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Panorama: How to Plant Roots in the Sand

“The thunder and lightning crash so hard around my home it knocks paintings from the wall and tchotchkes to the floor. A wall of rain smashes down so thick I can’t see the road just metres from my front door, nor the community pool out back. I wait for the inevitable sound of sirens that follow these epic peals of skyscape fury — the majority of my town’s residents are elderly retirees; someone once had a heart attack from the noise. As the wind wails, altering the direction of the wall of water this way and that, I imagine this is what it feels like to be in a meteor storm in outer space, frightened and alone. I wait for the power to cut out as it would in Asia, but it never does. This is America, after all. And while I might have experienced ferocious typhoons in Thailand and savage monsoons in Sri Lanka, all those storms combined pale when compared to Florida’s minor tropical furies. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to these terrifying and magnificent displays of nature.” For Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel, December 2016.

Expatria · Huffington Post · Human Rights · Movies · Politics · Repatria · Spain · Third Culture Kids · Travel · Zuzu Huffington

Putting Faces On the Immigration Debate: The Cortes Family and Ted Roach’s 120 Days

“At the confluence of draconian American immigration policy, law enforcement entitlement, and good old-fashioned racial profiling we meet Miguel Cortes who, along with his family, is the subject of Ted Roach’s new award-winning documentary 120 Days: Undocumented in America.” My 18th HuffPost article, published in November 2015.