Faris Aljazi, 19 years old, is a second-year LCC student. Although Aljazi never traveled outside of his cozy local communities in the state of Michigan. This Michigan state native does dream of traveling “… to my home country and Italy”. We talked about his ethnic background and learned that Aljazi is a first-generation whose parents migrated from Iraq. We continued to talk more about his home country Iraq because of my curiosity about the country’s civil unrest I asked if things had improved. Aljazi’s response was that he really didn’t know but his father recently visited there because of his grandfather’s funeral. I gave my condolence. When asked about his friend group and if he had friends who shared the same ethnic background, Aljazi answered there are not many people of Iraqi descent in his community and that his friends weren’t of the same background but he did have two different friend groups. Muslim and non-Muslim. Aljazi lives a comfortable life, his parents are business owners which allows him to focus on his education and career.

“I am LCC” is an ethnographic project that brings together students to interview each other and share their stories of cultural heritage and migration through words and photos, making the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic. The students develop interviewing skills, and learn that researcher and interviewee are both subjects and thus together create meaning.