Immigrant communities diversify the face of a rural Colorado city

The bell signals the start of second period. A trio of young women take seats in English class, their attention quickly drifting outside the walls of the high school in Fort Morgan, Colorado, eager to talk about what they’re working toward.

“I want to become an FBI [agent],” says freshman Mariam Mohammed. “It’s my dream.”

On her left, her sister, Mutaas Mohammed, with a clay-colored hijab wrapped around her face and dark purple lipstick, says she wants to study fashion design. The girls’ friend, Isra Mohamud, a senior this year, chimes in: she’s looking at a nursing program at the local community college.

All three arrived at the high school fewer than four years ago, part of a decades-long migration of people originally from East Africa, Central America and Mexico to this small, conservative farming community on Colorado’s eastern plains. The young women are of Somali descent, brought to the United States from refugee camps and cities in Kenya and Ethiopia by their parents in search of community and, more urgently, steady work.