Understanding New Diasporas and Transnationality Through the Voices of African Immigrants to Kentucky
Voices of African Immigrants in Kentucky Migration, Identity, and Transnationality By Francis Musoni, Iddah Otieno, Angene Wilson, and Jack Wilson University Press of Kentucky Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum The heart of this book is based on oral history interviews with nearly 50 Africa-born immigrants in Kentucky — of which there are now more than 22,000. From a former ambassador from The Gambia to a pharmacist from South Africa, from a restaurant owner from Guinea to a certified nursing assistant from the Democratic Republic of Congo, every immigrant has a unique and complex story of their life experiences and the decisions...
Michael E. O’Hanlon Has Counseled ‘Resolute Restraint’ in an Age of Peace. But Has That Age Come to an End?
The Art of War in an Age of Peace U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint By Michael E. O’Hanlon Yale University Press Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum Published last year, Michael E. O’Hanlon’s most recent volume of strategy recommendations for U.S. global engagement has a title that’s been overtaken by events: In this “age of peace,” Russia has launched the largest invasion of another country since World War II. The gist of O’Hanlon’s counsel is “resolute restraint” with “an equal emphasis on both words.” That means avoiding overextension without retrenchment; either would make the world less stable and more...
Notable: Recent Awards for Four Members of the Peace Corps Community
Honors from the University of California, the Republic of Mali, Dartmouth College, and Bucknell University By NPCA Staff Maureen Orth | Colombia 1964–66 Maureen Orth received a 2021 Campanile Excellence in Achievement Award from the Cal Alumni Association, in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley Foundation, for pushing boundaries whenever possible. She is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and founder of the Marina Orth Foundation, which supports education in Colombia. Melvin Foote | Ethiopia 1973–75 Melvin Foote received special recognition from the president of Mali this year: He is to be honored with the Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mali — the...
Pandemic Lessons
On the nature of a virus. On community. And on systems — how they function and how they break. By Steven Boyd Saum Illustration by Maria Carluccio The toll of the COVID-19 pandemic hit a sobering milestone in the United States last spring when we marked the death of 100,000 Americans. By September, that number had doubled. The year 2020 concluded with some 350,000 dead in the United States alone, and 1.82 million lives lost worldwide. The pandemic has driven home some crucial lessons — if we pay attention. Not lessons we wanted to learn. But many of them...
A Matter of Life and Death
Pandemic Lessons: Epidemiologist Anne Rimoin on the importance of listening to community. And how a public health problem anywhere can be a public health problem everywhere. From a conversation with WorldView editor Steven Boyd Saum Photo by Peter Israel In epidemiology, you have to look at things holistically. And in the midst of this pandemic, as an epidemiologist whose whole career trajectory was shaped by my experience with the Peace Corps, I find myself asking: What does Peace Corps have to do with how we respond to COVID — and how we need to do more? Peace Corps is all about working in a community;...