Threads of Light: From Cairo to New York

The object is a hand-size golden lantern that lights up with batteries. It has a handle at the top and a roof-like top, with a round base and two handles (mostly for decor) on the sides. The lantern was purchased by my mom in NYC. It sits on a medium-sized table within my house, mainly used for guests. Even though it simply looks like a fancy house decoration, it connects me with my culture and memories.

Growing up as an Egyptian, it was normal to see children before sunset running in crowded markets, pushing through adults while holding small lanterns of different shapes and sizes. They’d light up in different colors, not just golden yellow. Most of the time, the lanterns didn’t contain real candles. But they still felt cultural. Children would sing “Ramadan gaana,” and other different songs in anticipation of the month of Ramadan.

Because the small lantern signals Ramadan, it connects me to memories of fasting in Egypt on hot days, especially later in the day when I felt great for making it to the evening, knowing a large feast awaits my family.

This object fits into the broader story of New York City because New York City is a hub of immigrants, of many cultures uniting into one city. This makes New York so much different from other places in America. Being of an Egyptian background, I bring my perspective here, and even meet people from different countries who also celebrate Ramadan.

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Gold Buddha

The Buddha necklace is adorned with diamonds and there's a solid gold Buddha carving in the center.

The object I have chosen is my gold and diamond Buddha necklace. It was custom-made in Thailand for me when I was a child. My mom’s side of the family is Thai, and I grew up practicing Buddhism in America. Although, until the age of 10, I went to a private Catholic School, I wore my necklace. Without realizing, it became a reminder of my family’s roots when I was surrounded in a culture around me that wasn’t mine. There’s a specific kind of pressure that comes with growing between two cultures. Do you assimilate to your environment, or stay true to your own beliefs? My Buddha necklace was something I prayed to in times of struggle, when I needed good luck, or when I needed guidance. The reality of never taking off this necklace reflected my family, my culture, my overall morals and character.

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Canadian Gold Sapphire Earrings

A picture of Canadian Gold Sapphire Earrings inside an opened red box placed on a table.

On the last day of a trip to Mexico for my eighteenth birthday, my father told me to go
into a store and pick something out. There were two stores at the hotel: a souvenir shop and a
jewelry store. He meant the souvenir shop, but I misunderstood and walked into the jewelry store
instead. Inside, I found a pair of earrings I liked, but they were expensive, so I waited for my
father before deciding.
When he saw the price tag, I could tell they were more than he expected. Instead of
saying no, he suggested we go to dinner and come back later. At dinner he told me how proud he
was of me and how much he loved me. When we returned, the woman working there showed me
another pair she thought would look nice. As I kept looking, I noticed Canadian gold sapphire
earrings and instantly knew those were the ones I loved. But they were more expensive than the
first pair and the other pair combined, so I didn’t bother asking.
Even knowing that, my father bought all three.
Those sapphire earrings mean far more to me than jewelry. My parents immigrated to this
country with almost nothing. Everything they built came from sacrifice and hard work. When I
look at those earrings, I see how far my family has come and feel motivated to expand the
success my parents fought to create.

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Uzbek Qozon

Two men stir a giant cast iron pot filled with food.

