My great grandma’s name is Paule Lucienne Zahara Kalfon she is from Algeria her and her family were Sephardic Jews and lived there during the holocaust. I interviewed my dad about my great grandma (she goes by nana, it’s what she wanted to be called after I was born). She is my dad’s grandmother. I interviewed my Dad about her ... Read More »
It was a cold winter night in St Petersburg 2008, Tatiana (name changed) was around 30 and had 2 children, still working her night shift in her pharmacy to earn enough to pay for all the life necessities during the cold Russian winter. She then received a interesting phone call. It came from her father residing in the United States. ... Read More »
Journey to the West—an infamous novel known by everyone in China—describes a story during the Tang dynasty, when a monk named “Xuanzang” and his companions heads towards the west—India. The monk seeks to bring the Buddhist culture and knowledge from the west to China. As their journey begins, the group faced immense amounts of obstacles and monsters, in which they ... Read More »
“Life was fine if you didn’t know about anything else” was my mother’s response when asked about life in her hometown. My mother, Monica Rosso Tabrizi, was an only child, born and raised in Italy by my grandmother and grandfather. She lived an average middle-class life in Italy: she went to school, graduated, and went on to college at Universita ... Read More »
It was the year 1995; I was 27, young and hungry for adventure. I had graduated from college the year prior, and was living with my best friend and his sister in the town of Braunschweig, Germany. I spent my days either working, or playing field hockey. I’d been playing field hockey since I was 12 years old, and I ... Read More »
“My life was better.” My mother described her former life in the Philippines, reminiscing in all of the old memories she had of her childhood and young adulthood. My mother was born in 1980 and grew up in the crowded and vibrant city of Cavite in the Philippines. In this city, she lived a standard yet fun and easy-going life ... Read More »
People call me “El Canoso” but my name is Carlos (changed for anonymity). I was named after my father for having so much white hair, but oddly enough my beard and mustache was very dark. Every morning at 5 AM I wake up “regando” everything in my “Ranchito” with my father. We also feed the chickens, check our chile, and ... Read More »
Imagine being raised in a country where you are constantly being monitored and having constant worries 24 hours a day. My Dad was born in Saigon, Vietnam. His life was not the most ideal lifestyle because of his family worries about not having food on the table every day. He lived in a police state and the police were pretty ... Read More »
My Mother was born in Shanghai, China. Her childhood was not a particularly good one, at least by American standards, but in China children were taught to be modest and not complain about what they got. My mother lived in a small house with several siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Their house was part of a complex, with multiple other ... Read More »
While growing up in Turkey, the obvious pressing issue concerning Haluk Konuk was that he was not born into a socioeconomically well-off family. He always had to move around with his mother and older sister to live with various other family members in Istanbul. Basic necessities were hard to come by as he even recalled that “eating meat was like ... Read More »