LOCAL Houston | The City Guide JANUARY 2016 | Page 62

Ilham Dawood, 61
Iraq
Ilham arrived in Houston with her husband, two boys and one daughter
over 5 years ago as a refugee from Iraq. As the #1 resettlement city
in the country, Houston is known for assisting refugees, but they face
many challenges upon arrival. “When I was in Iraq I just took care of
my children and husband. I left in 2004 after the war. I lived in Egypt.
It was a very difficult time. I came to America. My older son came to
study in 2006, me and my husband and daughter came as refugees.”
Ilham is one of the most active artisans of The Community Cloth, an
innovative microenterprise initiative empowering refugee women in
Houston, knitting two pieces a week. The Community Cloth provides
refugee women with economic, educational and social tools empowering them to transition into life in the U.S. Through participating in the
program and knitting shawls, hats and baby clothing, she is able to
make new friends and earn supplemental income. She says, “It is freedom for me. It is freedom for me because no one has to give me
money, I can earn it on my own.”

JR (Bob) Shannon, 91
Houston, TX
Born on April 19, 1925, at Memorial Baptist Hospital (which is now
torn down but used to be across the street from the Julia Ideson
Library), JR grew up in Houston and went to Montrose Elementary
which is HSPVA today. Right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, JR was
16 and attending Lamar High School. “I went down to the post office
to join the Marine Corps. They turned me down, because even to be in
the infantry then, you had to have 20/20 vision, which I don’t have.”
A few years later at 18 years old, he was drafted and became an original U.D.T., which later became known as the Navy Seals. After the war
he graduated from Georgetown and worked in his father’s prefab metal
building business and later started his own corrugated cement
asbestos. “One of those is a terrible word now to your generation. For
about ten years, it was a gold mine.” JR is married to his wife Cloye,
going on 46 years. He’s been blessed with the big car, the big house,
the boat and even an airplane. “I had a lot of stuff. Now here I am and
I’m happy as a clam and I think that if I don’t live much past a hundred
I’m going to come out pretty much even.”

Ayokunle Falomo, 25
Nigeria
This Nigerian American poet uses his pen as a shovel to unearth those
things that make us human. Ayo moved to Houston with his father
upon high school graduation in 2007. He completed his undergraduate
degree at UH and currently, as part of his graduate program at Sam
Houston State, is interning at HISD, Humble as a school psychologist.
A lover of almonds, the color blue, hymns, grapes, conversations and
turkey bacon, he is a TEDx speaker and the author of the collection of
poems thread, this wordweaver must! and kin.DREAD – an upcoming
collection of poems and thoughts that seeks to explore the relationship
between our fears and those closest to us. Ayo has embraced the path
that has led him to where he is now, a chance attendance at a TEDx
simulcast at UH where he raised his hand at the end to share a poem
and which led to the TEDxHouston curators noticing this bright, young
talent. Before he knew it, Ayo found himself speaking at the
TEDxHouston event in 2013, and most recently hosting one of the sessions during TEDxHouston 2015. He still laughs in amazement.
www.about.me/AFalomo.
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L O C A L

| january 16

THE STORY BEHIND THE FACES

Keiji Asakura, 62
Tokyo, Japan
Keiji came to California as a teenager, after his
father passed away, in 1969 to live with his
father’s elder sister and her husband, a veteran of
Korean and Vietnam Wars. He attended Santa Ana
High School and California State Polytechnic
University. “During my high school and college
years, I worked at a retail nursery owned by a
Japanese American man who served in the U.S.
Army during WW II, in the same unit with late
Senator Daniel Inouye in the famous 442nd regiment. During those years, I learned about hard
work, the Japanese American history and most
importantly. I was introduced to the profession of
landscape architecture.” Keiji moved to Houston in
1982. “Like most people come to Houston, I didn’t
come here for the weather. (He shares, laughing.)
I was working for a landscape firm in Laguna
Beach, CA. I used to walk to work, I was 29 years old. Where else would you want to live?” Houston was
booming in the 1980s. In 1983 he teamed with a group of partners and created Asakura Robinson a planning, urban design and landscape architecture firm, creating permanency in Houston.

Karen Walrond, 48
Trinidad & Tobago
Karen lives in Houston with Marcus (her English
husband), Alex (her American daughter) and Soca
the WonderMutt. She’s a former engineer and an
attorney, holding a Bachelor of Science in civil
engineering from Texas A&M University and a
Juris Doctor from the University of Houston.
Karen’s bestselling book, The Beauty of Different,
is a chronicle of imagery and portraiture combined
with written essays and observations on the concept that what makes us different makes us beautiful – and may even be the source of our superpowers. [