My grandmother has a qozon that looked like the one in the image, only much smaller. It was old and well-used. This is the qozon that made the food that my mom was raised on throughout her entire childhood. This is the qozon that made the food I was raised on during my childhood. It’s not a cooking utensil or a tool; at this point it’s an heirloom. It’s older than I am. It’s probably older than my mom. Its provenance, at least as far back as I can trace it, begins with my grandfather’s mother, who then passed it on to him. Being a stereotypical Uzbek man and not knowing how to cook, he gave it to his wife (my grandmother). My mom hopes to inherit it one day.
It’s funny just how much of Uzbek culture can be explained by this. Uzbek dishes are efficient: large and calorie-dense, a leftover (see what I did there?) from our nomadic days when little could be preserved and even less could be carried on the backs of horses. Because of this, Uzbeks traditionally have no concept of leftovers. My grandmother would cook three meals a day, every single day, each one big enough to fill this qozon to near-overflowing. The qozon is perfectly hemispherical, so an Uzbek kapkir (spatula) can very efficiently stir the food and scoop it out onto the plates of my grandmother’s four children. The pure cast iron gets hot and stays hot, and the material only gets stronger over time as it polymerizes with every use, preserving itself for future generations.
The second image is an example of a qozon used in communal cooking. These huge qozons are called “forty-ears” because they traditionally had forty handles, called ears, around the rim, and it would take forty men to carry them, one for each ear. There are restaurants in Uzbekistan that specialize only in one dish, osh, the national dish of Uzbekistan. The restaurant Besh Qozon makes portions of osh that weigh 350 kilograms (771 pounds).
I’ve had to describe it so many times, and each time I’m left underwhelmed because it’s impossible to experience it adequately (let alone authentically) unless you see it being made in front of your very eyes. It consists of Uzbek rice (not basmati or jasmine), julienned orange and yellow carrots, beef or lamb, spices, and toppings like whole peppercorns, raisins, quail eggs, stuffed grape leaves, whole garlic heads, or even quince. All of the toppings are not used at once; quince and garlic do not go well together. My favorite is fried in linseed oil, but the fanciest osh is made with dumba, the fat of a special type of ram only found in Central Asia.
Because osh comes in so many different forms, it is used in every aspect of Uzbek life: regular ol’ osh at home, fancier osh at restaurants and celebrations, and even fancier to’y oshi for weddings. The wedding, being the most important event in Uzbek culture, naturally gets the fanciest osh with all of the toppings. At the most old-fashioned of weddings, a ram and a big qozon are brought to the home of the bride. I think you can see where this is going. A butcher is called, the ram slaughtered, and some of the male relatives of the bride cook osh for the wedding. These days, things have become a bit more modernized. To’ylar (weddings) are usually held in to’yxonalar (wedding-houses), huge event halls specifically made for Uzbek weddings, which include 500 people on average.
From to’ylar to dumba to paxta-gul to osh, the qozon truly connects every facet of Uzbek culture together.

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More than a Scarf

“Come on, Baba. We’re almost late for the prayer at the masjid,” I exclaim.
He responded: “Give me a second. I’m going to get our ajraks.”
My father has always taken great pride in our culture as Pakistani-Americans living in what he called the greatest city of the world. Regardless if we have to run to the mosque to attend the Eid prayer on time, Baba emphasized the importance of carrying the ajrak with us whenever we go. The ajrak is a cultural scarf embroidered with all sorts of geometric and kaleidoscopic images. Yet to my dad, it was more than a mere piece of clothing worn around the neck. It was one of the only tangible links in his possession that connected him to his village in Sindh, Pakistan which was over 7,000 miles away.
His passion eventually became my own as I started wearing the ajrak for my high school’s cultural events and festivities. I was proud to display the culture that my parents carried with them from Pakistan and wanted to share it with others, telling them of the ajrak’s history and its familial significance. It was small moments like these that reaffirmed to me why my father dedicated himself to preserving his culture abroad. No matter where I am in the world, as long as I have the ajrak, I will always have a piece of my home with me.

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Calabash

A calabash used as a bowl

The calabash is a versatile and culturally significant plant that has been cultivated for thousands of years across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Belonging to the gourd family, the calabash plant produces large, hard-shelled fruits that can be used both as food and as containers. When young, the fruit is edible and often cooked like a vegetable, providing a source of nutrition in many traditional diets. Once matured and dried, the hard shell becomes a durable material that has been used for centuries to make bowls, cups, musical instruments, and even utensils. This dual-purpose nature of the calabash has made it an essential part of daily life in many cultures.

