Interview with Wahira LaBelle

An interview with Wahira LaBelle, a trans fem queer of Somali descent, community organizer, migrant justice activist, and advocate based in California. At the time of this interview, she was the Bay Area organizer for the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP) and the founder of its associated group Black Trans Migrants United (BTMU,) as well as an advocate and public speaker on issues of migrant justice, anti-Black racism, and anti-trans violence. In this oral history interview with Macalester College students Ubah Abdullahi, Daria Chamness, and Andi Haus, LaBelle discusses her upbringing in Somalia during its civil war and experiences of migration to Ethiopia, Kenya, and the United States, her work with BLMP, BTMU, and as an advocate for Black trans migrants and Somali trans people, the difficulty and necessity of her visibility as a Somali trans woman and the impact of that visibility on the next generation of Somali trans and gender nonconforming people, the invisibilization of Black migrants in mainstream discussions around immigration, and her visions for a better future.

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View At: https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/item/p16022coll97:228
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Item Information:

Identifier: w37637093
Collection: Oral Histories with People of Color
Institution: Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, University of Minnesota
Creator(s): LaBelle, Wahira
Contributor(s): Brenner-Adam, Katherine
Billund-Phibbs, Myra
Chamness, Daria
Abdullahi, Ubah
Haus, Andi
Publisher: University of Minnesota Minneapolis Libraries
Date Created: Dec. 7, 2020
Genre: Oral Histories
Transcriptions
Subject(s): Black LGBTQ+ Migrant Project (BLMP)
Black Trans Migrants United (BTMU)
Places: California
Ethiopia
Kenya
Somalia
California > Bay Area
Topic(s): BIPOC
Black LGBTQ+ people
Black transgender people
LGBTQ+ activism
LGBTQ+ migrants
Queer people
Transfeminine people
Women, Somali
Resource Type: Moving image
Text
Language: English
Rights: Copyright undetermined
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