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Portraits Of Boston: 'For Our Parents'

“We are from Pakistan, but our parents wanted to give us better education and more opportunities. We moved here exactly a year before September 11, 2001. Our father was an engineer, but after the attacks he could no longer find a job. He started a small business repairing furniture, and at his age manual labor is getting a little hard. So now he is back in school to become an accountant. He works during the day and takes classes at night.”

“I think seeing what our parents went through has made us more motivated, and we appreciate the value of education so much more. It has also brought us closer with our two brothers. We are all in college, and we all want to succeed for our parents. They didn’t get to live the American Dream, but they can see it through us.”


Portraits of Boston is a project of independent photographer Ivan Velinov. He is regularly sharing some of his favorite portraits with WBUR. Visit his website to see the hundreds of portraits he has taken on the streets of Boston.

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