In addition to its practical uses, the calabash carries symbolic and cultural meaning. In West Africa, calabash gourds are often intricately decorated and used in ceremonies or as gifts. Musicians in various African and Caribbean communities use calabash shells to create instruments such as the shekere, which produces rhythmic sounds essential to traditional music. In Latin American cultures, the dried calabash is used to make containers for mate tea, highlighting its continued role in everyday life. The plant also appears in folklore and storytelling, often representing abundance, creativity, and resourcefulness.

Calabash also has a personal significance in my family. My dad is from Jamaica, and when I was born, my grandmother, his mother sent up a bowl made from a dried calabash and told my dad to feed me from it, with porridge, cereal, or fruits. She said it was so I could learn to talk faster. Once I learned how to speak, I didn’t use it anymore, but that wasn’t the end of the story. My younger sister later began using the calabash, and, as you might expect, she learned to speak faster than I did. This family tradition shows how the calabash is not only a practical object but also a symbol of heritage and cultural continuity.

Beyond its cultural and personal significance, the calabash is environmentally sustainable. It grows quickly, requires minimal care, and can thrive in diverse climates, making it a reliable source of food and material for local communities. Its adaptability and multi-functionality illustrate the ingenuity of human societies in utilizing natural resources. Overall, the calabash is much more than a simple plant; it’s a symbol of tradition, utility, and identity that continues to impact lives worldwide.

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Great Grandmother’s Cast Iron Skillet

The cast iron skillet has a long history of migration. The cast iron has its origins in China as early as the 5th century B.C.E. and only began to be imported to Europe in the 14th century C.E. on the trade networks of the Silk Road. During the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States from the 18th and 19th centuries C.E., cast iron cookware became a relatively cheap and incredibly sustainable way to feed families. For many enslaved African American domestic cooks or kitchen laborers, the cast iron skillet became a tool of both oppression and survival used daily. During the Great Migration, these durable appliances were one of the few items that these families could bring with them and impart onto their descendants.

I started my cooking journey in 2023 in my junior year of high school with a longer history of baking stretching back to middle school. Since my first semester of classes at City College last summer my cooking skills have been developing rapidly because I began cooking lunch for myself as often as I could. I feel confident with the oven, stovetop pots, instant pressure pot, and toaster oven we have but the one tool I feel disquieted to even begin using is our cast iron skillets. My family has few heirlooms in our apartment, and our one inherited cast iron skillet is perhaps our most cherished. One of the skillets belonged to my father’s grandmother, and where she got it I don’t know. She was born in 1920 in Maryland and went on to move to West Virginia and raise six of her own children and helped bring up my father and his sister there. Their cousins would also frequent the house growing up, and she often fed up to seven children off of soul food from the two cast iron skillets she had – the one I have today and another deep-dished skillet that’s still in West Virginia. As an African American family growing up in a 96% white state, some of the memories that still bring the most joy in the people she raised and loved is the food she cooked in those skillets in the challenging times of Jim Crow civil rights struggles that they all endured.
When my father traveled from New York back to West Virginia to attend her funeral in 2002, the only thing he physically took back with him was one of her cast iron skillets.
Today her cast iron skillet rests proudly on our stovetop, too emotionally significant to be pushed into the oven with our other pots and trays. My father’s grandmother handled her two cast iron skillets with great care and love for years of her life, and I don’t even know how to season or clean them. My apprehension to use her skillet is out of respect for all she’s done and fear of underwhelming or disappointing her legacy. But I suppose the first step in treating her skillet properly is to practice upkeep and preservation of it.

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Psalms and Self-expression: The Bukharian Jewish Journey

This Book of Psalms was gifted to me by my parents in August of 2018. They were drawn to this contemporary version of the ancient text because it includes different paintings from Jewish artists to match the tone of each Psalm. The Book of Psalms, which Jewish tradition attributes to King David, has been an integral part of Jewish culture for three thousand years. The 150 poems that compose the Psalms reflect diverse themes, such as faith, hardship, and determination. My family is Bukharian Jewish: Jews from Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan. The Book of Psalms has shaped my family’s journey to New York as they escaped the Soviet Union in 1991 and found comfort in the Psalms’ humanity. Chapter 23 of Psalms, which is recited every Sabbath, resonates particularly with Bukharian Jews who immigrated to New York because it contains themes of uncertainty, self-confidence, and belief in God’s protection amid hardship. My object reflects the immigration journeys of Bukharian Jews, who have achieved success despite facing challenges, while maintaining their heritage. To many Bukharian Jews, achieving their dreams and having the freedom for self-expression is the epitome of the American identity. Just as my Book of Psalms contains different pieces of art, Bukharian Jews allowed their creativity to shape their individual paths after immigrating to New York, each embodying their own version of what it means to be an American.

