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

Raising the Pine

By Julie Ritter | December 18, 2015

The welwitschia mirabilis
 lives, knotted, for thousands of years
out in the African sun. Its two leaves
become a tangled mass of time 
as they grow outward.

O Namibia. O …

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 …

Prayer

By Heather Treseler | November 28, 2015

November and the metallic whine of schoolyard
swings trawls me back to the confused daze
of childhood in which the only rules stricter

than my mother’s nuns were my own bylaws:

What 880 Billion Cellphone Images Do to Your Memory

I’m Glad I Grew Up with Nothing More Than a Polaroid Camera

by Gordon Dossett | February 4, 2015

New Year’s Eve, the Super Bowl, next up Valentine’s Day—these events are burnished to a luster by the media. We are inundated with special public moments to be savored and …

The Town I Loved, the Protestor I Became

My Wonderful 1950s Childhood Inspired Me to Oppose the Vietnam War

by Ernie Powell | January 30, 2015

If you want a classic portrait of middle Americana in the middle of the 20th century, you had to look no farther than my hometown of Rialto, in inland Southern …

memory

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

Raising the Pine

Why We Need to Name the Dead

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

Prayer

What 880 Billion Cellphone Images Do to Your Memory

I’m Glad I Grew Up with Nothing More Than a Polaroid Camera

The Town I Loved, the Protestor I Became

My Wonderful 1950s Childhood Inspired Me to Oppose the Vietnam War

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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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