long process. She originally she wanted to study nursing. She wanted to be a nurse, before the occupation. And unfortunately, it didn’t work out. So she went to Iran. And she started doing like small nursing jobs like interning as a nurse, but she was never really be able to become a nurse until she left Germany, and then from Germany, finally to America. And then when she came to America, you know, because she didn’t really speak English that well, she could only really get a job cleaning universities and schools and things like that. And then within five years, she learned the language as quickly as she could. She took a double, she worked two jobs. And then she finally started her own business, which was an assisted living, and she was finally able to support all of her children. And she did that all by herself and I could not be more proud to be her granddaughter.
Host 02:39
That’s wonderful. And how many kids that you have three, putting your Mom Okay, two morons, putting them up. And you got a newer? And she moved to New York. Is that where she was?
Fallon 02:51
Yeah, she. Yeah, she moved to New York City. Her first place that she worked at cleaning was New York University. Yeah. So she, yeah, she was traveling between Queens in New York, Queens in New York, Queens in New York every single day.
Host 03:08
Wow. Wow. That’s Wow. And you were born in New York. Speaking of which, yeah, we’re around New York. Were you born?
Fallon 03:15
I was actually born in Brooklyn and Queens like around there. It’s kind of like a it’s a really like weird area. You don’t know if it’s queens, you know if it’s Brooklyn. Yeah. And ever since I was little I grew up in so many different diverse communities. The apartment building we grew up in. There were so many there weren’t just Afghans. There were Puerto Rican Americans, Dominican Republican Americans. There were Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans. So I grew up around so much cultural diversity. And each community taught me so many different things.
Host 03:51
Was it like in the heights? Have you seen the heights? I have semi-accurate I mean, you know, you know, when I was in Queens, I don’t know if you knew but I somebody told me that there’s actually a Jewish synagogue and Afghan Jewish synagogue. Yeah, I don’t know if you knew about that. I forgot to see it. But that’s pretty interesting.
Fallon 04:16
There is there’s actually a very large Afghan Jewish community in specifically flushing in Queens. It’s a very large community and even the non-Afghan Jewish population speaks Dari that’s how
Host 04:31
big the community really Oh my god.
Fallon 04:34
Oh my god. No, it’s very surprising. I was like, No way I I never thought I would be able to witness that. And then when I finally saw it, I was like, This is so cool. Yeah.
Host 04:45
Crazy. Oh, I wish I get to go see that. Because it’s, yeah, the closer or the close experience I had with that was when I was in India in Delhi, and there was the Sikh population, the Afghan Sikh population. And they’re speaking in Pashto on Farsi. And I was like, what it just, you know, like you never because you always imagined them in movies and everything or what we know Sikh people associated with Hindi. And you’ve seen them speak Farsi, like, Wow, that’s so crazy that and that speaks to the diversity of the Afghan culture on diaspora. I think people think, you know, media shows us as just being these, you know, one side sort of looking sort of people but, you know, kind of does not speak about the diversity that much and that’s kind of why the series is to kind of showcase perhaps the diversity of Afghans including yourself. And do you speak speaking of languages, do you speak any of the Afghan languages?
Fallon 05:41
I do? I speak Dari it’s I have a bit of a head Aussie accent when I speak dari Because. Because my grandmother she is from Cabo. But on my father’s family were half Herati. And my mother, my mother, my mother’s family, my grandmother’s family was also from Herat. But she moved to Kabul when she was a girl. So yeah, mostly
Host 06:07
Iran, and Iraq is a city close to Iran. So what she’s you’re talking about is the accent is a little more Iranian, on the Iranian side, and it would be on the on the other side, which is beautiful. All accents are, are beautiful. And Persian language, you know, you you mentioned it as dairy is kind of shared language between three countries, Afghanistan, Iran, and Tajikistan. And it’s called different. It’s called Farsi in Iran, Dari and Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Tajikistan. But it’s all the same language, you know, just different.
Fallon 06:42
It’s cool. It’s all has its own influence, depending on where you’re at.
