BY KATIE BARNUM Diana remembers the drive from Ramallah to Nablus vividly. It was her first return home after deciding to remove her hijab—a decision she had made nearly six months previously, over her family’s objection. Her palms were furiously…
New York City’s Generation 9/11: Growing up Muslim and American
BY SARAH SAKHA My father goes by “Fred”; his real name is Farzad, which sounds distinctly non-white and Muslim. My mother goes by “Sarah”; her name is Soheila. They named me Sarah, so I would blend into my predominantly white,…
A Well-Intentioned Visa Program that Allows so Few to Immigrate
BY BASBIBI KAKAR Letting down their best allies Behind the Special Immigrant Visa program lies a powerful story of loyalty, risk and promises betrayed, for the tens of thousands of people who risked their lives to help the United States…
The World’s Deadliest Ocean Crossing
BY SEAN HANSEN Forty-two miles off the Libyan coastline, the Ocean Viking races towards a sinking ship full of refugees. Acting on information reported to the Libyan Coast Guard, the ship’s crew prepares for a rescue effort in the bleak…
Taif Jany Brings Reality to U.S. Immigration Policy
BY MARJORIE TOLSDORF “On November 9, 2006, my father left for work in Al Hillah, a city below Baghdad, but never returned,” said Taif Jany. “He was kidnapped on his way home while in a car with two of his…
UN Insider Fights for Peacekeeping Reform
BY CAROLINE KORNDORFFER In 1993, a truck with a few American soldiers and a United Nations political official aboard was headed back to Mogadishu after visiting a remote post. Along the side of the road, the soldiers saw a woman…
A Career in Counterterrorism
BY JACK STONE TRUITT Throughout his 26 year career in counterterrorism at the FBI, John Anticev experienced some of the most significant failures and successes in American counterintelligence. He saw Islamic terrorism shift from a back-burner issue to the bureau’s…
Coming to Terms with the Taliban
BY SEAN STEINBERG The Bush administration launched the “Global War on Terror” in the aftermath of 9/11 as an unambiguous moral crusade framed with damning, unequivocal rhetoric. Yet today, the United States is negotiating with the Taliban — the very…
Discovering A History for Myself: My Grandfather’s Wartime Writings
BY LUCIA ZERNER I first met my grandfather about a year after I arrived in the U.S as a Chinese adoptee. I visited him with my parents once or twice a year. By then he was living in a retirement…
Young Veteran Seeks Community in Aging Organization
BY JOHN PATRICK DEES Mike Drake slams down the phone. The Veterans of Foreign Wars elders have canceled on him again. Disappointed, Drake emails his friends; yet again, they will have to postpone. For months, Drake, a U.S. Army combat…
Reflections on an Asylum Seeker in Cairo
BY MARJORIE TOLSDORF I was hopelessly lost in the center of Old Cairo with a dead phone, a handful of useless Arabic words floating around in my head, and an escalating fear that I would not find my way back…
A Different Experience of a Minority Group
BY BASBIBI KAKAR When Ramzia, a pseudonym to protect her identity, sees people migrating from one country to another, she doesn’t blame them. “You can’t be in a place where your life is not guaranteed,” she says. “You have to…
From Little Brother to Grandfather: A Photographer’s Journey
BY LUCIA ZERNER A Newar father and son kneel in front of their life’s work, a sea of clay bricks drying in the cool Kathmandu Valley air. From the photo, it’s as if their gaze looks directly at us. The…
‘Organizational Interest Comes First’: One Intelligence Officer’s Experience with Interservice Rivalry
BY JENNIFER KELTZ Just because two officers are fighting for the same cause does not mean that they will work together. As a boy in New York, John Gentry never pictured that he would one day spend over twenty years…
An American Muslim Finds his Place in the Marine Corps… and Afghanistan
BY JOHN PATRICK DEES An American Muslim Finds his Place in the Marine Corps… and Afghanistan At 0500 hours sharp the drill instructors barged into the Quonset hut. The entire structure shuddered from the impact of the door on…
Up
BY MINQI SONG Wes Lam never thought of himself as a stranger in the U.S. Army. A son of Chinese immigrants, Wes served in the army from 1999 to 2009, including one year in Iraq right after the 2003 Invasion. …
A Bridge Between Two Lives
BY MARJORIE TOLSDORF Bahram watched as his mother and sisters wept, soaking the white cloth that covered his uncle’s body with tears. He could hear his mother moaning her brother-in-law’s name over and over, morphing into a single monotonous tone.…
He Sought Refuge in the Kitchen. Now, He Does Not Want to Leave.
BY SARAH SAKHA “I’ll be in the red bandana.” His note had been short, but bold. I spotted Ruslan as soon as I walked into the coffee shop, with his bright red bandana, thick-rimmed crimson glasses, a gray hooded jacket,…
Kidnapped by a Libyan Militia: One prominent gay rights blogger recounts his detention by a conservative militia.
BY SEAN HANSEN “Are you a mule, or not?!” His kidnappers shouted, using a derogatory slang word for a gay person in Libyan Arabic. Abdough Ilbosiphi cowered in the back of a blacked-out Toyota, as it drove away from his…
Finding a Path to Feeling Free
BY BLANCA ARISMENDI Moving to New York City was the culmination of a lifelong dream for Qian, a second year student at SIPA. Attending Columbia was an unplanned opportunity she grabbed onto without thinking twice. Qian is excited to plan…
Mindanao’s Madrasahs: Countering or Contributing to Violent Extremism?
BY KEVIN CORBIN The Fajr call to prayer echoes over darkness in Jolo, a city in the Philippine’s conflict-affected Muslim Mindanao region. People slowly emerge from small makeshift homes with corrugated metal roofs just before sunrise and head to the…
How Gemfields Puts the Blood in “Blood Red” Rubies
BY JUANA LEE The jewelry sector is a billion dollar business that rakes in almost USD $300 billion per year. As fine jewelry, such as gems, become the ultimate luxury commodity, consumers are increasingly aware of purchasing “guilt-free” or “conflict-free”…
“The Pearl of Africa is Bleeding”
BY HANNA HOMESTEAD The first thing I noticed as we drove into town was the smell. The familiar fragrance of Kasese’s dusty air, usually scented by flowering coffee plants and smoldering kitchen fires, was replaced with a stench that turned…
Nepal’s Maoist insurgents target Sanskrit as a symbol of the regime they want to overthrow
BY SHRUTI MANIAN Ira Regmi and her father had just ordered tea at a bhatti and taken their seats when sudden screams rang through the bustling market. “They’re coming, they’re coming,” shouted people in the street outside. Shoppers and passers-by…
Four Piles: U.S. Humanitarian Relief After the Tohuku Earthquake
BY JILLIAN TIMKO Oshima Island, Japan Four piles: wood, debris, fishing equipment, and personal effects. For three days in March 2011, Marines from the U.S.S. Essex cleared and sorted the destruction caused by the Tohuku Earthquake on Oshima Island into…