Mehnaz Turner's Blog
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Dec.23.2009
My family's originally from Pakistan, but I grew up in Los Angeles not celebrating Christmas. When I was in middle school, high school, and college, we never had a tree in our house. It would be a visible mark of assimilation. Some might even have viewed it as a betrayal of our Muslim roots. So...
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Dec.16.2009
When I was a teen, I used to think that growing up meant knowing exactly who you were. It meant having the kind of self-assurance that accompanies such certainty. I would know how to dress, what to say, who to vote for, and how to oven-bake a turkey. I would have clearly defined set of values (...
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Dec.09.2009
Contrary to most representations in popular culture, southern California does get cold in the winter. These days, there's frost on my car in the morning, and at night I sit by the faux fireplace in our apartment and enjoy the illusion of flames ignited by the simple click of a button. What a...
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About Mehnaz
Mehnaz Turner was born in Pakistan and raised in southern California. She is a 2009 PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow in Poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as The Journal of Pakistan Studies, Cahoots Magazine, The Pedestal...