An excerpt of The Last Leaving

Before the leaving, there is the staying, there are days of in-betweens, sheltered in the arms of our mother’s mothers.

There are the days the water creeps closer and closer, teasing, like a dog lapping its tongue against our worn work boots.

An excerpt of “Freezing Moon” (working title)

Wisconsin may be the land of dairy and beer and football, where you can drive for uninterrupted miles through corn rows and farmhouses and pickups hitched to fishing boats, but when you reach the Menominee tribe, the trees put a stop to all that. They form the literal border of the reservation, but also a border of ideas, between the Menominee way of life and the American way that’s as tangible and dramatic as the forest itself.

When I first heard that a federal DREAM Act was rumored to be reintroduced this year, I’m not going to lie: a small part of me felt a spark of hope ignite. I’m 34 years old. I’ve been living in this country for 32 years as an undocumented person, and frankly, I’m over it. Though I’ve found ways to live my life, seize opportunities and push open doors, I can only (selfishly) imagine the kinds of doors that I could step through if only I didn’t have this albatross around my neck.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions paid a visit to Philadelphia late last month, with a special message from the president: the City of Brotherly Love should think twice before proclaiming itself a City of Sanctuary.

Italy may be home to some of the oldest civilizations in the world, but its endurance over millenia of cultural evolution have also pushed it the cusp of Europe's future. This nation suspended between the Old World and the New, has become the point of arrival for migrants from the Global South to the North.

What is it like to grow old in a new land? Immigrant elders have often lived lives that involve two births, and their aging process is no less complicated.

Patrick loves cooking for his family. It's one thing that reminds him of home: all the homes he's had from Jamaica to Philadelphia to Georgia. And while his homecooked meals have nourished his children throughout their lives and pleased guests from every corner of the diaspora, he struggled for years for the right to remain on the same soil as his family. And in a harsh system that punishes those who have forged human relationships that don't comply with immigration laws, he struggled to prove that he was entitled to stay by strutting his stuff...as a chef.