Born in Chicago to Thai immigrants, author and teacher Ira Sukrungruang spent much of his early life wrangling the divided aspects of his identity — one irrevocably tied to his birthplace and home in Oak Lawn, Illinois, and the other struggling to resonate with the culture, language and traditions of his family’s heritage.
The year Donald Hayashi was born, everything changed.
In 1946, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9742, ending Japanese detainment in America — and the incarceration of Hayashi’s own immediate family.
For Ajino Wah, memories of home are tinged with bittersweet contradictions. On the one hand, he remembers hospitality, lush rivers and gardens. In particular, a love of peace stands out in his sense of home among the Karen people, one of the first ethnic groups to settle in present-day Burma (also known as Myanmar).
