NPR

Pictures Of The Motherland He Never Knew

The son of Pakistani immigrants in the U.K., Mahtab Hussain was often taunted: "Go home." One day he did just that to see what his life might have been like if his parents had not left.
Mangla dam

For years, artist Mahtab Hussain struggled with how to describe himself. British. British-Pakistani. Kashmiri. British Asian. The 37-year-old was born in Glasgow and grew up mostly in the British city of Birmingham — but from a young age was told he didn't belong.

"Everyone used to say, like, Pakis go home," he says of the racism he faced as a child. "Or 'what

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