I think my parents' lives are worthy of writing about. I don't think my life is particularly worthy of writing about.

Immigrants who come to a country are going to lose something, for sure, but they hope to gain a great deal by making this journey, whereas refugees by definition have lost a tremendous amount - not just country and society, but also more personal things like careers, prestige, status, relatives, identities. This inevitably makes the longing to remember the past even more powerful among refugees, to the point of often debilitating them.

I've never stopped being a refugee.

Immigrants who voluntarily come to a country have already made a decision to assimilate to one degree or another. Probably not completely, but they've committed to the place, and they know that they need to make certain kinds of concessions. They change themselves in some way to fit in. They're looking forward as much as they're still looking backward.

No one wants for their child to become a refugee. It's an awful experience.

In the United States, we want to believe we will never become a country of refugees.

Writers from the majority can assume their audiences know what they're talking about - they don't have to explain things, whereas minority writers are expected to.