Journalist Liana Aghajanian was on assignment in Mongolia when she found out she’d won a home in Detroit from Write A House — a non-profit that awards writers from all walks of life with permanent residencies. Liana moved into her home almost six months ago and shared with us her impressions of the city and how it inspires her.
Journalism is my excuse to get to know the world, the parts I don’t understand, the people I would never have a chance to meet otherwise, the questions I need answered as soon as possible. It’s allowed me to write for some noteworthy publications and taken me to many places in the world. Journalism has brought new perspectives into my life and it’s also allowed me to hone the one thing I can’t survive without: writing.
But I never thought that my writing would win me a house in Detroit.
Yet that’s exactly what I set in motion when last year, on a whim, I decided to apply to a unique program called Write A House, a non-profit organization that awards permanent residencies to writers. The idea was both exciting and insane – a house being given away to a writer for well, writing. By last summer, I became one out of 10 finalists picked from a pool of over 200 writers in many genres.
By October, I received a phone call while I was on a reporting trip in Mongolia telling me that I had won.
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Liana’s Detroit home.
I had been traveling on and off for the last 5 years and though I thrived on the opportunity to report from abroad, chasing the stories I felt deeply passionate about as a freelance journalist, I began to crave a space of my own, a place where I could gain some balance and stability, a base that I could retain some kind of ownership over.
I was born in Iran to parents of Armenian descent, and in the late 80s, as the turmoil in the Middle East continued, we fled the country, arriving in America as refugees. My parents rebuilt their lives in Los Angeles – homeownership included, but the possibilities for my generation in a new era of economic turmoil to take the same path proved virtually impossible.
The idea of Write A House was pioneering, bizarre and an exciting path to take towards home ownership and being part of a growing literary community in one of the most dynamic cities in the U.S. Though wild, it was perfectly suited to the unusual yet meaningful life experiences I was in the business of acquiring as a journalist. It felt like the right decision, and so did Detroit. It’s a city with so much forgotten history that has gone through much, one I instinctively felt drawn to because I sensed there was more here than what its portrayal throughout the country has focused on.
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Inside Liana’s home, before she moved all of her belongings in.
Since I landed here in February, I’ve been doing most of my writing from an upstairs room that overlooks most of my street. The room is stark, with freshly painted white walls, a wooden desk and an aluminum folding chair. I’ve kept it bare to minimize distraction and maximize output.
I sit in front of a window that day after day, gives me a look into the heart of modern America. A sea of men wearing their taqiyahs, the traditional Islamic skullcap, make their way down to the local mosque for Jumu’ah prayer every Friday and come Saturday, partake in a tradition as old as this country itself: sitting on the porch. At around 4 p.m. neighborhood kids happily ride their bikes around, up and down overgrown alleyways, reeling with the residue of a housing crisis. A group of young Bengali men fix cars, driving up the street while also blasting Bengali music out of their fixed up cars. My neighbors have turned their gardens into massive green houses, growing fruit and vegetables that they will sell, or trade with one another. Space is one thing Detroit has plenty of, and no one can make better use of space – especially discarded space – than an immigrant. I say “salaam alaikum” (peace be to you in Arabic) to the man who lives next door, and he says “hello” to me.
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Inside the kitchen.
We are living in a strange, chaotic and cruel time. Things seem more extreme, more polarizing than ever. Identity has been manipulated, mangled, misinterpreted and reduced to talking points for an election and so much more. There is a false, dangerous narrative being built, an “us” vs. “them,” and it’s completely dehumanizing.
When I look outside my window, I see the living contradiction to all of this. The scenes that play out in front of me every day, without me ever having to leave this writing room, are a reminder that identities are limitless, – that things aren’t as straight and neat as they seem, that identity can be many things, it can cross faith, ethnicity and sexuality, and it can co-exist with all of these things harmoniously.
This is not to say that it is always easy to reconcile (or understand) any of these things, just that life and people (and cities) are complex and complicated, and details are important.
The more time I’ve spent in my writing room, observing what is going on around me, the more I walk around in my neighborhood, I am convinced that I have never had such close access to a story before, a story that isn’t just a part of Detroit, but really, part of America.
Liana Aghajanian is a journalist whose work often explores the people and places on the fringes of society. Her writing has appeared in Al Jazeera America, The New York Times, Newsweek and The Guardian among other publications. She is the second winner of the Write A House permanent residency. Visit her portfolio or follow her on Twitter.