The person I am today is not even close to the person I was 20 years ago, and I’m proud of that...

In fact, I was 16th in the rankings, including my father’s children from his two older wives, who each had six children before...

That year, there was a massacre in an eastern village. Nearly 600 were killed with sprays of bullets and machetes...

At the time, my father was unemployed and my mother was the teen-mom stereotype. They were already burdened with a daughter before me...

My father, a labor union leader who was tangled up in domestic politics, married at the young age of 17. But how could he not?...

I grew up watching how hard my father worked to earn bread for us. Because he was a mason, my father spent his days under the hot sun...

By Georgia, my parents got divorced. After seeing their marriage decay, I stopped believing in love. I stopped believing that I would be...

We were Turkish, and like the other Turkish families in Germany, my sister and I were taught to be responsible and helpful...

I fell on my face so many times I lost count, but the thing that made my life different was that I refused to stay down...

From an early age, I showed an interest in becoming a police officer, or rather, I became interested in adventure and excitement...

My country is destroyed—people have died of hunger, died from a lack of medicine, or simply have been killed. Thanks to a dictatorship...

My childhood was full of laughter, smiles, and love...I thought back then that nothing could bring me down...

I grew up in Taiwan, South Korea, and Hawaii, floating back and forth between the three places to see my father who was an influential...

My young whirring mind was as sharp as a whetstone, always looking to gain more knowledge. I was fascinated by how things worked...

At 100 years old, I’ve roamed the earth longer than many. I watched the Prohibition, Elvis Presley, and over a dozen presidents come and...

With so little to do, teenagers hung out and partied in the barns. Life in our community was slow—with the exception of the one...

Sometimes our plans are not “our” plans. Life has a funny way of showing you that. Buckle up, because you’re in for a wild story...

There are some days that stay in our memory longer than others. They are often the turning points in our journey: when something...

. My mom moved us to Detroit, Michigan where she later married her second husband, a man who, unfortunately, would beat her...

My biological father only stayed in the picture for a few months before leaving. Since then, it was like my mother cropped him out...