KAAREM 𝓢𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓪 𝓑𝓪𝓻𝓫𝓪𝓻𝓪 ~ Join us for the book launch of I WANT YOU TO KNOW, a new picture book on Thursday, April 3rd. A book reading and conversation with the author will explore how families can approach conversations about war, displacement, migration, and belonging with the young people in our lives.

Book Launch & Reading
With Mona Damluji (Author)
In Conversation with Lisa Sun-Hee Park
(Asian American Studies, UCSB)

🍦 Ice Cream by Creaminal

📚Book Signing to follow!

April is Arab American Heritage Month, a time to honor the rich histories, cultures, and contributions of Arab communities. Born out of Damluji’s perspective as an Arab-American, I Want You to Know carries resonances within many other communities shaped by war and displacement. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, which uprooted lives and led to the Vietnamese diaspora—including the families of Kaarem’s co-founders.

Through Mona’s poetry and Lisa’s insights, we hope to explore shared experiences of migration, memory, and resilience. This conversation invites us to connect with our children and each other through narratives that reflect how displacement continues to shape our lives.

“I want you to know that you are still of the place
That our ancestors have known.
The place that they called home.”

How do we speak with our children about wars that have separated us from the places generations of our ancestors once called home? How can we explain how those wars continue to reverberate in our lives, many years, decades or even generations after the combat has ended? I WANT YOU TO KNOW is a poem of possibility, of legacy, and of hope that begins a conversation with young readers about our complex and deeply personal relationships to war, migration, identity and family history.

Damluji originally wrote a version of this poem for her daughter on the morning of the 20-year anniversary of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a place where generations of Damluji’s family had lived, loved, and cared for one another until it was no longer safe to stay. Her daughters have heard many family stories about life in Iraq, but there have also been many silences. I WANT YOU TO KNOW pairs Damluji's poetry with vibrant illustrations by Ishtar Dakhil Bäcklund to help fill that void.

Mona Damluji grew up on the other side of the world from the places that her ancestors called home. Yet, she has always felt a deep attachment to her Iraqi and Lebanese roots thanks to her parents and grandparents. As a student, Mona called many different places home from Beirut to Boston, Berkeley, London, and China. Today she lives in Santa Barbara, California where she works as a college professor in Film and Media Studies. When Mona is not hanging out with her kids, she's likely teaching, writing, organizing poetry readings, or dreaming up creative projects. Her first picture book, TOGETHER (2021), illustrated by Innosanto Nagara (A IS FOR ACTIVIST), is a poem that celebrates the power of collective action and was selected as a 2022 Notable Book by the NCTE Excellence in Children's Poetry Award. I WANT YOU TO KNOW is Mona's second picture book.

Follow her work @mona_damluji

Lisa Sun-Hee Park’s interdisciplinary research examines the ways in which immigrants and communities of color are not only excluded from the rights and protections of social citizenship, but also the problematic ways in which they are included – and, more importantly, how this relationship is interconnected. Her most recent books include: ENTITLED TO NOTHING: THE STRUGGLE FOR IMMIGRANT HEALTH CARE IN THE AGE OF WELFARE REFORM (NYU 2011), and, THE SLUMS OF ASPEN: IMMIGRANTS VS. THE ENVIRONMENT IN AMERICA’S EDEN (co-authored with David N. Pellow, NYU 2011). She also serves as an editor for a book series, “Asian American Experience,” at the University of Illinois Press, and is a member of the SOCIAL PROBLEMS editorial board.