Host 06:47
Yeah. And did that in that sort of being raised in such a diverse culture and kind of seeing so much different diversity and beauty around you that that kind of influence what you’re doing right now, as a curator, you’re kind of a junior curator at a museum here in LA. And I wanted to start there, kind of, how does that influence your background or an interest what what you’re doing right now?
Fallon 07:12
Oh, 100,000%, if I did not have the diversity that I had growing up, I would not be able, I would not be able to see beauty and everything. And I think that definitely is what my artistic identity is built around is being able to see beauty and everything and being able to understand multiple perspectives and multiple cultures and multiple aesthetics as well. So I’m just so grateful that you know, we didn’t have much growing up, I didn’t know much growing up, but to be able to be in a community where there’s so much diversity and beauty. It just it inspired me to create it inspired me to honor those cultures that appropriating them, of course, but inspired me to know more about humanity, see what else is out there. And that’s what created my artistic drive and my artistic hunger, and also my passion for human rights. It made me realize that despite the fact that we are all we all have our cultural differences and diversities. We’re still all one human. We’re still we’re all human at the end of it. Sorry. We are. We’re all
Host 08:22
for not being able to talk today.
Fallon 08:27
Thank you. I hope so. But yeah, I realized that diversity isn’t something that shouldn’t be taboo. It’s just, it’s something that should be celebrated. You know, most people think diversity creates a conflict. But I think it’s something that if you respect, and you don’t appropriate it, you can celebrate it and honor Right,
Host 08:44
right. Yeah, I’m gonna get to your human rights work as well. I kind of wanted to establish you as the your art and your work. And as an artist as well. I know you do oil paintings, we could have actually had that be a background for you know, we were as we were choosing a background for this. That could have been one. But hopefully, we can put some links to your artwork. Tell us a little bit about your artwork, and how did that begin? At what age and what exactly what sort of art as would you say?
Fallon 09:13
Well, um, I, I remember, I picked up a pencil at a very early age, I was around, I picked a pencil like to draw, I was around probably four or five. And, you know, we’re teaching how to ride and learning how to ride and stuff like that. And I just started, I looked at the blank piece of paper, and I don’t know why. But to me, I just, I just was like, You know what, no, I’m going to do whatever I want on this piece of paper. And I’m going to draw what I want. I want to create my own world. So when I was five, I tried to draw my own world. And ever since then, it just it became addicting it. It became a sort of escapism for me, and not just escapism, but It also became a sort of a vise, a vise and a passion to create to be able to appreciate things to express my perspective, my perspective, my perspective on things.
Host 10:13
Yeah, makes sense. How often you get to do them, because I think the style you were mentioning is hyper realistic oil paintings, like a week to do one. How often do you get to do
Fallon 10:25
oh, gosh, so yeah, I started when I was five, I went from, like, small chill child drawings and fantasy drawings. Then when I was 1516, I got serious and started doing realistic drawings. hyperrealism. And for start off with colored pencils, and then when I moved on to oil painting, I cannot tell you how, like all how amazing but also stressful the processes because you want to get something done, you want to get your idea down on the canvas, but you have like, you have to take a lot of time, it takes a lot of time like to draw one feature to draw the tip of a finger, it should take you at least like four to six hours, or at least that’s how long it would take me. Because the thing is, the slower you go, the more detailed you become. And the more attention to detail you have, you begin to notice things that aren’t really there. Because the number one thing I was taught in art is draw what you see now what you think you see, like, yeah, when you look at Charles
Host 11:26
mean, what does that mean? That sounded good. I don’t know what that means.
Fallon 11:31
Well, when you look outside, and you look at the sun, and you look at a child’s drawing, right, a child’s drawing of a sun is like a giant yellow dot with like little sun rays coming out of it, little yellow lines coming out of it. That’s not what the sun actually looks like, though, when you go outside. You see, it’s like it’s almost too bright to look at. So all you can do is just draw the, the beans and the colors coming out of it. Or, you know, a better example would be to draw a face. Usually people draw a face, they draw an eyes and mouth and a nose and eyebrows. But you also have to really pay attention to the shadows, the contours, the creases, the marks, you have to draw everything. It’s It can’t just be the eyes, a face and a nose.
