This week we are sharing stories from Jessica Wilkerson, Meg Bernhard, Nicholas Hune-Brown, Jiayang Fan, and Alexander Wells.
family
Enslaved potter David Drake searched for his family. More than 150 years later, they’ve found him.
“‘He was sending these messages,’ said Daisy Whitner, whom genealogists have identified as a descendent of Drake.”
Documents
“I have no status inside or outside any clear borders unless I consider my mother’s uterus my original country.”
Extraction
“When your great-grandparents grew up in Stalin’s terror-famine, your grandparents in the Holocaust, and your parents in a straddle between totalitarianism and democracy, you grew up confused about pain.”
An Ode to Kraft Dinner, Food of Troubled Times
“While the world has continued to change, Kraft’s product has remained the same, somehow evading inflation at one or two dollars per box.”
No Way to Live
“As Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declares a state of emergency on housing, residents like Sarah Fay live on the brink of being unhoused.”
Hungry Ghosts
“I think of all the hurts she can never outlive — the ghosts that can never be satisfied, no matter how much of herself she feeds to them.”
Too Wild to Love
“A multigenerational Texas family leaves the state for a new life on the East Coast.”
10 Years After Sandy Hook, a Family Finds Bits of Joy Amid Shards of Pain
“To Hensel, one of the big things about marking 10 years, is making it 10 years.”
