The exhibit includes one of Lange's most famous photos, a weary migrant mother holding one child while another tries to cuddle.
It is juxtaposed with a hauntingly similar picture of Ijabo waiting outside a social service center in Anaheim with her children. The two mothers, separated by 70 years and a huge cultural divide, even raise their hands to their faces in the same pensive fashion.
"This is very much extending that tradition and fits squarely in with that impulse to effect change," Evans said. "It's that combination of the power of the story and the talent of the work itself." Roble told the story of Abdisalam and Ijabo to help people relate to the Somali experience. Along the way he found himself humbled by the stories he was allowed to tell.
The pictures represent "classic American stories of people landing in this country," he said. "It's exactly the same - it just happened in a different time."
For more information on the Somali Project, see www.somaliproject.org/. For more on the Columbus Museum of Art go to www.columbusmuseum.org/.
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