Breaking Ties With My Mom
I didn’t meet my parents until I was 9. I grew up in El Salvador with my grandmother and traveled alone to join my father, mother, and two new little sisters who were born in New York. When I first got here, my mom bought me new clothes, and showed me around the neighborhood. She […]
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If Allah Loves Everyone, Doesn’t He Love Gay People?
Names have been changed. My mother is a devout Muslim from Ethiopia, and when I was 5, she briefly sent my older brother and me to after school Quran classes. I remember feeling that I did not belong, and learning about Quran history and writing in Arabic did not interest me. After we quit Quran […]
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Family Separation Can Ruin the Mother-Child Bond
When I was around 6, my mom left our home in Barranquilla, Colombia, to pursue better opportunities in the United States. She left me and my older brother with my dad’s parents. I felt loved and well taken care of there. (I didn’t live with my dad because he was an alcoholic.) Although I received […]
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From the Bronx to Brandeis
My grandparents, my mother, and my four uncles moved to the United States in 1995. They left behind their home in the Dominican Republic with the dream that an American education could take you anywhere. My grandfather could only attend elementary school in the DR, and he wanted more for his children and their children. […]
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