Days after the Boston Marathon bombings, Magomed Imakaev鈥檚 seven-year-old daughter asked him a question that he didn鈥檛 know how to answer: 鈥淒ad, did you hear that the two bombers were Chechen?鈥�
Imakaev, 27, fled Chechnya after years of war. And the violence that once consumed his homeland had found him once again, this time shattering the quiet refuge he and his family had found in the suburbs of Boston.
鈥淎s a Chechen, even if they were involved, I wanted to not believe that,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a complete shock. It鈥檚 hard to describe in words.鈥�
On , Imakaev tells host Dick Gordon that Chechens in the United States lived largely anonymous lives before the two prime suspects in the Boston bombings were identified.
After Imakaev, his mother and sister arrived in the United States in 2004, they joined a small community of Chechens in the Boston area, and briefly met one of the brothers suspected in the bombings. Now, Imakaev is grappling with the heinous acts allegedly perpetrated by people who share his roots, and has a question of his own: Why?
Hear . Also in this show: , who pulled off a 21-hour dive through underwater caves that connect sinkholes near Tallahassee, Fla.
