In New York City, and everywhere else I’ve been, 2025 was the year when everybody learned his name. I moved from Egypt to Seattle in 2000, and then to New York City a year after the September 11 attacks. “The capital of linguistic diversity, not just for the five boroughs (of New York City), but for the human species, is Queens,” Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro wrote in Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas. As is Republican New York City councilwoman Vickie Paladino, who called for the “expulsion of Muslims” in the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre. The year after I moved to New York City, my brother and his wife had a daughter – my own immediate family’s first US citizen.

Source: The Guardian January 02, 2026 08:25 UTC