Spanish Horizons
Just north of Oviedo, there is a quaint town where just off the beaten path of the dusty Spanish streets is a hidden gem worth the trip. I have marveled at the great Sagrada Familia in the diverse city...
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Religion and Revelry in Cuba
A window of opportunity opened last year, and through it I had the chance to travel to Cuba with my family, on a journey to trace my father’s heritage. He and his family fled during the revolution, each...
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Graceful Song for Beyond the Grave
A full expanse of mountainous Korean land stretched out before us with little hill-like graves embodying the terraced plot of land. Pine trees swayed in the wind as the setting sun’s rays warmed their...
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Dust Motes
The dust motes. They floated with the ambience of rolling hills. A suspended colloid, only visible with a shaft of early morning sunlight piercing through the window of the electric bus, making those...
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The Concept of a Home
All around the world, people define the word “home” differently. No matter the language it is pronounced in, every person has their own deeper, more individualistic perspective on the concept of...
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The Philippines
On television, I would always see the perfect American family, a happily married couple with a few children. You don’t usually think of just a mother and daughter but that’s what my family was. I...
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Trivandrum Tirade
I dodge a white projectile headed for my shoulder. Darn birds-they always try and ruin whatever you’re wearing. I slip on my chappals and sprint to the car bobbing and weaving as I must in order to...
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Sonqoykipi Apakuway (Take Me in Your Heart)
We are all broken people living in a world that is filled with hopelessness, sorrow and hate. At times we ask ourselves if there is still humanity and love in this planet that we call home. However, there...
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The Uganda Diary
As I plopped a lemonade-flavored, electrolyte hydrating tablet into my plastic water bottle, I could feel Sylvia’s big eyes watching my every move. With our rear-ends simultaneously bouncing up and...
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Catskill Mountains: Birthplace of My Dreams
In the 1960s, a book called My Side of the Mountain inspired a young man’s dream to live in the wilderness and train raptors (eagles, hawks, falcons, and owls). As a young man he moved to Roxbury,...
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Pickett’s Charge – When Even God Mourned
You can still hear the sounds of cannons, the steady tap the drummer plays for the army, and the cries of men, young and old, who will never make it home to see their loved ones again. These dreadful sounds...
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Rediscovering My Roots: A Trip to Vietnam
It was a steamy day when our plane touched down in Da Nang, Vietnam. But then again, what summer day wasn't hot in Vietnam? Being Texas natives did not make my family immune to the blistering sun. It...
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Finding Home
This is Vietnam at 6:00 in the morning. I peer out from the tenth story...
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Home in the World, Roots in China-June 2013
This is the story of when I returned to my Found Site. What I saw made me realize how lucky I am. The roads were made of dirt, the building timeworn, and I stood in front of it – my Found...
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A Step That Took 250 Years
You could say this vacation trip actually started over 250 years ago. That’s when my eighth great grandfather (Granddad Matthew) came to America. I bet you are saying…WHAT? Well, his life story...
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Dying Legacies and A Dusty Attic: The Lost History of Hungary
One thing Andrew Pongratz is notoriously famous for is his horrendous driving. On his visits from Arizona, he would occasionally drive me to basketball practice, involving serious bumper riding and cruising...
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A Rose in the Desert – Serenity in Damascus
Damascus, Syria, a city at the heart of a bloody war. A city that itself is a juxtaposition where life thrives only kilometers away from heavy conflict and war. After years of waiting, a turbulent flight...
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The Way That Water Washes Over
If I had to pick one thing, for-sure, that I love most about Thailand, it would be the rain. Where I'm from (San Francisco, I tell everyone I meet, because it's close-by anyways and far more well-known),...
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Setting Foot in a Nation of Faith and Resilience
A blank computer screen… This is the scholarship applicant’s dreaded nightmare, yet at the same time, the cherished dream of countless poverty-stricken Filipino sidewalk dwellers. Gratefully exchanging...
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A Final Night to ‘Never Forget’- The Journey Between Summer Camp and Auschwitz
My whole life revolved around summer camp. I would dream of climbing onto the bus and taking off for another summer spent lakeside with my best friends at Emma Kaufmann Camp. The school...
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A Different Bird
I had been counting the days, then the hours during the plane ride. Finally I am in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, my home, the place I had been longing for the past year. And yet, back in the city, I feel...
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Memories Are Amusing
I remembered serenity: crunchy, sweet and sour bowls of chaat in outside cafés, aimless walks down busy streets admiring lavish storefronts, gentle, white flowers, tumbling from trees above. Memories...
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Looking Through The Conch
The soft whir of the air-conditioner permeates the small study room as I lay on a bamboo mat, staring up at our makeshift mosquito net with my sister breathing...
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Monterrey: The City of Mountains and of My Heart
Even though I travel to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico every year in the summer, the city never ceases to amaze me and every time I leave, I feel as though...
