Does your culture define who you really are? Can you choose a place you call home? To answer these existentialist questions, I have had to compromise who I really am. Sharing this was a tough decision to make as these thoughts had never traveled beyond the metal, cold walls of my mind… it is an intimate story of a journey ... Read More »
Toukhig Arabian tells of her family’s harrowing escape from war-torn Aleppo, Syria, and how they are rebuilding their lives in the US. She was one of five storytellers at a Media Center event in May, 2018, from different countries who had to leave due to violence or repression and build new lives. Read More »
The Armenian genocide began in 1915, when Mannig Keshkekian was five years old. The Ottoman Turks cast her family out into the desert. They hung all the scholars and priests in Mannig’s community because they did not want the local people to have any education. Mannig’s mother had died in childbirth, and her father had left for Egypt before the ... Read More »
My mother’s father, Alex would tell us that he came from Lebanon. Other times he told us his family had lived in Syria. When pressed to pick a country, he looked confused. He came to New York when he was eight, with an older brother and his mother. Within two years his entire tiny family in this country died. His ... Read More »