(Afghan boy with US soldier, photo by J. Malcolm Garcia) Some names have been changed for privacy After Kabul fell to the Taliban, I knew I could do little for my friends and colleagues, Hamid, Faiz, and Aman. Various NGOs and veterans’ groups organized Dunkirk-like efforts online to extract Afghans, and their . . .
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(Photo: A bus stop in San Juan, PR; CC BY-SA 4.0) On NPR the other day there was a story about sunny, hot, and sticky Los Angeles and the utter lack of shade trees in Watts and other Black and Latino neighborhoods in contrast to their profusion in nearby Beverly Hills and . . .
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Photo Credit: Marcela McGreal, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Young Asian Americans describe how they’re coming to terms with political differences at the dinner table and in society Tip #2: Understand the impact of traumas of the past Johnny Trinh, a 23-year-old from Westminster, a southern Californian city with the country’s . . .
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Photo Credit: Marcela McGreal, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Young Asian Americans describe how they’re coming to terms with political differences at the dinner table and in society When Jamie Gee joined a Black Lives Matter protest last year, the crowd marched peacefully through downtown Oakland until it got to the . . .
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“Are you listening, NSA?” “Can you hear me Mark Zuckerberg?” “Are you there Bezos?” At some point, these went from internet-era jokes to truisms, from mocking a conspiracy theory to acknowledging the status quo. While it may not be by these specific actors, most of us accept that we can be listened . . .
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(Photo: Afghan girl in class. Courtesy of J. Malcolm Garcia.) My Afghan colleague, Aarash, recently received a special immigrant visa (SIV). I’m a freelance reporter, and he worked with me in Kabul as a translator for five years. SIVs are available only to those Afghans who worked as translators, interpreters, or other . . .
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(Photo: “Because I have company.” Carl Hancock Rux, in an interview about activism, conducted by Carrie Mae Weems) The poet, playwright, director, musician, actor, and activist Carl Hancock Rux grew up in foster care. His older brother Ralph owned a restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and Ralph managed to locate Carl, who . . .
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Though we rarely think of them in this light, writers and professors of literature have training and skills with policy implications. They even, at times, feel called upon to weigh in on matters of national and international importance. In this country, however, I would be shocked if they were actually called upon, . . .
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Following Fascism from Charlottesville to the Capitol (Screenshots of Facebook posts, taken 12 August 2017. William Fears is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for choking his girlfriend. Alex McNabb is co-host of the neo-Nazi podcast The Daily Shoah.) If you’ve never experienced it firsthand, let me assure you: the sight and sound of hundreds . . .
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I remember flying over the Atlantic Ocean in a plane full of Russian speech and tentative hope, with children craning their necks to catch glimpses of the clouds below. I remember landing at JFK International, after winter had already dropped its early drape of darkness. While we waited for our luggage, massive . . .
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