The Refugee

I am the granddaughter of a refugee.

Without the courage and resilience of my grandfather, I wouldn’t be here in this country.  I wouldn’t have privilege.  I may not have food or housing or the respect I deserve as a woman.

Or I may not be alive.  I may never have been born.

Somewhere back in each of our histories, I can imagine that we have the one person who was a refugee, an alien in a new land during a time of exile.  In the diaspora, they were strangers and lived on the grace and hospitality of others.

Exodus 22 says that we “shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

My grandfather was an alien, a refugee.

My grandfather told me the ugly stories of genocide, of wandering around the Caucasus region for years as an Armenian during and after…