It’s a Wednesday morning in mid-December. I sit eating breakfast alone at my kitchen table, listening to the news while glancing at the day’s headlines in the New York Times. Ten time zones away, Eastern Aleppo is falling to Russian-backed Syrian government troops. There are reports of eyewitness accounts of…

Nearly two decades ago I accompanied a friend to the remote village in Southern Mexico where she’d grown up. At 17, Graciela crossed illegally into the United States. This was her first trip home in ten years. Over lunch one day, Graciela’s cousin, who happened to be the principal of…

Nine time zones away from where I sit tonight someone in Germany is awaking to celebrate the 27th Anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. …