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Muchnick Family History

My family’s story is one of migration, survival, and identity, shaped by the waves of immigration that built New York. On my mother’s side, my grandparents are first-generation Holocaust survivors: my grandmother came from Kisvárda, Hungary, a small town whose once-thriving Jewish community was nearly wiped out during the Holocaust, and my grandfather came from Soviet Ukraine. In 1977, feeling there was no future for Jews in Europe, they immigrated to America and settled in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, among other immigrants with similar stories. On my father’s side, the family was already rooted in America, settling on Long Island in Nassau County, though the connections to Europe were never far away—my great-grandmother survived the Holocaust in Hungary before making her way here, and my great-grandfather served in the U.S. Army during World War II, leading a post-war interrogation unit. What carried over from the old world was less about language, since my grandparents speak fluent Hungarian and Russian but never taught it to me, and more about a deep sense of Jewish identity. If I had to choose one object to represent my family, it would be a kippah—small, simple, but carrying everything. My family left Europe because they were Jewish, survived because they held onto who they were, and rebuilt in Brooklyn and Long Island because New York gave them a fresh start. Their story connects directly to the Jewish experience on the Lower East Side and the broader history of immigrant New York.

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Chai Strainer

This kitchen utensil is used to strain chai, catching tea leaves and spices to produce a smooth drink.

From a small village in India to our home in New York, my family’s chai making tradition tells a story of heritage, migration, and cultural influence. This drink originated in India, where it was consumed for thousands of years as a spiced tea known as “Masala Chai.” Blending traditional black tea with spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, mixed with milk and a sweetener. It became widely popular during British colonial rule when tea production expanded, and Indians adapted it with their own flavors. Later, it became popular in the United States as “Chai Tea”, translating to “Tea Tea”.
In my household, my parents and grandparents make chai at all times of the day. It’s their comfort drink, made for one another with care and for guests who enter their home. Representing hospitality and togetherness. When my grandparents emigrated from Kerala, India, in 1976, they brought with them several sets of strainers from their local appliance store. They firmly believe these are the best strainers and we can’t use any other type. After moving to New York, my family continues to make chai the same way, preserving every detail of the tradition without changing a single thing. My family’s chai, which started as a meaningful tradition, grew into something widely appreciated today in the United States. This illustrates how immigration continuously enriches and reshapes American identity.

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Photograph of Family Members in the Catskills, c. 1966

A photograph of my grandmother and her siblings as children, posing for a picture on a summer day in the mid 1960s in the Catskills

My object is a photograph of my grandmother and her siblings in the Catskills, taken in or around 1966. In the photograph, my grandmother is around 12 years old. My grandmother died from cancer when my father was a teenager, and thus I have never met her. She had eight children, and when her children had daughters, they named them after my grandmother. I often joke that I can know the birth order of my cousins based on what their names are, since if one of them has my grandmother’s name, I know for certain that she is the oldest daughter. Since my grandmother died long before I was born, I have very little tangible connections with her, especially since neither my father nor his siblings tend to speak much about who my grandmother was as a person. This photograph of her is one of the few objects I have that allow me to connect with my grandmother, and see her as a real person rather than as a character that occasionally appears in discussions with family members.

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Symbol of Sikhism

The object I chose is my kada, the bracelet I wear on my wrist every day. It might look simple, just a plain silver circle, but it means a lot to me because it represents my religion, Sikhism.

