This is … My Rewrite of Emma Lazarus’s Poem

I regret that it’s time for this again. Some of you may have heard a song I wrote for the Möbius Street album entitled “Mother of Exiles.” This phrase—Mother of Exiles—was immortalized on a tablet...

Facts, Damn Facts, and Factoids

You may have heard it stated as fact recently that “a 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office found that illegal immigrants and other non-citizens, in our prisons and jails together, had around 25,000 homicide...

Abdu’l-Bahá on Kindness & Sympathy Towards Strangers & Foreigners

The following is the transcript of a talk given on October 16th and 17th, 1911 in Paris, France by Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas, son of Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet/Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, of which I have been a...

Living in the Gam Saan: a Tale of Two Californias

I was not happy to move to California when I was 15. Having just buried my father and shut the door on an idyllic life in a small Nebraska town, I wrote a poem in...

Borders Part 2: Wiggle Room

I often find myself asking people how the teachings of Christ can be reconciled with some of the attitudes of more vocal members of our society about immigrants (among other groups). One classic answer I received...

You Keep Your Card: DREAMers Meet King

(This article was also published on DailyKOS). Public policy has personal consequences and it concerns me that an elected official of my country doesn’t seem to realize that. Rather, King sees a dichotomy between doing “individual...

Borders Part 1: Suffer the Little Children

Go to any article, news story or blog discussing the immigration issue and/or the current refugee crisis on our southern border (they’re often conflated), and you will find phrases like the ones below. These are...