America the Annoying, Painful, and Amazing…

The Somali community in Green Bay, Wisconsin is a quiet, hidden, and often misunderstood part of a predominantly white population. But a small group of Somali teenage girls is trying to change that.

They call themselves the United ReSisters and these are their stories, in a trailblazing collection of reflections, conversations, letters, lists, and poems about their experiences as refugees and journeys to the United States. Exploring ambition, loss, their Muslim faith, a mother’s devotion, the power of sisterhood, the awkwardness of being a teenager, and other “annoying, painful, and amazing” experiences, these pieces shed new light on topics both veiled and universal. The First Winter is a celebration of homelands old and new: where these girls come from, where they are, where they’re going, and everywhere the power of
family and friendship to make the unbearable bearable, meaningful, and even joyful.