For Refugees, Home Is a Place Called Never

Having Fled Sarajevo as a Child, I Find It Hard Telling Syrians There Is No Going Back

I recognized Basel immediately when the shot cut to a group of refugees standing in the rain, and he turned to look briefly at the camera. I was at home a couple of months back watching a Sky News report showing Syrian refugees wading through muddy water and being pushed by Croatian border police, an embarrassing image of Europe’s refugee policy. It was chilling to recognize a person in such a tragic scene.

Basel had owned a bakery in the heart of Old Damascus, and he rarely charged me for my …

By Dragana Kaurin | January 4, 2016

Can Books Build Community?

Putting California’s Inland Empire on the Literary Map

By Cati Porter | December 31, 2015

Ahtziri and I are sitting on a stone garden bench outside the church in Riverside, California, where my children take piano lessons. In her hand is a stack of papers—typed …

How to Get L.A. to Update Its Community Plans—Finally

The City Lacks Clear Guidelines on Local Land Use at a Time When It Wants to Create More 'Livable' Neighborhoods

By Dick Platkin | December 30, 2015

Update the community plans now!

That is the good government proposal of choice in Los Angeles, the recommendation that candidates, elected officials, and blue-ribbon commissions make over and over. The theory …

Hey, Californians: Let’s Side With the Refugees, Not the Terrorists

Our Fellow Victims of Terrorism Need a Home, and Our Home Needs Them

By Joe Mathews | December 23, 2015

On a Saturday night after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, a plastic replica hand grenade was left in the driveway of Baitus Salaam Mosque in Hawthorne, a municipality near …

Why We Need to Name the Dead

Descendants and Surviving Family Insist That Ordinary People Had Lives Worth Noting

By Thomas W. Laqueur | December 18, 2015

Almost 3,000 migrants have drowned this year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Europe. Many of their bodies have washed ashore without names. These are bodies of …

My Hometown Was in Crisis Before the Terror

I Worry That Everything in San Bernardino Will Soon Go Back to Normal

By Michael Tesauro | December 16, 2015

There was no hashtag or meme or Facebook artwork on August 1, 2012, when San Bernardino, California, filed for bankruptcy after a long fiscal breakdown. Massive budget cuts followed. The …

We Need a Global Refugee Policy

The International Community Isn't Keeping Up With the Need for Humanitarian Assistance

When San Francisco Tried to Be the World’s ‘Queer Sanctuary’ for Refugees and Asylum Seekers

In the 2010s, the Bay Area Worked to Resettle LGBTQ People Fleeing Persecution—but Then Policies Changed

Why We Shouldn’t See Refugees as Huddled Masses

Media Images Portray Displaced People as Speechless and Without History

Learning in the Midst of a Humanitarian Crisis

In Its Struggle to Respond to a Massive Surge of Refugees, the EU Needs a More Collaborative and Global Approach

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