Monday Matter: Invierno, the voyagers and yellow faces
Your weekly Foreign Bodies roundup
Every Monday, we send subscribers and gift recipients of immigrant mental health and storytelling newsletter Foreign Bodies stories we recently inhaled and adored. This is also a chance to do some housekeeping and give shout-outs and all that jazz. Roundups are usually written by Fiza and edited by Farah.
First things first
A little housekeeping
Thank you for your kindness last week.
I couldn’t get myself to sit down at a computer and put together a roundup last week because my head felt so weighed down by the state of the world. My medication typically helps me live my day-to-day amid the ongoing crises, something I really struggled with before therapy and the prescription. I would hear of or report on a school shooting, climate catastrophe or senseless political violence and immediately enter a state of prolonged paralysis before ultimately calling in sick to work for days on end. I felt on the verge of that last week and decided to catch myself before I fell harder and some of you extended your kindness—thank you. Like most of you, I’ve been thinking of Ukraine and of the innocent civilians all over the world who are harmed or killed by political motivations of greed, power and other evils.
A musical start to your Mondays 🎧
One song to groove to, cry to, drive to and share
This week’s pick is United Kingdom-based Syrian musician and composer Maya Youssef, who was born in Damascus into a family of writers and artists, according to her Wiki page. She won Best Musician in Syria’s National Music Competition for Youth at the ripe age of 12 and ultimately helped found the Syrian Female Oriental Band. Youssef is best known for playing the violin and qanun, a string instrument played either solo, or more often as part of an ensemble, in much of the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, Central Asia, and Greece.
Resource(s) of the week
Something helpful and interesting and cool (*storytelling opportunity)
Asian American Mental Health Directory: From the Asian American Federation, this is a mental health directory for New York City to help ensure every Asian New Yorker who needs mental health care is able to receive it in a language they speak, from providers who understand Asian cultures.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Foreign Bodies to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.