WE THE INTERWOVEN, VOLUME 3 provides seven stories that show this country is as complex as the people who live in it. Eyad Said and his young family must build a life together in the U.S. while contending with the horrors facing their people back in Syria. Palestinian American Dhuha Tawil grapples with her decision whether or not to wear the hijab. Shalini Jasti tries to balance her love of the English language with her mother’s desire to preserve her connection to their Indian culture and mother tongue. Vanessa “Cueponi Cihuatl” Espinoza tells of her first legal documents after crossing the Mexican–U.S. border as a child. In a moving letter to his parents, George Khal looks back on his life in Palestine, Egypt, and Iowa. Hibbah Jarmakani tells of her family’s struggle to create a new home in Iowa after leaving their generational home behind in Syria. After speaking truth to power as a journalist in Sudan, Salma Salama migrates to Cairo and then the United States, where she must start anew in her career, language, and community. 

WE THE INTERWOVEN, VOLUME 2, introduces seven new voices—three fellows and four honorable mentions, all with stories that explore the theme of living between two worlds. Antonia Rivera crossed the Mexican-American border at the age of six, and her story spans three decades of the undocumented immigrant struggle. Dawson Davenport, a member of the Meskwaki Nation, shares a story of inherited Native trauma manifesting in the life of a young man coming of age. Ajla Dizdarević shares a Bosnian-American story of cultural tradition that survived a family’s migration. Hieu Pham explores Vietnamese-American filial debt, Rana Hewezi writes of an Egyptian mother’s gift to her daughter, Sarah Elgatian remembers her Armenian grandmother, and Anthony Mielke discovers his hidden Puerto Rican heritage. These seven stories take us on a ride through the heart and the moral conscience as they explore how we find identity and make a future in an America that is still deciding its own.

WE THE INTERWOVEN brings us the stories of three Americans—three Iowans—whose families have found home in the heartland over the past two generations. This collection brings together a variety of genres, including nonfiction, poetry, and fiction, to represent their unique experiences and amalgamation of influences, from the coast of Azerbaijan to the border towns of Mexico to the archipelago of the Philippines. These stories reflect who they were, who they are, and who they hope to become with the help of Iowa’s fields of opportunity. While the American Dream may bring to mind the quintessential white picket fence, the American experience is as unique as it is diverse.