Home Away from Home

Gaza-Born Taysir Batniji Documents His U.S. Relatives’ Lives

In his photo series Home Away from Home, the Gaza-born Franco-Palestinian artist Taysir Batniji explores and documents the daily lives of people dwelling in intermediate states—between the land of their birth and their adopted country. His subjects, though, are not anonymous exiles. They’re relatives who immigrated to the United States from the Middle East. Between January and July 2017, Batniji traveled to Florida and California to meet these familiar strangers, observing and recording them at work and at home. With his painterly eye, he captures the nuances of dislocation as …

June 5, 2018

For Refugees, Home Is a Place Called Never

Having Fled Sarajevo as a Child, I Find It Hard Telling Syrians There Is No Going Back

By Dragana Kaurin | January 4, 2016

I recognized Basel immediately when the shot cut to a group of refugees standing in the rain, and he turned to look briefly at the camera. I was at home …

What Syrian Refugees Offer the West

Having Ignored Syria's Plight for so Long, Europe Has One Last Opportunity to Care

By Elizabeth Dickinson | October 21, 2015

She came from a safe city, at least by Syrian standards. Tartus is a government stronghold and home to a Russian naval base. Unlike in Aleppo, Homs, and Idlib, the …

How India’s Prime Minister’s Visit to Facebook Could Help Reverse His Country’s Brain-Drain

He Should Encourage Some of His Nation's Most Impressive Diaspora to Go Back Home

By Bhagwan Chowdhry | September 24, 2015

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi comes to the United States in a few days, he won’t just make the obligatory drop-ins at the White House and the United Nations. …

Living Thailand’s Turmoil from Los Angeles

How My Family Stays Connected to the Political Crisis in Our Homeland

by Jack Tejavanija | December 10, 2013

As you may have seen in the news, political strife in Thailand has reached a boiling point again. In the capital, Bangkok, hundreds of thousands of people recently took to …

You Can Find Iran in Malibu

An Object the Size of a Corncob—the Cyrus Cylinder—Has Transfixed Iranians in L.A.

by Shari Pejhan | December 6, 2013

Iranians have a strong love for their country and sense of pride in their heritage and more than 2,500 years of recorded history. Parents instill these feelings in their children …

diaspora