Host 12:16
Right. Okay, that’s that’s a way of explaining it. I mean, as an artist, I think your heart is, that’s probably why so open to your social work, which you’re kind of also studying and getting a minor in. I understand you’re studying law at a university right now, but also minoring on human rights. Is that so as well? Yes. Yeah,
Fallon 12:45
yeah. Well, I’m studying international trade law. And that was sort of my main focus, because I really wanted to be able to empower people who want to start their own business in other countries. And then on the human rights side of it, I, I began to witness things growing up in the community that I did like a lot of mistreatment and whatnot, or a lot of people that really deserved better. And I just wanted to be able to fight for that I wanted to, I said, You know what, I can change this, and I’m going to change it. Because, you know, growing up, we’re taught well, you know, it takes like someone really big or someone really important to change it. And I’m like, Okay, well, then I’ll become that someone. And I can change that. So that’s where it began. It began pretty early on when I started getting to know more about other cultures and seeing how they were integrated into the communities that I grew up in.
Host 13:45
Right. And so, you know, this, as you mentioned, that I kind of almost feel that people who come from immigrant backgrounds are similar tastes, kind of, do you think there’s even a choice not to think about the world and hence giving back? Is there even a choice?
Fallon 14:05
Yeah, I totally get what you mean, like, being, like, you know, I’m sure not just with Afghan immigrants, but being the child of any immigrant, you’re never really 100% American, but you’re not 100% of your ancestral land. You’re kind of a mix in between the two. And some people do choose to, like, not think about it or choose to leave behind the community for understandable reasons, I’m sure. But I feel like when you see something happening to your ancestral land, whether you like it or not, it does affect you. It does affect you, whether you choose to act on it or not is up to you, but I don’t think you have a choice when it comes to not thinking about it. You’re always gonna think, oh, it’s always going to have this imprint on you. But I do think that people do have a choice to act on it or not. And I For a lot about how you’re integrated into your own community or ancestral land or where you stand.
Host 15:05
Yeah. And that also brings me to to the question that what was your relationship to Afghanistan and your community? Before? The the US pulled out? You have a relationship? Was this a constant? Yeah. Tell us a little bit. How was that relationship? Because then we can talk about it after a now which you’re like, hyper? Like, yeah, what was really,
Fallon 15:31
I mean, I’m going to be very honest. Because I grew up in such a diverse community. I did, I did see a few Afghans here and there. And like, of course, I had lots of times with the Afghan Jewish population in Flushing. If I, if I was as integrated as I am today, no, solely, because, you know, I was raised by a single mom. And my mom, she sort of felt like, it was better for me to focus on me and like being able to make ends meet with just us. And we just didn’t really, we weren’t really able to fully integrate into the communities because, you know, it’s just, it’s a combination of things. It’s also where we grew up, there weren’t a lot of Afghans where we were. And then when I moved to California, I started creating my cultural identity as in middle school, I started realizing like, Okay, I’m Afghan, I love my culture, I’m very proud to be Afghan American, I’m proud, I’m proud of all the things my community has accomplished, My country has accomplished. So began to really start looking at who I am, it wasn’t until middle school and I started to find myself. And my cultural identity was a huge part of that. And before the US pulled out, I was very active in terms of being able to advocate and wanting to advocate and giving my opinion and sharing petitions and things like that. But I wasn’t really as hyper involved as I am today, knowing how bad the crisis got, and it’s been really eye opening. Because I didn’t grow up with a lot of Afghans. Like I said, I had my times with them, but I wasn’t really living beside them. I wasn’t really living in the community, I was living in a very diverse community. So when I finally entered the community, it it was just it was this really amazing feeling of finding another part of myself that I feel like I never really got in touch with. Hmm,
Host 17:37
that’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. And and I was going to ask that it’s funny, you answer my questions, even before I think about them was was one. You’re born in New York. And you know what this identity look like to you? What this afghan identity? You answered it a little bit, you know, but what does it look like? What do you think it means to be an Afghan American? Given that you’ve probably you’ve not visited Afghanistan, I believe yet, right? Or you’ve never been to Afghanistan. You’ve also just seen him seen it in movies and books and TV? And? Yeah, so when you think of identity, what what do you think is an Afghan American, from your perspective from who you are? What does that identity look like? What does it encompass?