I’ve actually worn it my whole life. Since I was born, I always had one on, and every time I grew out of it, I would get a new one. It’s something I’ve never taken off, literally never. Because of that, it feels like a part of me, not just something I wear.

As I got older, I started to understand its meaning more. It reminds me to stay strong, make good decisions, and stay connected to my values. Even in normal moments, I notice it, and it kind of keeps me grounded. Overall, my kada isn’t just a bracelet; it’s something that’s always been with me and always reminds me of who I am.

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Your Story, Our Story

For my object, I chose my father’s French passport. This passport represents more than just identification; without it, my father would not have been able to immigrate to New York City in the 1990s. As an official document, it allowed him to legally enter a new country and begin building a life there. It made it possible for him to take advantage of the opportunities that New York offers.

Over time, the meaning of this passport expanded beyond my father’s experience. It became part of my own story, as I grew up as a dual citizen of both France and the United States. This allowed me to move between New York and Paris throughout my childhood. Because of this, I came to understand that migration is not always a one-time event, but can be an ongoing and transnational process.

At the same time, this object highlights inequality. Not everyone has access to the same legal mobility. Many immigrants in New York face barriers that limit their ability to travel freely or return to their home countries. In this way, the passport represents both opportunity and unequal access.

Within the framework of the Tenement Museum’s Your Story, Our Story project, this object shows how everyday items can reveal larger social patterns. My father’s passport connects a personal family story to broader issues of migration, identity, and life in New York City.

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My Grandmother’s Iranian Passport

My grandmother’s passport from Iran is one of the most meaningful objects in my family. At the bottom of the page, there is a short but powerful note: “Only to attend religious ceremony with son.” Those few words represent a moment that completely changed her life. At the time, she was stuck in Iran while the rest of her family was already in New York. Her son’s bar mitzvah, a once-in-a-lifetime religious milestone, was coming up, and she was going to miss it. She refused to accept that. My grandmother went to the embassy and explained everything, hoping someone would understand how important it was for her to be there. Somehow, despite how strict and dangerous everything was at the time, they gave her special permission to leave the country just for this religious reason. That alone feels unbelievable. But what makes it even crazier is that only one week after she got her passport stamped and was able to leave, the embassy she went to was bombed during the revolution in Iran. Thinking about that now, feels like a miracle that she got out exactly when she did. To my family, this passport is so much more than just a document. It’s a symbol of faith, courage, and destiny. It shows how strong my grandmother was in such a scary situation and how much her family and religion meant to her. It reminds me that even in moments of fear and uncertainty, faith and determination can guide you exactly where you’re meant to be.

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Mezuzah

a mezuzah holds a sacred Jewish prayer and is carefully attached to my doorpost

The mezuzah holds a sacred Jewish prayer and is carefully attached to my doorpost, serving as a constant reminder of my family’s faith and identity. Inside it is the Shema, one of the most important prayers in Judaism, which affirms my belief in God and his protection. Each time I pass by, whether entering or leaving, it quietly reinforces a sense of connection to my religion and the values that shape my life.
More than just a ritual object, the mezuzah represents protection. We believe it watches over the household and those within it, offering a spiritual safeguard. At the same time, it designates our home as a Jewish space, marking it with intention and meaning. It is a small but powerful way of expressing identity, not loudly, but with quiet confidence and continuity.
Its straight position on the doorpost is especially significant. While many Jewish families place the mezuzah at an angle, ours reflects the Syrian Jewish tradition that has been passed down for generations. This detail connects me directly to my heritage, honoring the customs of my ancestors. In this way, the mezuzah is not only a religious symbol but also a cultural one, preserving tradition while continuing to shape my sense of belonging in the present.

