Cristina just wanted to vote, she told me, and give back to the country that brought her out of a dark, traumatic time.

Alberto Alves crossed on foot. The goal was the same: to flee Portugal’s misery and Salazar’s dictatorship to look for a better future in France.

Watching Cheikh guide the group, feeling the percussive vibrations resound against my heartbeat, I thought about the beauty of one person’s culture becoming something truly shared at the most essential level.

For Gebre, everything he knew about Chicago, he learned from watching “Home Alone.” When he came to Chicago he did not own a winter jacket. Now, at the start of his second winter in the city, he remembers his shock and delight at seeing snow for the first time.

I saw my 46-year-old father slowly kneel on the ground next to my mother, who scurried to hold him back up. “I’m so sorry, Yoona, and I’m so sorry to your mom,” he whispered. “I’m an illegal and I’m so sorry I can’t be the husband or father I want to be.”

In the morning, I sent my mother a text asking how her night was. Her response was simple: “SO MUCH FUN! It’s been so long.”

Less than 30 minutes after the trial begins, two of the eleven defendants are publicly executed. The defendants are accused of human trafficking for taking North Koreans across the border into China.

What started out as a simple trip to Mexico had turned into a three-hour nightmare on the border…The patrol took one look at my father’s dark skin and dull eyes and sent us off to the parking lot.