Roots
Looking Back, Leaning Forward
 n recent months, several impressive essays by youth—four written, one photographic—have caught the eye of WKCD staff. All explore, in one way or another, the subject of roots: whether juggling the competing demands of one’s past and future; defying media portrayals of a distant homeland; or as in the case of the first two essays presented here, struggling with the heritage of a country locked in violence.
- In Worrying about Family in Palestine, a self-described “full-blooded Palestinian Muslim born in America” recalls her experiences of traveling through Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank.
“It felt like I was holding my life in a loose pocket where it could easily be lost.”
- In This is Where My Family Is... Israel is My Home, a young Californian tries to understand the fear gripping her family during a recent visit to Israel.
“When I asked how more violence was going to help anything, my 11-year-old cousin...responded, ‘Efty, when you know someone who has been blown up, you will think differently.’”
- In The Tomato Seeds Of Tradition, the annual Italian Club picnic creates feelings of ambivalence in a young Canadian.
“When [my five-year-old nephew] didn’t respond, I realized it was because he didn’t understand even a bit of Italian. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.”
- In Looking Back to the Islands, a Filipino youth travels to his homeland to reconcile stories of his mother’s childhood with current negative media reports.
“My mother’s stories always started in the Philippines, a far-off land where she was born, where the rain fell like waterfalls.”
- In El Salvador: A Photo-Essay, a young man returns to document the damage inflicted by a recent earthquake.
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The essays in this collection
appeared previously in Youth Outlook, Wiretap, and Young People’s Press.
 
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