At the lowest point on earth, Leymah Gbowee addressed us all. Speaking at the 2018 Nobel Laureates and Leaders Summit for Children, held along the Dead Sea, she told us about her first bed in a refugee camp in the ’90s. How her mom stitched it together with things she’d gathered, and how, years later, Leymah became a Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work ending the war in Liberia. She said something we’ve all struggled to articulate in our lives, that “being a refugee is just a phase in your life” and that it too will pass.
The strangest thing about universal struggle is that at any moment, you can feel as if you’re standing on the outside of your own life and looking in. This is what I felt when Leymah said those words. This is what I feel now. It was transformative; we were all crying, everyone for different reasons—me, because I believed her.
In that room of refugees, former refugees, and world leaders fighting to end child labor and trafficking, I believed that we would become more than the threat of our histories. That we would be triumphant in the face of adversity because we’d fight for it, and we wouldn’t stop until our voices were heard. The next day I started my mission with the UN Refugee Agency in Jordan, and one month after that, I got the invitation to contribute to Ink Knows No Borders.
I didn’t hesitate to say yes. The timing was impeccable, the heart of the collection so relevant, and the people so invested in each individual message. Later, when I heard that the idea for this collection started more than a decade ago, I wasn’t surprised. There were so many times growing up when I’d wished to find something like this, language to validate the struggle of existing in the middle, of being a third culture kid from war or otherwise and yet making it through to transform the lives we’d been given.
It isn’t always pretty, and it isn’t always successful, the people we’ve lost along the way are a testament to that, but it’s something universal, something impossible to deny—people are going through this every day. I’m twenty-four as I write this, and by the time you read these words, I will be
the age my mother was when she had to leave home and never look back. I can’t imagine leaving now, I can’t imagine picking up and starting over without any promise of tomorrow, not at this age, not at any other; but I know we didn’t have another choice.
Poetry put choice back in my hands. It made it easier to mourn, to explore, and to recognize the realities I’d come from, the ones I passed through, and the new identities I’m discovering every single day. It means a lot to be in these pages, and it means even more to know that these words might move someone, to triumph, to act, to influence. My baby sister will turn two years old by the time this book is out. It’s comforting to know that she will read this one day and understand what it means to be us.
Being a refugee is a phase, but being an advocate for change, that’s something we should all be in every walk of life, in every country, in every place. You don’t have to go on UN missions, travel across borders, or fight for children’s rights to make a difference. You just have to reach out and recognize people. Recognize our fellow humans around the world who are fighting for the right to exist. Be an advocate for each other. This is why I fight for refugees, and this is why I write, because the simplest and deepest way to stand in solidarity with someone is to recognize them.
The poets in this book have fought to be heard, not only by beating adversity, but by being the very best at what they do, and in some cases, by being the very first to do it. We’ve grown up to be the writers we’d wished for as children, and we’re striving to be the role models we’d looked up to in our youth. Our words are a testament to everything we’ve been through as children of diaspora and everything we’ve achieved as wielders of the pen. But the struggle won’t be done until we’re united in lifting the most unheard voices.
Acknowledge the pain, acknowledge the peace, acknowledge the love there is, and acknowledge the privilege that exists in reading what others have lived. The poets collected here have brought their voices forward. The rest is up to you.
emtithal mahmoud