American Immigration Council

The American Immigration Council blog, “Teaching Immigration”  includes a review of The Good Braider.  The review offers a link to a lesson plan for educators teaching  about the immigration and refugee experience.  Here it is:  A Land of Refuge or Refusal? Perspectives on the Refugee Experience in the United […]

Gua

The people still wait for that day Emmanuel Jal of South Sudan and Canada sings about. That day of unity for the people of South Sudan.  The world still craves that today, the country’s 4th anniversary. “[South] Sudan’s future shall be promising./Children will go to school./ I hope […]

There Is a New Country

South Sudanese-American writer Nyuol Lueth Tong is editor of  this new short story collection,  There Is a New Country: New Fiction from the New Nation of South Sudan published by McSweeneys. Nyuol Lueth Tong is attending  Duke University on a Reginaldo Howard Memorial Scholarship. He also runs a nonprofit, SELFSudan.

Let Her Braid!

I’ve been following a story in Texas about a woman, Isis Brantley, who teaches hair braiding at her Dallas Institute for Ancestral Braiding.  Texas officials said her school’s graduates could not be certified because her school didn’t comply with barber school standards. Brantley sued in federal court, saying […]

The Good Braider in the Work Place

I spoke today to a group of staff members at the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services. I was invited by the Diversity Committee that seeks to introduce its staff to some background on the cultures of the people they serve.    We listened to the Tcha Tcho music […]