The team of San Diego reporter Julie Watson, photographer David Goldman and his colleague in global enterprise, video journalist Allen Breed, with digital storyteller Samantha Shotzbarger, used remarkable access to chronicle an Afghan family settling into heartland America thanks to the efforts of a dedicated couple.
Watson had previously reported on Afghans fleeing to the U.S. She used farmer Caroline Clarin as a resource; Clarin worked as an agricultural adviser in Afghanistan and now works to rescue her Afghan contacts threatened by the Taliban. Meanwhile, Goldman was looking for a newly immigrated family to follow. He connected with Watson and Breed, the trio traveling to Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where, thanks to the trust Watson had built with Clarin, they had exceptional access to Clarin, her wife and the Patans, an Afghan family the couple “adopted” after paying to fly them to the U.S.
Ihsanullah Patan, a horticulturist and refugee from Afghanistan, pulls the hood up for his daughter, Sujda, 5, after picking her up from daycare in Fergus Falls, Minn., Oct. 27, 2021. Only months after they arrived, the Patan family already feels at home. “In Fergus Falls, they have really good people, really friendly people,” Patan said as he drove his minivan down the tree-lined streets.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Sala Patan, 9, walks with his brothers. Ali, 7, left, and Maiwan, 12, background right, to catch the school bus outside their apartment in Fergus Falls, Minn., Oct. 29, 2021. Everything is new for the Patan children. Sala befriended a neighbor boy and jumped for the first time on a trampoline while Maiwan decorated his first pumpkin.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Ali Patan, 7, holds his hand over his heart while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with his first grade class in Fergus Falls, Minn., Oct. 29, 2021.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Caroline Clarin, right, hugs Haiwad Massoodi, 9, on a visit by his father, Sami, rear center, and Sami’s cousin Ihsanullah Patan, right, and Patan's son, Ali, 7, at her farm in Dalton, Minn., Oct. 30, 2021. Clarin was consumed by anger over her agricultural program in Afghanistan being gutted by the U.S. government. “I felt like I deserted them,” she said about Massoodi, Patan and the other Afghans she worked with. Patan waited seven years for a special visa. When Clarin recently picked him up at the airport she was consumed with joy. “It was like my son came home,” she said.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Caroline Clarin rides with Ali Patan, 7, as he drives her riding mower at her farm in Dalton, Minn., Oct. 30, 2021. For the Patan family, Clarin and her wife have been a comfort in a strange place. “When we are going to their house, we feel like we went to Afghanistan and we are going to meet our close relatives,” said Ihsanullah Patan, Ali's father.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Sheril Raymond, left, and her wife, Caroline Clarin, look out from their front door in Dalton, Minn., Oct. 28, 2021. When Clarin was in Afghanistan, it was the longest she and Raymond had been apart since they started dating in 1988. Raymond, who cares for the chickens, pigs and other animals on their farm, would do video calls often, staying online even after Clarin had fallen asleep. Two years after Clarin returned, they married in August 2013 when same-sex marriage became legal in Minnesota.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Ihsanullah Patan, left, a horticulturist and refugee from Afghanistan, has lunch with Caroline Clarin, right, whom he worked with in Afghanistan, and her wife, Sheril Raymond, at his home in Fergus Falls, Minn., Oct. 29, 2021. Patan considers Clarin and her wife family. His three sons and daughter call them their “aunties.” In fact, he's decided to live in nearby Fergus Falls, a town of 14,000, instead of moving to a larger city with an Afghan transplant community.
AP Photo / David Goldman
The setting sun illuminates a barn near the home of Caroline Clarin and Sheril Raymond in Dalton, Minn., Oct. 29, 2021. Surrounded by farmland stretching to the North Dakota border, the landscape is dominated by barns, grain elevators and the spires of a Bethlehem Lutheran Church, a reflection of the region's Scandinavian roots.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Caroline Clarin watches the flames of a bonfire at her home in Dalton, Minn., Oct. 29, 2021. Clarin knows she cannot save everyone still in Afghanistan, but she’s determined to help those she can. After she left Afghanistan in 2011, she was consumed by anger over her agricultural program being gutted as the U.S. government changed its priorities. “When I got on the plane, it was like leaving my family on the helipad,” she said. “I felt like I deserted them.”
AP Photo / David Goldman
The team captured intimate details of both families’ daily lives in all formats: the family gatherings, the Patan kids’ school days and life on the farm. Clarin and her wife talked about their worries — the expenses they were accruing to rescue Afghans, but more so, their fears for those still left behind. The text story also looked at the bureaucratic hurdles of getting families out of Afghanistan, and Breed gathered sound for an audio story, written by Samantha Shotzbarger, voiced by Watson. Shotzbarger also brought all the elements together in a compelling presentation.
The package, running on the eve of Thanksgiving, resonated with readers. It records one woman’s dedication to the daunting task of bringing Afghans to the U.S., and the loving relationship built between a farm couple and a traditional Afghan family in rural Minnesota.