Extract from oral history interview with Adonis Alaj.

Adonis talks about why he chose to take part in the oral history project and why it is important to still remember the war.

Full length interview and image (GB3228.53/1/2/1) are available at the Manchester Central Library. Follow this link for booking archive search room services: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history/7378/access_our_archives_rare_books_and_collections/2

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre Website: https://www.racearchive.org.uk/
VOKIM Website: https://www.vokim.org/
VOKIM Collection Catalogue: https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=46405

GB3228.53

VOKIM - Adonis Alaj - Importance Of Oral Histories

Extract from oral history interview with Adonis Alaj.

Adonis reflects on how his home country has moved on from the war, the struggles that still exist in the country, and the differences he sees between Kosovo and his adopted home of Manchester.

Full length interview and image (GB3228.53/1/2/1) are available at the Manchester Central Library. Follow this link for booking archive search room services: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history/7378/access_our_archives_rare_books_and_collections/2

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre Website: https://www.racearchive.org.uk/
VOKIM Website: https://www.vokim.org/
VOKIM Collection Catalogue: https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=46405

GB3228.53

VOKIM - Adonis Alaj - Going Back To Kosovo

Extract from oral history interview with Adonis Alaj.

Adonis talks about the experience of learning English through the help of his teacher, Mr Brown, and by picking up the language from playing with other children in school.

Full length interview and image (GB3228.53/1/2/1) are available at the Manchester Central Library. Follow this link for booking archive search room services: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history/7378/access_our_archives_rare_books_and_collections/2

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre Website: https://www.racearchive.org.uk/
VOKIM Website: https://www.vokim.org/
VOKIM Collection Catalogue: https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=46405

GB3228.53

VOKIM - Adonis Alaj - Learning English

Extract from oral history interview with Adonis Alaj.

Adonis recounts his experience of arriving in Manchester and the relief he felt once he had escaped Kosovo.

Full length interview and image (GB3228.53/1/2/1) are available at the Manchester Central Library. Follow this link for booking archive search room services: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history/7378/access_our_archives_rare_books_and_collections/2

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre Website: https://www.racearchive.org.uk/
VOKIM Website: https://www.vokim.org/
VOKIM Collection Catalogue: https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=46405

GB3228.53

VOKIM - Adonis Alaj - Arriving In Manchester

Extract from oral history interview with Adonis Alaj.

Adonis talks about how his family finally managed to escape Kosovo and how he had to help carry his grandmother over the border.

Full length interview and image (GB3228.53/1/2/1) are available at the Manchester Central Library. Follow this link for booking archive search room services: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history/7378/access_our_archives_rare_books_and_collections/2

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre Website: https://www.racearchive.org.uk/
VOKIM Website: https://www.vokim.org/
VOKIM Collection Catalogue: https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=46405

GB3228.53

VOKIM - Adonis Alaj - Finally Escaping Kosovo

Extract from oral history interview with Adonis Alaj.

Adonis talks about the week he and his family spent queuing at the Macedonian border in their second attempt to leave Kosovo.

Full length interview and image (GB3228.53/1/2/1) are available at the Manchester Central Library. Follow this link for booking archive search room services: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history/7378/access_our_archives_rare_books_and_collections/2

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre Website: https://www.racearchive.org.uk/
VOKIM Website: https://www.vokim.org/
VOKIM Collection Catalogue: https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=46405

GB3228.53

VOKIM - Adonis Alaj - Second Attempt To Leave Kosovo

Users are advised that this clip contains mentions of death and military violence which may be upsetting.

Extract from oral history interview with Adonis Alaj.

Adonis describes his family's first attempt to flee war-torn Kosovo and what made them decide to turn back. 

Full length interview and image (GB3228.53/1/2/1) are available at the Manchester Central Library. Follow this link for booking archive search room services: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history/7378/access_our_archives_rare_books_and_collections/2

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre Website: https://www.racearchive.org.uk/
VOKIM Website: https://www.vokim.org/
VOKIM Collection Catalogue: https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=46405

GB3228.53

VOKIM - Adonis Alaj - First Attempt To Leave Kosovo

Is home the place we are born, or the refuge we find? Can it be both? In this episode of Immigrant Conversations, we explore the meaning of "home" and discuss the challenges faced by refugees, including misconceptions about their experiences. Dr. Diya Abdo, a second-generation Palestinian refugee, shares her powerful story of migration and how she transformed her personal journey into advocacy for displaced communities.

Key Topics in This Episode:

>Dr. Abdo’s Migration Journey as a second-generation Palestinian refugee born in Jordan and her eventual move to the U.S. as a graduate student.
>The displacement of her parents from Palestine, their struggles as refugees in Jordan, and how their story shaped Dr. Abdo’s perspective on migration.
>The evolving concept of home—what does it truly mean to belong?
The challenges faced by refugees today, including the impact of global crises on refugee resettlement and integration.
>The mission of Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR)—Dr. Abdo’s nonprofit that helps college campuses host refugee families, fostering cultural integration and community support.
>How storytelling and advocacy can help reshape perceptions of refugees and empower displaced communities.

Bio: 
Dr. Diya Abdo is the Lincoln Financial Professor of English at Guilford College and the founding Director of Every Campus A Refuge. A second-generation Palestinian refugee born and raised in Jordan, Dr. Abdo’s teaching, research, and scholarship focus on Arab women writers and Arab and Islamic feminisms as well as refugee and immigrant issues. Her book AMERICAN REFUGE: True Stories of the Refugee Experience, was selected by the North Carolina Humanities as a North Carolina 2024 Reads Book and by Alamance Public Libraries as the Alamance Reads Book 2024. In 2015, inspired by Pope Francis' call on every European parish to host one refugee family, Dr. Abdo founded Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), which advocates for housing refugee families on college and university campus grounds and supporting them in their resettlement. The flagship chapter at Guilford College is now one of many ECAR campuses across the nation which have collectively hosted over 600 refugees and supported their inclusion in local communities. Dr. Abdo designed the minor Forced Migration and Resettlement Studies at Guilford College where students learn about refugee issues and receive credit for hosting refugees on campus and supporting them in their resettlement. Dr. Abdo is the recipient of the Emerson Collective Fellowship (2024), the J.M. Kaplan Fund’s Innovation Prize (2021), Campus Compact’s Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award (2019), Gulf South Summit’s Outstanding Service-Learning Collaboration in Higher Education Award (2017), and The Washington Center’s Civic Engagement in Higher Education Award (2017). Dr. Abdo sits on the Boards of Refugee Council USA and The Community Sponsorship Hub.
Email Dr.Abdo: Abdod@guilford.edu
Learn more about Every Campus is a Refuge: www.everycampusarefuge.net

Where Is Home? Exploring Identity & Belonging with Dr. Diya Abdo

Today you’ll hear Liberty Chee speak with two scholars whose research focuses on musicians who have been displaced from their homelands. 

Rose Campion looks at what the music industry can teach us about migration policy. Her ethnographic research explores how forced migrants from all over the world build their careers as professional musicians in Germany. She talks about how they try to ‘make it’, and how these experiences complicate the perception that “music is a universal language that brings everyone together”.

We also have Louis Brehony, who, starting as a musician and fan, found his way to Palestinian music and the people who make this art both in the MENA region and around the world. He has now researched the topic academically for over a decade. He speaks about how concepts from Palestinian culture translate into music – and how “traditional” sounds and newer evolutions of style are marked by place and migration.

Rose Campion is a PhD student at the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (“COMPAS”) in the UK. She studies the creative and social impacts of music-making by forced migrants.

And

Louis Brehony is an activist, musician, educator, and independent scholar who is an expert on Palestinian music. He received his PhD from Kings College London and his book "Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of resistance" is based on 10 years of fieldwork and focuses on Palestinians dispersed in the MENA region. He is also a member of the Gazelleband. 

The music at the end of the episode is the track “Salla Fina al-Lahz”, from the Gazelleband’s EP “Rihla #2”. It was composed by Sayyid Dawish and performed by Gazelleband: https://gazelleband.com/home 

Further reading provided by the interviewees:
1. Campion, Rose and Sheyda Ghavami. (2024). Kurdische Musikerinnen in Deutschland: Ein Song-und Storybook. Landesmusikrat NRW.
2. Louis Brehony, Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of Resistance, AUC Press, 2023.
3. Ghassan Kanafani, Selected Political Writings, Pluto Press, 2024.
4. Louis Brehony, “Music and the Gaza Genocide,” Journal of Performance Studies, Summer2025.
5. Louis Brehony, “Exile Songwriters of the Palestinian Revolution (and the Problem with Sugar Man),” Arab Studies Quarterly, Winter 2023.

Louis would like to thank Reem Anbar (oud player with Gazelleband) and Tahrir Hamdi (Co-editor of Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings) for their contributions to the work he speaks about in this episode.



Ep6(S5) Making Resonance: Forced Migrants and Music Across Borders

Before Caucasians laid their eyes on this land
There were many tribes of Native Americans
Some followed the bison and spied out the land
Some never survived the invading white man

Apache, Comanche, Chickasaw and Choctaw
Shawnee, Pawnee, Cherokee and Chippewa
Seminole, Cheyenne, Creek and Iroquois
Had their own chiefs, rituals n spiritual laws

Sure there'd been fights between some of the tribes
Then the white man offered them trinkets and bribes
When the railroad came, it changed their way of life
With the bison gone, how were they to survive?

[Instrumental break]

So we rounded them up without hesitation
Many died from the bug or from starvation
Traipsed through the mud to the reservation
If they didn't budge, they faced extermination

The civilized tribes tried assimilation
They lived and died in the Indian nation
The trail of tears was their forced migration
It nearly resulted in their obliteration

[Instrumental break]

We sent their kids to boarding schools
So they would learn our laws and rules
They bent and lost their customs and culture
We descended on 'em like a bunch of vultures

They'd lost their main food, the American bison
So they were approved for a gambling license
What had once been only in Vegas and Reno
They now owned their own mega-casinos

[Instrumental outro]

We rounded them up without any hesitation
Many died from the bug or from starvation
Traipsed through the mud to the reservation
If they didn't budge, they faced extermination

The civilized tribes tried assimilation
They lived and died in the Indian nation
The trail of tears was their forced migration
It nearly resulted in their obliteration

Indian Nation

Songwriter. Storyteller. Sound pioneer, Stan Countz is a genre-bending songwriter with over 300 original songs under his belt — a true craftsman of lyric and melody. From his debut track “Those Hap Happy Days” in 2005, a nostalgic tribute to the golden era of the ’50s and ’60s, Stan has built a musical legacy rooted in meaning, melody, and message.

Writing under the moniker Stan and Be Counted, he stands tall in the world of music as both a creator and a voice of purpose. His catalog spans a kaleidoscope of genres — from contemporary Christian rock and gospel to EDM, country pop, blues, R&B, hip hop, folk, and beyond. Each song is a reflection of his passion for storytelling and his desire to uplift, challenge, and connect.

Whether crafting soul-stirring love ballads, foot-tapping jingles, or heart-pounding hard rock anthems, Stan brings a rare blend of versatility, depth, and soul to every track. He doesn't just write songs — he writes moments you can feel.

Stan Countz is more than an artist — he’s a movement. A call to stand... and be counted. He is a prolific lyricist and lives in Denison, Texas with his artist/photographer wife. 

If you're an Artist looking for a song for the next hit, send me a message. Who knows, I may have a gem and a #1 hit for us both!

Welcome to Immigrant Conversations, the podcast that brings you inspiring stories from immigrants who have turned challenges into triumphs. Join Mehran Sorourian, a Middle Eastern immigrant woman as she dives deep into the experiences of first-generation and diaspora individuals, exploring their unique journeys, cultural identities, and the hurdles they’ve overcome. We discuss everything from immigrant entrepreneurship, cross cultural experiences, as well as the dark side of migration such as isolation, bias, and more. We aim to provide a platform for voices that often go unheard and aim to bring people closer together.
Join us as we explore topics ranging from immigrant entrepreneurship, first-generation struggles, and cross-cultural experiences to the impact of immigration policies and advocacy. Whether you are an immigrant, a descendant of immigrants, or simply interested in compelling human stories, "Immigrant Conversations" offers a unique perspective on the immigrant experience.
Tune in to discover how individuals from diverse backgrounds overcome obstacles, achieve success, and enrich our communities with their unique perspectives and talents. Subscribe now to "Immigrant Conversations" on your favorite podcast platform, and be inspired by the extraordinary journeys of those who have built new lives from the ground up.

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre: A library for the study of race, social history and migration at Manchester Central Library. 

The collection includes more than 300 individual oral history interviews, mostly with members of the local BAME community talking about life in multicultural Manchester. 

You can read transcripts and summaries in the library, and listen to full audio files on request.

If you can't find what you're looking for in the catalogue please email us on rrarchive@manchester.ac.uk

The field of migration and mobility studies is vast and has grown exponentially over the past decades. To make sense of the movement of people, this podcast explores migration and mobility research globally. Providing a platform for migration scholars to speak about their projects, ideas and insights, The IMISCOE Migration Podcast aims to publicize what happens inside universities around the world. This is a podcast by the research community for everyone interested in knowing more about academic research on migration. 

Download or subscribe to hear about new books, or listen to one of our episodes in which we speak to scholars about ideas that changed how we think about migration. 

Team for season 5:
Production: 
Kate Dearden 

Team & Programming Coordinators: 
Milena Belloni, Roos Derrix, Mark Marvin Kadigo

Financial Administration & Engagement: 
Asya Pisarevskaya

Interviews: 
Amanda Paz Alencar, Liberty Chee, Silindile Mlilo, Itzel Eguiluz, Samanwita Paul

New tracks tagged #forced migration