This essay is a response to Joseph Keegin’s essay, “Wisdom That Is Woe,” which was published on our website in October.
My first day of school—two and a half weeks after I came to America—was exhilarating and depressing. I loved school because I loved to learn. But having moved from Iraq to Greece and then from Greece to America, the idea of yet another plunge into alienation petrified me. I arrived at a primary school in Fullerton, California in January of 1979. I remember that I wore one of the few Greek outfits included in my suitcase. Boys and girls stared at me and snickered.
The rest of the essay can be found at The Point Magazine