Essay
At 4, Chanel Miller could not lift a gallon of milk. She needed two trembling little arms to wet her cereal with “that white sloshing boulder.” And spillage was inevitable.
Read MoreIt was only while fully submerged, my feet far from the ground, that my pain wholly subsided. Underwater, my body came alive.
Read MoreIn other collectivist societies, including my own Indo-Pak Muslim culture, it’s more uncommon to leave home if you’re single — and especially if you’re a single woman — than it is to stay, even if you’re financially stable and thriving. In fact, leaving home might even feel like a rejection to your parents, the way it still seems to make my own father feel.
Read MoreToo often, we immigrant children keep our pain locked tight in a metal safe deep within because we feel our problems pale in comparison to the sacrifices our parents made. But our own hardships are exactly that — our own.
Read MoreWhat does it mean to cultivate and protect a home you only met in adulthood? To be intentional about creating a new life in a community while honoring the longtime residents and neighbors who might view me as an intruder, a gentrifier, that new millennial on the block?
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