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Rediscovering Nepal
In the summer of 2014, my mother, father, brother, sister, and I traveled to my parents’ homeland: Kathmandu, Nepal. We hadn’t visited Nepal since 2007 to catch up with relatives, but this time...
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Solving Indonesia
When I visited Indonesia in July 2015, I stayed with my cousins in Jakarta. They were both boys. My older brother easily joined their FIFA battles and Grand Theft Auto missions on the PlayStation...
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Why I Will Always Belong to India
The rancid odor of pollution and cow dung penetrated my lungs as we emerged from the doors of the Delhi international airport, and the usual a crowd of luggage carriers and taxi cab drivers began their...
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The Beauty in Simplicity
The hot sticky humid air hung over the boisterous city of Kollam, Kerala. I gripped the polyester seating of the dilapidated rickshaw as it jackknifed to the right to swerve around another wayward goat....
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Our Foundation, Where the Mountains Meet the Water
Standing on a rock, overlooking the fjord with small ships crawling along, he turned to me. Kåre said, “This is where your great, great, grandfather stood and dreamed of America.” Never before...
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From Here to Jerusalem
My grandmother scowled at me as we boarded the airplane. Much to my vexation, my subtle acting had not payed off; she had seen right through my futile smiles and unavailing grins. “Family fun,”...
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It Didn’t Bother Grandpa
When we arrived at the secluded, run-down looking beach house, it was just about the opposite of paradise. The cracked and peeling chalk white paint, the jungle of palm trees and overgrown greenery...
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Spending a Year in Nigeria
When my parents decided to start their family in America, they instilled their Nigerian values in us children. Every morning, I would wake up to greet my parents with a "Good morning, mom! Good morning,...
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A Scenic Stroll to 1975
Four hours, three airports, two flights, one bus ride; we were here. A sanctuary with greenery and decadent coloring, the aroma of Blackeyed Susans captivated my lungs; I felt at home, but more...
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A 250 km/Hour Discovery
Fluttering skirts, rhythmic tapping of pointe shoes, dense air- the kind that is formed from hundreds of people holding their breaths in anticipation and admiration, gentle and perfectly apt music....
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A Trip to the Magical Town
Around thanksgiving of 2015, my family and I traveled to Zacatecas, Mexico. I’ve been to Mexico before however, this time I learned to enjoy another liestyle. After five hours in a cold plane flight...
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Face to Face with a Foreign Bull
One summer vacation, my family and I spent it in, Colombia, where my parents were born and raised. I'd been once previously, but, now that I was older, I felt I could really take in the diverse beautiful...
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A Land of Juxtapositions
The air is heavy with humidity, but we are fortunate that the rainforest canopy shields us from the scorching rays of sunlight that beam down on this hot summer day. The trees surrounding us stretch...
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International Deprogramming: The truth About Nigeria
“So there I was, spear in hand,” I recounted to my thoroughly American friends, “The lion charged at me, jaws agape, snarling like the devil himself.” They’re all paying rapt attention...
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China in Transit
Hangzhou, China is beautiful in the spring. The weather is lovely, the trees are in bloom, and if you look above the buildings, the sky is even blue. On the west lies a long, gleaming lake; on the east...
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Finding Myself from the Summit in Colombia
"I am American. I was born in America. My skin complexion might be slightly darker but I am American no matter what.” I had these words engraved in my thoughts and no one believed them more than I...
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Rediscovering My Roots
400 years of my family’s heritage lies rooted south of the American border, in Guadalajara, a blossoming city located in the heart of Mexico. An economic recession drove my immediate family out of the...
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Irish I Could’ve Stayed
Going into this trip, I was more excited to see cute red headed Irish boys than I was to see the Cliffs of Moher. I was more excited for the puns I would put as my captions on Instagram than I...
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Seoul-searching
Over the past few years, I've chastised my friend for being obsessed with Korean culture without understanding what Korean culture really is. I was angry because I thought her interaction with Korea, one...
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A New Set of Cultural Binoculars
“You’re just different. You look like us, and your family is from here, but you’re so American,” Marilyn told me for the twentieth time. I understood well enough that being first generation...
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Remedy for Myopia
Lift up your eyes and see Windy Gusts o’er ocean corn: Prairie Vanishing. Lift up your feet and soar; Clouds stooping to harvest rain So farmers...
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The Guava Man’s Love
It is early in the morning, and my eyes remain closed. The room is small, antique, made of solid rock, dark and cold, but filled with the life of my family. My mother quickly comes to the small bed...
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Home Sweet Home
Just before I turned the knob of the door that would lead me to the family I hadn't seen in 9 years, I took a deep breath and berated myself for being so nervous. This is your family! I said to myself....
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Elephant Adventures
“It’ll be great!” my father exclaimed with enthusiasm. He was referring to an elephant riding attraction he heard about earlier that day. We were in Thandwe, a small village in the Southeast Asian...
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