(Children and teachers in the Village of Dong Loc, Vietnam, where there are memorials to children and road workers killed by American bombing. Photo by Doug Anderson.) Happy Veterans Day, brothers and sisters, especially those of wars that turned out to be unjustified and incompetently led. I speak from the Vietnam generation . . .
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(The African American Cultural Center in Brunswick, Georgia. Photo by Bubba73) Editor’s Note: With this exploration of the tension between privilege and vulnerability, we renew our collaboration with the Five College Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program. In September 2020, a panel of local scholars responded to the current violence and racism in the US . . .
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(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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