My parents don’t like to talk about what happened during the Pol Pot regime but in the last few years, they’ve started to share their story. I never thought about it much growing up but as I’m getting older, I am learning to appreciate the sacrifices they made, how...
When I was 7 years old, we had to leave Bhutan because the government kicked out all the people of Nepalese origin. But in Nepal we were not considered citizens either so we had to live in a refugee camp. I lived there for 20 years. It was a very hard life. Nothing...
One day, when I was 8 years old, we heard gunshots down the street, which meant that soldiers were killing innocent civilians. Dad rushed in and said, ‘We need to leave right now’ and my parents ran around grabbing food and whatever they could lay their hands on. Of...
My family is originally from Afghanistan, but when the Taliban took over, they started the genocide of the Hazara people there. Unfortunately, we are very easy to identify because we have distinctive facial features so it wasn’t safe for us to live there anymore. As a...
I come from a long line of politically active family members who were active socialists in Chile in the 1970s. So when the coup led by Pinochet occurred, it was inevitable my family was going to be targeted. My uncle was arrested and tortured, then disappeared. And my...