Becoming and Never Looking Back
“I always knew I was a hands-on person. I liked taking things apart and putting them back together,” says Fiaindratovo Manavihare, explaining how he approaches
Tag: American Story
Success Spurred by Jamaica’s Way of Life
The star student was in trouble. Michael Taylor was a sophomore at an elite Jamaican high school, Campion College, which had welcomed him as a freshman
Manifesting the American Dream
Dollars would line the streets of America. It’s what all the Hollywood movies promised. Lazeni Koulibali believed he would stay in America for a short time,
A Rabbi After All: Fulfilling a Calling
By the time he was seven, Eliezer Schwartz had already learned that if he ran fast enough and threw a lot of stones, he could protect himself from the schoolyard […]
A Journey Protected by a Force of Light
In many of Soulayvanh Beisel’s earliest memories, everybody is traveling by boat. She remembers how monsoons would wash through her hometown of Tha Ngon,
Assimilation and Nostalgia
When Deepak Kaul immigrated from his native Kashmir — territory disputed by India and Pakistan — to New Jersey at age 10, his family lived across the street from Annin […]
Giving Others a Voice
Most second-graders don’t worry about what the other kids are thinking when they plan play dates. Elijah Russell, however, figured his friends were only interested
Paint Tubes, Baghdad, Iraq
Hussein Alkhudhari: And when it was Impossible for me to carry my mother; my palm tree and my home; and all those faces that I love; instead I carried my
Fleeing a 21st Century Genocide
It was such an idyllic childhood for Mohammed Husson Ali. Nearly all the 1300 families in the Burmese village of Myo Thu Gyi were farmers.
Let Nothing Hold You Back
Beneath the star-studded sky of Makamba, Burundi, 6-month-old Olive Bukuru clung to her father’s hip as they fled on foot for roughly 100 miles to Tanzania.
Dinner Plate, Baghdad, Iraq
Susan Birwary: We ate on this plate since childhood and on every holiday until 2005, when I left to go to the south of Iraq, then to Syria, and then […]
Coffee Cups, Baghdad, Iraq
Susan Birwary: My father bought this set of coffee cups when he was a young adult, before he was married… in 1945. He was insistent that it would be a […]
Al-Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad, Iraq
Haifa Al Habeeb, By the Book: Alas is today similar to yesterday? Despair, sickness, and foreignness. Will my tomorrow be just like my yesterday?
Stepping out of the Shadows
Even as a small child, Brenda knew that, to keep her family safe, she must not be noticed. As the child of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, she lived in a […]
“Camping” at a U.S. Concentration Camp
Tough new rules from the Trump administration produced graphic photos of children torn from their immigrant families and housed in detention centers