Whenever someone asks me about the “immigration experience”, I unconsciously get angry. The first thing I say is: I have not emigrated! I have fled my country. Some, like me, may have “fled” their country, but their purpose in leaving the country is similar to the purpose of an immigrant. They want to gain the …
A person I was connected to online for a joint project suggested that we meet in person after the project was over. “I read about your story as an exiled writer. I thought it was cool and was curious to meet you,” he confessed, shortly after we met. That is exactly what I used to …
Når en krise inntreffer, er det alltid de svakeste som rammes hardest. Færre dør når flere vet, er et av Leger Uten Grensers mottoer. Men hva skjer når informasjonen blir langt mindre tilgjengelig? Når hjelpeorganisasjoner må trekke seg ut av hensyn til bistandsarbeidernes smittevern, og vi som forsøker å dokumentere grove humanitære overgrep, med ett …
From exile in European cities to remote camps in embattled Myanmar, refugees facing every level of threat have created autonomous projects—zines—writing and reading together to site their politics by any means possible. In “Kachin State: the Curse of Geography,” ArtsEverywhere editor Siddhartha Joag recalled the art and writing workshops he encountered among refugees caught between Chinese armies …
The publisher knows up close how mentally and existentially challenging everyday life is for an author. The work of the author and the artist takes place in solitude, with empathy and concentration, in a search for imaginative imagery to create everything from harmony to agitation. Through reasoning, the author can bring understanding and create stories …
1 I read the news about six months ago, probably on Al Jazeera. 2020 is such a bat in the belfry year with so many COVID-19, wildfires, riots, and insanities happening all at the same time that you might not remember the story. I remember it vividly. In May 2020, twenty-four Bangladeshi migrants were killed …
Displaced: Single, Syrian men Young Syrians, including Syrian university students, constitute an important group with regard to the future of Syria(see for example Keith Watenpaugh et al. 2013). This group of displaced Syrians is nonetheless a generally unacknowledged component of a larger humanitarian disaster (ibid.: 5). Moreover, until recently single Syrian men have been particularly …
Between friend and enemy: The ambiguities of being in exile among Syrian men in Amman Read More »
Long before President Donald Trump cracked down on immigrants as a centerpiece of his promise to “Make America Great Again,” immigrants had already made – and kept – America great. Many are our clients. As the founder of an international immigration law firm based in Owings Mills, Maryland, I specialize in helping U.S. employers hire …
As I write this, from beautiful Trondheim on a cool autumn day, the percentage of immigrants in Norwegian society has surpassed 18%.They are a mix of refugees, labor migrants, family members reunited with their Norwegian counterparts, and our second generation, the children of everyone in the previous categories. If we focus on only people without …
Edward Said speaks of exile as an ‘unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home,’ adding that, ‘its essential sadness can never be surmounted.’[1] Experientially, however, exile can connote nostalgia for another time as well as another place, as if space and time were interchangeable …
What if, the girl says. Instead of saying, this border divides those places. We said, this border unites these places. This border holds together these two really interesting different places. What if we declared border crossings places where, listen, when you crossed them, you yourself became doubly possible. Smith, A., 2019. Spring. 1st ed. London: Hamish Hamilton. …
Temporary relocation, Exile and Artists Impacted by Displacement Read More »
