• Now, I’m a Proud Full-Time Hijabi 

  by I. I.

  “The believers are like a single body; if one part suffers, the whole body suffers.”  Imam Maulana Akonjee was quoting the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) to me and four other kids in the humid living room of my grandpa’s house, as a creaky fan rotated above us. 

• Learning to Trust Myself

  by Anonymous

  Names have been changed.  Growing up, I believed my family was a close one. My siblings and I spent time together, and we  traveled every year to new places as a family. We lived in an apartment in East Harlem and I felt comfortable living with my parents, who mostly seemed to care for me. 

• Home in My Heart

  by Arina Limarieva

  When I was 5, I had lived my whole life in Luhansk, Ukraine. Then, in April 2014, Russia  invaded Luhansk and another nearby region, Donetsk. Russia declared them independent states and renamed them Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic.   These name changes are part of how the Russian government tries to erase the Ukrainian identities of people who live there.

• Accepting My Mom’s Limits

  by R.P.

  When I was 8 years old, I asked my mother why I’d never met her parents. She said, “My dad was a very cruel man, and every night, he would come into my room and do terrible things to me. My mother knew, and she did nothing to help me.”

• ‘Grief Is Like the Ocean’

  by Anonymous

  My father died of cancer in June of 2020, a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic. At first he was diagnosed with a chronic, but not fatal, inflammatory arthritis that affects the spine and large joints. But after his condition continued to deteriorate, a trip back to the hospital revealed that he had metastatic brain cancer.

• My Father’s New Family

  by Jaya Arellano

  Names have been changed. It was Christmas Eve, just after my 12th birthday. My parents had divorced earlier that year, and I had just found out that my dad had already married someone else. I’d never even met his girlfriend-now-wife.  My dad picked up my younger sister Ana and me outside our mom’s to take us to the mall to Christmas shop.