Finding Courage in the Unfamiliar
When Japhety Ngabireyimana landed in the United States at age nine, he thought he was seeing ghosts. “I was surrounded by a bunch of white people at the airport,”
Tag: Refugee
A Whirlwind of Unsettlement
This is a story of a man whose determination, courage, ability to deal with unexpected adversity, and willingness to take risks brought him from war-torn Iraq
A Career Wrapped in Banana Leaves
The first thing to know about Phet Schwader is that his first name is pronounced “Pet.” Unless it marks the start of a word, the letter “H” is typically
Desert to Oregon, a Paintbrush in Hand
Hussein Al-Baiaty was born in Iraq during the first Gulf War. To escape the dangerous living conditions, he and his family fled to a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia.
In the Land of the Free
One of Mariamou’s Abdoulye’s earliest memories of growing up in the Central African Republic: being chased by someone with a machete.
Determination Born in a Refugee Camp
During the 1990s, Bhutan’s policy of “One Nation, One People,” forced Nabin Dhimal, who was just a young child at the time, to leave his home with his family and […]
Woman Without a Country
As the daughter of an Iraqi, Eman Abbas and her family faced severe discrimination in her home country of Kuwait during the 1980s when the country enacted
Leaving a Land of Chaos
Toys are everywhere in the small apartment in Vancouver, Washington. A sheet of paper posted at a child’s eye level shows the first, impressive attempts of a
Flags, Kurdish Area, Northern Iraq
Khairi Al-Karsafi : Iraqi Flag, Yazidi Flag, American Flag. The respect for the flag is a national duty: I am born as Izidi, my land is Iraq, and my country […]
Wedding, Kurdish Area, Northern Iraq
Khairi Al-Karsafi: Top Arrow: This family picture was taken at the Khairi Al-Karsafi wedding back in 1994 in Iraq. Left Arrow: My wife Najad.
From Survival to Triumph
There are survivalists who stockpile food and weapons against what they see as the coming apocalypse. Then there are survivors, such as Amida Kyanza, born in
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,
Painting his way around the world
On a Wednesday afternoon in 2003, Samir Khurshid burned his own painting. The rest of his 480 works were also destroyed that year, he said, in his hometown of Tus, […]
Learning to See a Future
“I’m never going to get out of this place,” AyeChan May thought as a young teenager. In Mae Ra Moe refugee camp in Thailand where she grew up, she saw […]
Barat, Kurdish Area, Northern Iraq
Diar Alkhalo: Top Left: This is called Barat. Barat is made of soil from the holiest Yazidi temple, Lalish. Religious Yazidis at Lalish make the Barat on one night of […]