On Could 2, 2025, the PEN World Voices Competition in Los Angeles hosted “Forced Journeys: Stories of Home, Displacement, and Belonging,” a luminous night of storytelling, reminiscence, and reflection held on the Goethe-Institut. Moderated by Turkish-American author, activist, and scholar Ipek Burnett, the panel featured three acclaimed writers and artists: Charmaine Craig (Miss Burma), Lara Aburamadan (Refugee Eye), and Hector Tobar (Our Migrant Souls.)
Every introduced a profoundly private and political lens to the theme of displacement, drawing on their household histories, diasporic identities, and artistic practices.
On the Which means of Residence
The dialog opened with a deceptively easy query: What’s dwelling?
Craig mirrored on dwelling as each a bodily and emotional geography. She spoke of her mom’s exile from Burma and the best way familial bonds formed her identification rising up in Los Angeles. “We have been all in liminal areas collectively, however they have been dwelling,” she stated.
Aburamadan, a Palestinian photograph journalist from Gaza now dwelling in Berkeley, described dwelling as an emotional map made from reminiscence and sense. “House is the place your family members are… You carry dwelling with you,” she stated.
For Tobar, house is each a present and a paradox. Because the little one of Guatemalan exiles, he shared how Los Angeles turned a gathering floor for diasporas, and the way that multilingual, multicultural atmosphere challenged U.S. concepts of identification. “Life is a journey,” he stated. “That’s the lesson of exile.”
House is the place your family members are… You carry dwelling with you
On Artwork, Identification, and Duty
Burnett requested the panelists how motion and artistic work have formed their sense of identification.
Craig spoke of writing her novel concerning the Keren individuals of Burma: “I had loads of anxiousness. Did I’ve permission to write down this story?” But she got here to see writing as a vow between inventive and moral obligations. “It made me safer about my hybridity.”
Aburamadan mentioned her evolving identification as formed by expertise, ancestry, and survival. “Identification is the previous, the current, and the long run—in no set order,” she stated. She described the painful aftermath of October 7 and the accountability she feels to protect and share photos of a Gaza that not exist.
Tobar explored the immigrant storyteller’s position in preventing historic amnesia. “We’re advised immigrants deliver chaos, however in actuality undocumented labor holds up this nation,” he stated. His inventive work is pushed by a necessity to reveal these erasures. “To be an artist is to shock individuals with truths they don’t see.”
To be an artist is to shock individuals with truths they don’t see.
On Literature as Resistance
When requested whether or not fiction could be a type of resistance, the panelists supplied transferring affirmations.
Craig known as literature a radical act of empathy: “In life, we are able to’t entry one other’s perspective absolutely. However literature lets us reside inside one other consciousness.”
Aburamadan emphasised artwork as a mode of truth-telling exterior of institutional filters. “Artwork is the place I will be trustworthy. Activism can take many kinds—typically simply surviving is a type of resistance.”
Tobar mirrored on coming into the attitude of a perpetrator whereas writing The Tattooed Soldier. “To write down the reality, I needed to faucet into my very own shadow.” For him, literature’s energy lies in its refusal to simplify. “Bins don’t match us. The problems are what’s attention-grabbing.”
Need extra? Try the panelists’ books:
