A Guest Post from Ami Bangladeshi
Dearest neighbors,
It is our pleasure to introduce you to Ami Bangladeshi, a new multimedia series documenting stories within the Bangladeshi small businesses where many of us shop daily.
Each installment of the series includes a short, intimate video interview with a shop owner or employee about their lives outside of work, along with photographs of the shop. During our interviews we ask merchants to talk about their backgrounds, families, and pastimes—the stuff you talk about when you go to the same place several times a week and form an unspoken friendship.
Our main goal with Ami Bangladeshi is to highlight a group of people who add tremendous value to our daily lives without even knowing it. People who are there when we need a specific type of condiment or to be spoken to in our native tongue. We are so lucky that they are still around for us despite all of the digital and chain competition they face.
Even though we’ve have grown up frequenting these shops in the neighborhood, we have always been too busy/too oblivious/too self-absorbed to really know the people who shelve our groceries, ring up our orders, and pack our bags. We’ve rarely gone beyond “hello,” “how much,” or “thank you.” With this project, we are forcing ourselves out of norms and comfort zones, and inviting you to do the same.
Our inaugural story, out now, is from Bangla Nagar at 87 Church Avenue. Read, watch, listen at AmiBangladeshi.nyc.
Yours,
It is our pleasure to introduce you to Ami Bangladeshi, a new multimedia series documenting stories within the Bangladeshi small businesses where many of us shop daily.
Each installment of the series includes a short, intimate video interview with a shop owner or employee about their lives outside of work, along with photographs of the shop. During our interviews we ask merchants to talk about their backgrounds, families, and pastimes—the stuff you talk about when you go to the same place several times a week and form an unspoken friendship.
Our main goal with Ami Bangladeshi is to highlight a group of people who add tremendous value to our daily lives without even knowing it. People who are there when we need a specific type of condiment or to be spoken to in our native tongue. We are so lucky that they are still around for us despite all of the digital and chain competition they face.
Even though we’ve have grown up frequenting these shops in the neighborhood, we have always been too busy/too oblivious/too self-absorbed to really know the people who shelve our groceries, ring up our orders, and pack our bags. We’ve rarely gone beyond “hello,” “how much,” or “thank you.” With this project, we are forcing ourselves out of norms and comfort zones, and inviting you to do the same.
Our inaugural story, out now, is from Bangla Nagar at 87 Church Avenue. Read, watch, listen at AmiBangladeshi.nyc.
Yours,
Samiha & the Ami Bangladeshi Team