I am submitting 2 poems written around my (Kashmiri) family and people's repeating history of southward migration, refugee experience and emergency. Without expanding on it too much - my people's pain and oppression was and continues to be explicitly linked to our land's role as a battleground between India, Pakistan and China. A more important battle is our swelling fight for self-governance beyond inclusion in these violent national borders.

Armaan is a junior at Columbia College, studying English and Public Health. He’s five minutes early to everything and wants mustard with that. He speaks Kashmiri, Hindi, English, and Loudly.