The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

This is the first item I would take with me. It is a coin that my husband got me after my grandfather passed away. They would give these coins to fighter pilots while my grandfather was in the Navy. This holds dear to my family culture because it reminds me what my values were based on. It reminds me of the stories that my grandfather instilled in me since I was a little girl and how I still pass these stories on to this day.

These are metro tokens from Trenton New Jersey. I actually have them on a necklace instead of a pair of cufflinks. I wear them frequently because they ground me and help me remember where I come from whenever I feel as though I am lost. My tokens are pretty beat up and it only has meaning to me. To everyone else they look like a coin.

The third thing I would bring is a clothespin. This clothespin would represent my grandmother raising us. It would represent the plastic tubs of water she put in the yard for us to play in the Summer and the smell of fresh laundry we would run through that she hung up. My grandmother is a huge part of my culture and things I also still use today.

If I was told I could only keep one of these items, it would feel was though I would have to give up that memory. These identities are so engrained in me I do not think this would be possible.