Catapult

“Embracing mortality, in this sense, is to prepare a way for my future children. If this cancer is hereditary, is it not also my responsibility to do everything within my humanly power to ensure, my children nor I, have to suffer?”

A personal essay in which Mexican-American writer Victoria Blanco reflects on change over the years at the border between El Paso, Texas, and Cuidad, Juárez, as immigration patrolling has become increasingly restrictive, and how the Rio Grande, which lies between the two towns, has begun drying up as a result of climate change.

In the last installment of her column, Mistranslate, writer Nina Coomes unpacks the origins and use of the term, ハーフ, or hafu — meaning half, in English — and considers how bicultural identity in Japan is both otherized and fetishized.

Living many states away from her parents and much of her extended family during the holy month of Ramadan, writer Gulnaz Saiyed remembers the food and flavors of home.

“I have been afraid most days of my life, which is what anxiety is, and the months of this pregnancy have been the most anxious of my life.”

“What does it mean when your body is your art? Can a thicker brush not make just as beautiful strokes?”

On the 70-year-long presence of American air bases in Germany, and how it has shaped the memory and sense of place of several generations of Germans.

Gaijin find traveling in Japan both daunting and welcoming. Try traveling there black and gay, and yet, for some people, it’s America that feels more foreign.

Debut author Naima Coster writes about her experience working with African American editor Morgan Parker on her first novel, Halsey Street, and also touches on the whiteness of publishing, and literary self-determination.

A personal essay in which Nina Coomes recalls her family’s tradition of extreme unplugging — no reading, talking, using digital devices — while taking silent retreats at a Catholic seminary each Thanksgiving.