Deka Ali

Waterer

When we got here to the United States, it was the summer and everything seemed really beautiful, but I didn’t speak English at all and my family didn’t either. There was not a lot of Somali community then—no interpreters, no one to guide you or help you understand the culture. It is really hard and challenging to assimilate when you can’t communicate and you don’t see people who can support you.

Basically. I grew up by myself. I have to figure out everything by myself. You can imagine being a fourteen year old because my oldest son and I, we only thirteen years apart, and a parent to myself, I didn't have anyone to give me advice. I didn't have anyone. I can go back to it when I'm going through so much. I didn't have anyone that I can cry to it and go back to it, and I didn't have anybody ever hold me and told me I love you besides my kids.

So basically, it's just like this world against the fourteen year old and no one to hold you, no one to support you, no one to guide you no one to give you advice. And that's why in my job I take very seriously. I love the kids I work with. I care about them. Sometimes I push them, I yell at them but the reason I'm doing that because no one did that for me. Like if I was in trouble, I didn't have anyone to call to. Well, some kids have their parents. They can just give them a call and say, come save me. So basically, I feel like I'm going to give a credit myself because I feel like I did a phenomenal job in myself.

Deka Ali lives in the northwestern town of East Grand Forks Minnesota. As a Somali immigrant, interpreter and community organizer, she has gained the respect of her rural community for bringing people together. In 2025 Deka is working with In Progress to identify and guide families through an intergenerational storytelling project focused on sharing stories of immigration, cultural identity and place.

Her daughter Sana Nür and son Sajid Nür collected her story and shares it here as part of the Waterers Oral Histories Program.