I am Lebanese-American. I am part of what is known in Lebanon a the war generation - because we were born with the outbreak of the war and we came of age during its fifteen long years. Growing up, we did not know our country except at war. We did not get to enjoy its beauty and prosperity during its more peaceful days. Needless to say, this experience shaped me in many ways. I was politicized from an early age and so were most people around me. War and politics served as the ever-present background to our lives, its imprint on our consciousness undeniable. We talked politics, we thought politics. Our childhood and innocence were stolen from us . War and the news of war haunted our daily existence. To Be Continued Nadine Saliba, born and raised in Lebanon, attended the University of Beirut. She immigrated to San Antonio, Texas in 1993, receiving a B.A. in Political Science from UTSA (University of Texas at San Antonio), and an MA from the University of Massacusetts at Amherst i...

As a Chicana who's family lost their land in Texas after the U.S./Mexican War, I've always sympathized with the Palestinians whose land was taken from them in order to create the nation of Israel, as refugees of the holocaust after World War II. But I'd never understood how the Israeli government, with billions of dollars in U.S. funding and support, is at the "center" of the middle east crisis, the tragedy of the Palestinian people, and ultimately, the unraveling of anger, protest and resistance that is the prelude to terrorism. The story of the middle east deserves to be understood if we are to understand why the U.S. government invaded Iraq, after embarking on its empire-loaded revenge against Afghanistan for 9/11. I n San Antonio, Texas, the media is not telling the true story of the middle east. Today, in the afternoon of the hottest day of the summer, 101 degrees, about 200 people, representing the diversity of the Arab-American community, protested the...

While the news media in San Antonio, Texas - surrounded by four military bases and a complacent, right-wing Catholic Church - continues to dance to the drums of war - it is time for us who lived through Vietnam to tell our mijitas and mijitas that heroism isn't the ability to follow orders and kill people. A hero is someone who has the courage to stand up and confront the monstrous culture of war in this country. I should have written this story a long time ago, and I'm sorry I didn't. I thought my friends in the media would surely report the protests against the war, interview those of us who question it loudly, survey the leaders who hypocritically support the war while their own children are safely going to college here, report on the way that the military is invading the public schools and last year's national LULAC conference - looking for fresh meat. And I've been searching for the personal, intimate, stories of suffering, whether it's in Iraq, Afg...