Jul 07, 2017
This Hell Not Mine: On Moving from Nigeria to America
“This is where I’ve come, to the America of lights and dreams. And if I am better off I cannot tell.”
“This is where I’ve come, to the America of lights and dreams. And if I am better off I cannot tell.”
Whether fleeing the Russian Revolution or running from martial law-era Taiwan, my families have made some narrow escapes.
“I’m not naïve enough to think that becoming Austrian will make up for everything that happened to my family.”
The phrase used was “barbed wire fever”—what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Gracias a Dios I still have all my fingers.”
A strange inheritance from a grandfather resisting Franco and fascism in 1930s Spain.
The idea of a peacefully united continent that acknowledges identity must prevail.
This situation can be changed, but only if our compassion is stronger than our fear.
“My US citizenship is a kind of bulwark. It is not a guarantee of protection.”
“The family legacy included silence as a way to belong.”
“A body always returns to the place that shaped it.”
“Welcome to Germany. Take a number. Have a seat.”
“Living outside of the United States isn’t an escape.”
“It was like walking through a time capsule.”
“How will non-Indians pronounce it?”
For decades, micro-economies in Miami have breathed in sync with the shortages in Cuba. What happens now?
“The tumor cells, often stained a deep, twilight purple, recall a van Gogh nocturne.”
