Ibrahim Hirsi
271 19th Ave S
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
Ibrahim Hirsi is a Ph.D. Candidate in History. His research focuses on twentieth-century American immigration and migration history, transnational movements, global maritime labor, and the Black diaspora. Ibrahim is currently writing a dissertation uncovering the lost history of Somali migrant workers who resettled in Yemen, Britain, and the United States from 1900 to 1960. The project traces the laborers from pastoral communities in British Somaliland to Aden, British docklands, and New York. It situates their journeys and experiences in a global context—analyzing, for instance, how colonialism facilitated these laborers’ migrations and their central role in both world wars and the anti-colonial movements in Somalia.
Before graduate school, Ibrahim worked as a journalist covering immigration, workforce, and politics in Minnesota. His work has appeared in the Nation, MinnPost, MPR News, Sahan Journal, and elsewhere. Ibrahim speaks Somali as well as some Arabic and Swahili.
Educational Background
- BA: Journalism, University of Minnesota
Specialties
- Twentieth-Century African Laborers in Arabia, Europe, and North America
- US immigration and Migration History
- Twentieth-Century America
- Twentieth-Century Global Maritime Labor
- Race and the Black Diaspora
- Colonialism and Anti-Colonialism in Africa
- Islam and Black Muslims in the US