On Gaza’s beach, a young girl kneels beside a sand turtle she shaped with her hands and decorated with seashells. All photographs by Shams Mazen Rajab. Every day, thousands of children wake in tents instead of homes, stand in lines for water instead of classrooms. Play has become a rare luxury, and . . .
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Photo credit: Chukwunonso Nwanze. On a visit to Ellis Island, New York, in 2007. At the height of European immigration, twelve million people passed through this hall with a new country’s name waiting for them. I arrived differently—by plane, by choice, by the long aftermath of a history that brought some here without . . .
Read MoreIn recent weeks, a wave of xenophobic and Afrophobic violence in South Africa has targeted Black and South Asian migrants in poor and working class communities, culminating in a call for them all to leave the country by June 30th. This statement is a response from the African Feminist Initiative. —Shailja Patel, Public . . .
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Photo: Islamic University of Gaza. “The science and library buildings.” Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, 2018. Each time I see another student from Gaza manage to leave to pursue their studies, I feel depressed. This is not jealousy. It is the pain of my multiple failed attempts to secure a scholarship and fulfill . . .
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Photo by ProtoplasmaKid, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons The 2026 FIFA World Cup was sold as a celebration of North American unity. Host governments promised growth, prestige and international visibility. The tournament arrives at a moment when North American integration itself appears increasingly fragile. Trade disputes, hardened borders, migration conflicts and growing distrust . . .
Read MoreOne day recently, I sat down to teach my little sister, Marah, who is six years old. The lesson was about colors in English. But on the pages before us, I found that despite their names all the colors were printed in black. How will children learn the difference between colors when . . .
Read MoreThe robe hangs from melike a dark green riverthat has traveledthrough iron gates,through winters of counting,through the long vocabulary of restriction. And now— see how the old cathedral lightcannot help itself.It pours over my shouldersas if the morning itselfhad been waitingfor this walk. Seventy-six years oldand still the heartopening like a wildflowerthrough . . .
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Recently, I joined a group of volunteers who write to immigrant detainees in Otay Mesa Detention Center. A quiet kind of connection that forms when I write to someone I may never meet—someone whose world has been reduced to walls, routines, and long stretches of waiting. Writing to detainees is, on the . . .
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One morning, as I sat on the beach near the displacement camp where I live, I was scrolling through my phone when I came across a post about my city, Rafah. It was written in the past tense, as if the city no longer existed. I reached into my bag and touched . . .
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Photo credit: “2015 Dron DJI Phantom 3 Advanced,” from Wikimedia Commons. I have become an expert in distinguishing the sounds of Israeli death blasts. The roar of warplanes. The relentless thump of shelling. Each day in Gaza is a new battle to navigate the different cacophonies of Israel’s massacres. But it’s the . . .
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