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Family History Through Jewelry

The necklace my grandmother gave me for my Bat Mitzvah is simple, a delicate chain with my name written in Hebrew, but it carries a history far greater than its size. My grandmother was born in Romania in 1957 into a Jewish family that had to hide who they were. Antisemitism shaped her childhood in ways I can barely imagine. Her family couldn’t tell their neighbors they were Jewish, and her father even worked as a mall Santa to avoid suspicion. Their identity had to be concealed for their safety. Everything changed when her family moved to Israel. There, for the first time, she could live openly, without fear. She threw herself into building a new life, learning Hebrew, excelling in school, and eventually becoming a nurse and later a professor at one of Israel’s top universities. Her story is one of resilience, reinvention, and pride in her identity. When she gave me this necklace, it became more than just a piece of jewelry. As an Israeli girl whose parents immigrated to the United States, I see my own story reflected in hers. The necklace represents the journey from hiding to pride, from fear to freedom. Wearing my name in Hebrew is something I never have to think twice about, but for my grandmother, that same expression of identity was once dangerous.

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Albanian Shqiponja

The double headed eagle on the Albanian flag, the Albanian Shqiponja means a lot to both me and my family. As my parents immigrated to the city, it was hard maintaining their Albanian tradition when they were trying so hard to fit into
“New Yorkian” culture. Yet even as they adapted to a new way of life, the Shqiponja remained a constant—stitched into old clothing, hanging quietly on the wall, or spoken about in stories that carried pieces of home across the ocean. It became more than just a symbol; it was a reminder of where we came from, a reminder of resilience, pride, and identity. Growing up, I came to the realization that it wasn’t really about choosing one world over the other, but more importantly learning how to carry and embrace both. The same way the two eagles face two directions, my family learned to look forward while never losing sight of the past.

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Friday Night Candlesticks

These are my great grandmother’s candlesticks that my family uses every Friday night to bring in the Sabbath. These candlesticks are important to me because they represent my Jewish religion and identity. In Judaism, lighting candles every Friday night starts the Sabbath, a time to pray, relax, and spend time with family. Every week when we light them, it feels like we are continuing something that has been done for generations.
What makes these candlesticks even more meaningful is my grandmother’s story after she received them from her mother. She immigrated from Iran to Israel due to religious persecution, which was a huge change in her life. Even when she was forced to leave her home, she kept her traditions, and these candlesticks are a symbol of that. When she gave them to my mom, her eldest daughter, she was passing down her religion, culture, and personal history.
Now, my family uses the same candlesticks and it makes me feel connected to where I came from. It’s like a reminder of my grandmother and everything she went through. It also shows how important religion is in shaping identity, especially in Jewish families where traditions are such a big part of life.
These candlesticks aren’t just an object, they represent my family’s past, our beliefs, and how we stay connected to our roots. They also remind me that even as life changes, our traditions and identity can stay strong and continue to guide us every day.

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Dhaa

I visited Bangladesh in 2017, which is the only visit there that I remember. As we drove from the airport to the house, I looked out into the dusty street; vendors selling clothes and food, cattle freely roaming the streets, and rickshaws swerving through the traffic. Nothing there felt familiar. When we finally arrived at the house, I felt some familiarity since my family doesn’t live in the village anymore. There were couches and a dining table, and even a small aquarium. Even then, the house was very different from an American house; and I was shocked to see my family has maids. I had thought that my family lives in poverty in Bangladesh, and by American standards, they do. However, witnessing the scale of poverty that exists in Bangladesh revealed a reality worse than I imagined. Most people are poor, but even then there exists rigid class structures with a hard line between business and land-owners and service-workers. In America, my dad is a service worker. Through a 13 hour flight, I had suddenly upgraded 10 social classes. The maids asked me what they could do for me, what I wanted to eat, where to put my things, and that made me feel more out of place than the cattle. I walked into the kitchen to help prepare food, something I always have done with my mom in America. They ushered me out, but the dhaa caught my eye. It was a large, curved, sharp, dangerous-looking tool on the floor. I watched one of the maids, a young teen girl, swiftly slicing cucumbers on the giant blade. I was eager to try it out, and after some begging, they agreed to train me. I stayed for over a month in Bangladesh, and left skilled with the dhaa, and as a friend to the maids.

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