*photo by Andre Lambertson

From 1989 to 2003 warlords and rebel leaders recruited youth to fight in Liberia’s civil war. Today in Staten Island, New York these same young people are being targeted by gang leaders and drug dealers as urban foot soldiers.

Only The Walls Were Left Standing examines the experience of former child soldiers and war-affected youth from Liberia who are now living as refugees in the Park Hill section of Staten Island, New York.

The irony is that when the American Colonization Society decided to send freed slaves living in the United States to West Africa, the first ship left from the harbor of Staten Island. Now Liberians have returned to Staten Island, their voyage coming full circle to create one of the largest community of Liberians outside of their home country.

Liberians who came to Park Hill to escape the war found themselves in another war zone. As fate would have it, the height of the Liberian refugee influx into Park Hill literally bled into the crack epidemic in the neighborhood in the 1990’s. Many Liberian youth turned to dealing drugs and as a result shootouts and drug busts became a nightly occurrence. The hip hop group, Wu-Tang Clan, grew up in the neighborhood and referred to it as Killer Hill or Crack Hill because of the violence and crack found on the streets.

Welcome to Park Hill, Staten Island — where the realities of life as a refugee collide head on with the American dream.