Fallon 18:24
Well, from my perspective, I feel like to be Afghan American, you know, you are caught between two very different worlds in a sense of your call between the old world and new world. Of course, we’re very modern and innovative ourselves as Afghans, but you’re also caught between 300 years of history, and then like 2000 years of history, and Afghan American. To me, it just means to me, it just, it’s one of the most beautiful cultures. And that’s even coming from an unbiased point of view, where to be African American, it means to have honor to have integrity, to adhere to your morals, to be able to stand strong in your ground. You know, we come from a very heavy warrior culture, you know, a lot of it is based off of strength and independence and resilience. And to me, that’s what it means to be Afghan American. And, you know, I know like, you know, for diaspora, compared to people, non diaspora Afghans, you know, we are a little bit different in terms of we’ve never really seen the homeland, we’ve never really been to it. We’ve only seen it in books and movies. So to that to not ask for Afghans. I understand that. It’s a very, there’s just like a little bit of a gap. However, I do feel like there’s this immense sense of brotherhood and sisterhood within the diaspora and non diaspora Afghans and I feel like to be Afghan American is to keep our resiliency alive is to keep alive At least to keep our history alive to the world, it means the world to be African American.
Host 20:06
That’s beautiful. Yeah. You mentioned resiliency, you mentioned resiliency, and and I want to dig deeper and find out, what are some other qualities that you think are essentially Afghan or you associate with being Afghan, that you may have yourself? Or have seen it? Maybe not? I would say, Okay, I once I asked that question, I say steer away from, like, what popular media may show you? You know, let’s, let’s like, maybe dig deeper into your own self and kind of see, okay, if, if there were certain aspects of you some certain qualities, because I was actually reading this UN study, and, and there was this Native American who spoke about, she said, You know, every culture, because of the way we are in 1000s of years of history, as you mentioned, every culture, whether it’s new, newly formed governments, like here or elsewhere, brings to the world a certain set of qualities, a set of virtues, a set of really unique, offering offerings to the world, right. And she was saying that how, digging deep into your own culture to see what does 1000s of years of evolution has primed you to bring to this world is what is going to be so essential and finding yourself and being able to contribute to the world. And that really struck a chord with me, and that this was few years ago, and I kind of began to think, Okay, what is essentially Afghan qualities that I have? And then what are American qualities that I have adopted? And I’ve also lived in India, and what were Indian qualities that I have brought with me, you know, to kind of see, you know, where did this evolution bring us? So, I’m going to put that question for you to kind of take a moment if you have to, kind of what are certain qualities that are essentially afghan that you think you exhibit or you have seen another’s?
