“As Rebeca reveals what scraps of story she does have to Luca, he starts to understand that this is the one thing all migrants have in common, this is the solidarity that exists among them, though they all come from different places and different circumstances, some urban, some rural, some middle-class, some poor, some well educated, some illiterate, Salvadoran, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Indian, each of them carries some story of suffering on top of that train and into el norte beyond. Some, like Rebeca, share their stories carefully, selectively, finding a faithful ear and then chanting their words like prayers. Other migrants are like blown-open grenades, telling their anguish compulsively to everyone they meet, dispensing their pain like shrapnel so they might one day wake to find their burdens have grown lighter. Luca wonders what it would feel like to blow up like that. But for now he remains undetonated, his horrors sealed tightly inside, his pin fixed snugly in place.” StoriesSufferingVoiceGriefTraumaStorytellingPtsdMigrantsProcessing EmotionsMigrant Story Book:American Dirt Source: American Dirt
“Part of me still thought these things were important, and was scared not to have them. But part of me knew my life couldn’t be judged or summed up in quite that way. At some point I was going to have to stop comparing apples and oranges. If I wanted to be happy here, I was going to have to evaluate my life in Paris on its own terms.” Cross Cultural ExchangesMigrant Story Book:Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes Source: Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes