By Asaad Hanna March 15, 2011, marks the Syrian “Day of Rage,” triggered by the detention of children in Dara and inspired by the hopes unleashed in the Arab Spring. This was the day when protests began in Syria against…
Exile in America Brings Feelings Of Grief and Opportunity For Afghan Women
By Nazila Jamshidi Some Afghan women drastically reinvented their lives after the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001. They became journalists, thought leaders, business owners, and professors. This summer, many of them had to flee when the Taliban returned to power. Their…
Remembering a Palestine No Longer There
Published in NewLines Magazine. For Palestinian-Americans, nostalgia means longing for a home they’ll never know, and their parents can only dimly recall By Tariq Kenney-Shawa have only seen my father cry twice. The first time, I was eight years old,…
When the New Guy Came to Afghanistan
BY KYLE STARON MARCH 02, 2021 Published in Slate The New Guy seemed dazed as he toured the office with his predecessor. Tall and hunched, like a pro athlete five years into retirement, the New Guy looked too old to be…
Amma: A story about generational trauma, the honor system, and love
By S Zahra Fatima Shah The Amma I remember is small yet stout, old and grey, how grandmothers are described in books. I remember her as the distant mother to my father. The slightly acerbic mother-in-law to my mother. The…
Photography is a Relationship First, Then Something Else
By Hannah Stoddard It was August and Dina Oganova was five years old. She and her mother had escaped Tbilisi’s humid afternoons and retreated to Borjomi, a popular mountain town famous for its mineral springs and lush scenery. They rented…
Wuhan Regains Vitality, but Its Residents’ Mental Health Recovery Deserves Attention
Psychic Scars Linger in Wuhan after COVID-19 Subsides By CHRISSY ZHU Gutian Bridge, Wuhan, China. Photo: Chen. The traditional Qixi Festival usually comes at the end of August in the Gregorian calendar. In modern Chinese culture, people celebrate this day…
Leaving Beirut: Finding God in a Broken Land
By FARIHA WASTI Fadia Nassar’s past keeps her rooted in Beirut’s homeland and is a part of her identity now, in the United States. Surviving 14 years through a Civil War in Lebanon, her faith gave her the courage to…
Armenia’s New Diaspora Generation Has its Say
By SEVITA RAMA Danica Harootian at the Report the Truth protest and march. Photo: Sanan Panossian. Sanan Panossian, a 28-year-old Armenian-American from San Francisco, California, has activism in her genes. She grew up in the largest Armenian diaspora community in…
Japan Invests in a New Drinking Water Well in Rural Afghanistan
By KAORU NAGASAWA The water and sanitation management system in Afghanistan is worsening due to climate change, which has caused lots of rainfall, flash floods, and clogging of these management systems. Japan Emergency NGO (JEN), is one of the few…
A Civil War’s ‘Silver Lining’
By JORDAN LESSER-ROY In Yemen’s civil war, the governorate of Marib and its youth activists challenge the idea that war must mean total destruction. In March 2015, Sadam Al-Adwar boarded a plane from Pakistan to return to his native Yemen.…
The Occupation Hurts Everyone, Israelis Included
By YVETTE DEANE In the West Bank, Benzion Sanders is outfitted in an IDF uniform as part Nahal Brigade. Source: Benzion Sanders Staring through the slit of his ski mask at the enemy – a 17-year-old Palestinian, handcuffed, blindfolded, and…
Still Here: John Muster of Mentoring Academy
By BENJAMIN BARTU In a Berkeley church, past earth-toned pews, beneath a foyer reserved for community events and club gatherings, on the other side of the wall from a soup kitchen that promises a free chicken curry meal come Friday,…
Explainer: Can Online War Lead to Real War?
BY JENNIFER KELTZ In September, a drone attack crippled vital chokepoints in Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. This attack, which the United States and Saudi Arabia blamed on Iran, is not an isolated incident: it occurred amidst rising tensions in a…
I AM BRAINWASHED (OR NOT): A MONOLOGUE
BY MINQI SONG Nov 15, 2019. I woke up at 6 a.m, and checked my phone as usual. The first message was from Julie, sent ten minutes earlier. Julie is a core leader of Education Without Barriers (EWB), an education…
Diana, Palestine’s Fiercest Makeup Artist
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…