1.

The cemeteries of America hold the bones of somewhat recent immigrants–people who go through hell just to get here, often times because they are fleeing from upheaval. From the moment they arrive, whether they know English or not, whether they understand the culture or not, they bust their backs working night and day to make a better life for themselves and their families. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail. Then they die.

Cemeteries are integrated parts of the geography and consciousness of every town. Most of us don’t think twice as we pass them. But for immigrants, American cemeteries are the ultimate reminder of the finality of their journey away from everything that was familiar to them. Death seals forever their years of fragmentation, disconnection, and yearning with an endless spool of gauze.

As Americans, we don’t understand the concept of being born and...

“Well I know this…and anybody who has tried to live knows this…
What you say about somebody else, anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessities, my own psychology, my own fears and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you…I’m describing me.”

In 1963, the novelist James Baldwin gave one of the most honest and insightful interviews about American racism. I return to it often because it’s also about something more. It’s about human dignity and the artist’s (lack of) place in American society. When he talks about the word “nigger” there’s an implication that he’s including anyone who is marginalized, trivialized, and bullied by a culture that is, in the end, acting out its own insecurities and ignorance. America, built on mass extermination and materialism, can do nothing but project its endless need for conformity and subservience...