Gazing out the window at the chirping birds and radiant sun, it’s difficult not to get a little giddy about the prospects of warm weather and seemingly exotic vacations. But while travel often sounds inviting — even relaxing — people around the world know that the checkout line images of shiny, happy people holding hands and frolicking across white sands rarely depict reality.

In this issue of InTheFray Magazine, we ask readers to look beyond the sleek advertisements and step outside their respective comfort zones, shed their sense of local belonging and explore the far reaches of the globe. Before we set off on our journey, credit cards and travelers’ checks in tow, Thomas J. Clancy urges readers to grab their wallets, reconsider whether “Visa [is really] everywhere you want to be,” and explore how we’ve exchanged our genuine economic security and belonging for a Society of cards.

Our not–so-foreign travels begin in Asia, where we invite readers to peer THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, home to our new travel channel, and the terrain where Michelle Chen reconciles her Western desires for rugged simplicity with the unique brand of eclectic modernity practiced in China’s Yunnan Province in Eating bitter. And in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John Kaplan explores the austere side of the looking glass, documenting Life after torture, through a series of photographs that may upset — even pain — viewers. But as Kaplan reminds us “speak [and look] we must.”

The next stop on our journey is France, where the national government recently banned the wearing of the Islamic veil in public institutions. Illuminating how the cultural definition of French citizenship is complicated by divides between secularism and faith, enlightenment values and multiculturalism, black and white, Russell Cobb looks Behind the veil to explore how French Muslims are negotiating the tension between their national identity and religious traditions.

Back on U.S. soil in East Los Angeles, Avelardo Ibarra blurs the lines between fiction and reality, “domestic” and “foreign,” in the story of El Jefe and the “day laborers, bums, drop outs, and the occasional nine-to-fiver” with whom he forges makeshift fraternities, bonding over shared socio-economic status, booze, women, and body fluids. Just on the other side of Los Angeles, ITF Literary Editor Justin Clark asks whether Violence is golden in Benjamin Weissman’s Headless, (this month’s featured book for ITF – Off the Shelf) or whether the masculine sadism saturating Weissman’s work is too much to handle in a world where violence seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Registered members of the site can also read ITF’s exclusive interview with Weissman. (If you’re not already a member, you can register now for free!)

Rounding out this month’s stories, as always, are the writings of our columnists. Daisy Hernandez, who helped launch the ITF columns, has moved on to work at Colorlines magazine, but we are excited to welcome Henry P. Belanger, a frequent ITF contributor and a regular PULSE columnist, onboard as our new Assistant Managing Editor and one of our featured columnists. Examining the controversy surrounding Bill Cosby’s ridicule of “lower-economic people” in the black community for their values, mannerisms, and dysfunction, Belanger’s inaugural column, Insert Jell-o reference here, discusses our collective impulse to be offended by “unpopular truths.”

This month Afi Scruggs is taking a short break while she travels to Senegal to gather material for her next column on being an African American in an African nation. But Scruggs isn’t the only one gravitating toward warmer climates. Be sure to check out the temperature of love in a time of conflict — that is, how you voted in our April reader survey!

Next month, ITF will continue its exploration of the relationship between the local and global as we co-sponsor an event with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW), a grassroots nonprofit organization based in New York City’s Koreatown. On Thursday, July 15, the Workshop will host a multidisciplinary event centered on the theme of immigrant and refugee experience in the United States. The evening’s schedule will include poetry, theater, short films, and storytelling exploring ideas of “home” (adopted and imagined), identity, and work. As a co-sponsor, ITF invites writers and artists to contribute to both the workshop and a special issue of InTheFray. Finally, as part of this special event, we also encourage you to pick up a copy of David Bezmozgis’ Natasha and Other Stories, ITF – Off the Shelf’s featured book for July. To learn more about how you can participate in this special AAWW-ITF event, please email us.

Thanks for joining us on our journey!

Laura Nathan
Managing Editor
Austin, Texas“

Laura Nathan-Garner