Fallon 22:12
Wow, I mean, that, honestly, is probably a question I’ve been waiting for. I’ve been waiting to answer this question. Um, I mean, when you look at like you said, Pop Culture, all we’re really associated with is war and occupation. And like, you know, the battlefield playground, you know, we don’t really have a culture or an identity in media, or we don’t have like, you know, the personal attributions or characteristics in media. We’re like, right now, we’re just the population of war when it comes to mainstream media. But what I think a trait that is so afghan that I have literally seen throughout the entire community, for me is resiliency, like I mentioned before, is this undying strength. And this undying hope we are very hopeful people to have gone through everything we have gone through in the past millennia alone, and to still have hope that one day I want to stand will be able to free itself and will be able to stand together as a people to me, that is incredible. I have never I honestly can say that I’ve never really seen that. I’ve never really seen that as strongly as I’ve seen it now. And it reminds me of like anyone who gets through so much in their life and resiliency, to me, that’s an Afghan trait to me that represents everything that is Afghan and not just not just resiliency, but also hospitality. Hospitality is a huge one. and Afghan culture, I’m sure as you know, you know, my mother used to tell me that if a guest goes hungry in your house, it’s a sin on your head. You know, that’s what my mom would tell me or my grandmother. Hospitality is a huge one for us. Because we love people. We’re alanda very diverse tribe we have like we’re home to over like, I think like 40 million. Yeah, like we’re home to over 40 million. And it’s also so many diverse tribes. So hospitality is literally an essential of our culture, you know, you’ll never ever turn away a guest from your home. That’s something I’ve noticed and Afghan culture and you always treat them to the best of your ability with whatever little you have. You know, I I’ve, I follow this photo journalist. And she’s an amazing woman who does amazing work and she released a book called The Atlas of beauty if you’ve heard of it, but it’s basically a story of her and her camera and she literally just travels around the world in the most like, you know, obscure places of the world and takes pictures of women who have amazing stories behind them and she often To me a whole new perspective of beauty. It’s a literally an atlas of beautiful women with amazing stories behind them. And she went up on his son. And she mentioned that with whatever little they have, they will serve you, like your royalty or like you’re one of their own, like your family. And that’s something I’ve noticed, and that’s very afghan is hospitality, and friendship. We’re very, very friendly people. So resiliency, hospitality and friendship, I think are probably one of like, probably one of the biggest traits that I’ve seen across the diaspora.
Host 25:34
You also mentioned, you also mentioned one more, which I which you didn’t can say it in your conclusive statement, which is that which was the word hope you said, you were very hopeful people. And I’m going to ask you, in the moment, you mentioned that I was going to say, okay, what are your hopes? What do you hope to do, as a human being for these dual identities that you have for these two countries that you call home? Or for the world? What is What do you hope to contribute to the world and how, what is on the hope side?
Fallon 26:11
On the hope side, honestly, I really hope that I really just want to give back to as many as I can, not because you know, I want to be like this Mother Teresa, or like the saint or whatever. But solely because, nope, being Afghan American, you kind of know what it feels like to have a country taken from you and stolen from you. And also to be in the face of oppression. So you want to help as many people as you can not go through that. And my hope is to be able to stop it where I can, when I can, however I can, is to stop exploitation and to, you know, empower POC communities and empower immigrants that not just immigrate here to the US. But worldwide, I want to be able to do that. And just to be able to solely give people the tools to advance themselves and empower themselves. Well, empowerment is huge, because you know, the saying, Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day Teach a man how to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime. I want to be able to do that for not just I want to stand but for any oppressed population, and also for girls worldwide and women worldwide.
Host 27:27
That’s your hope. That’s your personal hub. And I hope you get to do that. I hope so too. Well, that’s beautiful. That brings us to a brief pause in this conversation, we hope to talk more soon and again. But it was really wonderful to just hear your story and kind of dig a little bit into your mind and heart and to hear who you are and what you’re hoping to do in life. If you have any conclusive thoughts or comments, we’ll take it right now.
Fallon 28:04
Yeah, I mean, this is for the Afghan community, the Afghan diaspora. First off, thank you guys so much for allowing me to be involved and also to everyone out there that wants to change that wants to make a difference, whether you’re Afghan or not, or whatever community you come from, you can make that difference, it’s going to take a long time, it may take a long time, it may take your whole life. But if you want to you can do it. And I honestly owe it to not just the Afghan neospora diaspora but Afghan people in general, thank you for allowing me to be able to advocate and do work with you guys and meet and meet my, my ancestral land, meet my home, meet my family. And I couldn’t be grateful enough to be a part of this community. And I’m very human. So I’ll probably make a mistake somewhere down the line. However, I could not be more honored to be a part of this community and for us to be family, all of us.
Host 29:10
That is wonderful. And with that, we’ll let you guys have a wonderful day, rest of your day or evening whenever you’re listening to this. And if you enjoyed that, please subscribe. There will be more of it. Thank you so much again, Fallon. I really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.