I Am Not a Terrorist

What happens when NYPD officers grow suspicious?

Photo by Maral Noshad Sharifi

My Dutch passport’s acknowledgement of my birth in Iran had made me seem suspicious. Even more so, I had been carrying an Al Jazeera key chain. Cop after cop was on my case, and all I could think about was the collapsed crane a few blocks uptown.

For months I had been documenting the lives of young homeless people living in New York City. On October 30th, the day after hurricane Sandy, I was tagging along with one of my subjects. The 21-year-old lady had a few extra dollars in her pocket that day and decided to treat herself to a new hairdo. She usually opted to bed down in the subway, but that night, in the wake of the storm, she planned to visit an emergency shelter setup for Hurricane Sandy relief, where she could apply her newly acquired hair relaxer, take a shower and wake up feeling clean and silky.

I accompanied her to a converted high school on West 49th Street. The building had no showers. My subject washed her hair in the bathroom sink. While it wa…