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“Padam and Purna were forced from their homeland in Bhutan and trapped in camps in Nepal for decades before being resettled in an alien land: Clarkston, Georgia. The refugees have found some stability, but still feel frustrated and uprooted, which leads to domestic violence and suicide in the refugee community. Padam and Purna realized that familiar food is the first step to feeling at home. They have opened a food store and other refugee-run businesses, which offer safe spaces and sources of mutual support for all the Asian refugees in Clarkston, who are united by their experience of trauma.”

“The desert-dwelling Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians were uprooted from their ancestral lands. For decades, they were cheated of the property rights deeded to them by the U.S. government, and then subject to restrictive deed provisions. Not until the 1980s were they able to develop their own land in Palm Springs, and only recently have they begun to restore the springs revered by their ancestors. Tribal council member Anthony J. Andreas III battles the severe mental health problems that afflict the traumatized tribe by reviving ancestral practices. Traditional Bird Songs and pottery help today’s youth draw strength from the tribe’s sources of spiritual resilience.”

Line dance leader Kit Cheung teaches her class of Chinese-American women in an unlikely place: the parking lot of a local library. No other public location offers both the outdoor space and sun cover the group requires for their twist on the traditional Chinese exercise of tai chi. The relationship that forms between the initially reluctant library and Kit’s dance group has created some unexpected opportunities.

This excerpt from Barracoon, which provides a first-person account from the last living man transported from Africa to America as an enslaved person. The excerpt shows Zora Neal Hurston arriving at Cudjo Lewis’ house to speak with him about his past in only the way he can.

The poem deals with the awesome and awful power of God in relation to the challenging lives of humans and animals.