Papers blow and clot the gutters. The faces are those I’m used to from as long ago as Calabria, Donegal, and Kyiv. New arrivals are a year maybe from Juarez … Continue reading →
You could hear the fear in my mom’s voice. She feared everything, the sky in the morning, a drink of water, a sparrow singing in a dream, me whistling some stupid little Mickey Mouse Club tune I picked up on TV.
Three refugees run the race of their lives from Calais to Dover through the Euro Tunnel, trying to beat the trains and overcome their terror in a bid to reach freedom and start new lives in the UK. Based on true accounts.
In Ruth Hunduma’s short documentary “The Medallion,” a mother’s memories serve as a window to a history of genocide and survival in Ethiopia.
The war had already overrun the entire country of Liberia even as we awaited our evacuation in March of 1991. Charles Taylor was making his on and off comeback to kidnap residents in the city suburbs, And missiles were still landing in our backyard soon after the ceasefire agreement.
On exiting “Warmth of Other Suns” at the Phillips Collection, 2020
This is the power we need in a post-truth world, where political forces claim the right to manipulate our perceptions through distortions of language.
Among the ruins, Nasser, dark in the shadows, hands gesturing in all directions. He speaks in a measured Arabic to the backdrop of rifles and bombs.
“This isn’t about kids and borders,” Juan Enriquez says. “It’s about us. This is about who we are, who we the people are, as a nation and as individuals.”
My hope grows stronger as I witness my people’s steadfastness in the face of genocide.
In 1970 I went to my first anti-war demonstration. I was sixteen and my cousin Michael Ashie (People introduced us as “This is my friend Michael and this is his … Continue reading →
wondering what we’d
have to do, to leave behind,
to lose, to grieve without stopping
Cut salami on the counter,
greasy knife beside it,
wrapper lolling like
a tongue. We left it there
when the sirens screamed.
Where Will the World Find Refuge in 2024?