Shermin Kruse is a partner at the law firm of Barack Ferrazzano, the author of the critically acclaimed, best-selling novel Butterfly Stitching, a contributor to the Huffington Post, co-founder and director of the peace organization, Pasfarda Arts and Culture Exchange, a director of the international refugee center Heshima Kenya, and a director of the ACLU of Illinois. Shermin, spent her childhood in Iran dodging rockets and the morality police and immigrated with her family. Kruse graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School. In addition, she is a frequent speaker and writer on issues relating to human rights and women in leadership. Kruse is globally dedicated to raising awareness. Shermin was named by BizWomen Magazine as one of the top 100 “Women to Watch” in the US and is one of Chicago’s most influential women in business.
Martha Chandran-Dickerson, was born in India, raised in Europe and East Africa, and now resides in America. As a global citizen and Indian Christian, she is an anomaly. Issues pertaining to faith, culture, diaspora and identity have perpetually intrigued her. As an outlier, the innocuous, however haunting question, “where are you from?” still confounds her. Her eclectic background informs her views and she embraces diversity wherever she encounters it. As a daughter to a Statistician and an Economics Instructor, she abandoned the sciences, and embraced the arts, initially pursuing journalism but eventually becoming an educator, as a writing consultant. She is also a freelance writer. When she isn’t tutoring students, or putting pen to paper, she's mothering her boys. She hopes to pursue her PhD in English, with a Postcolonial emphasis and aspires to write a memoir about her meanderings through the peaks, plateaus and valleys of her borderless life.
CONTRIBUTORS
Erika Fay is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and certified Transformational Life Coach with over 16 years of experience working with men, women, couples & athletes. As a professional speaker, Erika specializes in helping people build dreams, accelerate results and create richer, more fulfilling lives. Erika graduated from Purdue University and obtained her Master of Arts degree from St Mary’s University in San Antonio Texas and is certified as a Transformational Life Coach by the Life Mastery Institute. As founder and owner of Erika Fay, LMFT & Associates, a relationship therapy practice, Erika believes that everyone has the capacity to create loving relationships and lead fulfilling, happy lives. In her free time, she is an endurance athlete and competes in numerous triathlons and marathons. www.erikafaylmft.com
Heather Reid is a writer, freelance editor, essayist and avid home cook with a particular passion for baking bread. She has a degree in Journalism from Northwestern University and has worked as a newspaper editor and advertising executive with a specialty in digital marketing. Her work has appeared in various parenting magazines and a collection of her essays can be found at www.heatherreidwrites.com. Most importantly, she’s the proud mother of two precocious and hilarious little boys who keep her ninja skills on point.
DC: Coming from small town USA oftentimes limits a young person’s exposure to many things related to culture, career, politics, and overall lifestyle and opportunity. Describe your personal journey from Massillon, OH to the University of Michigan to Chicago and how your views have changed now versus then.
LL: I enjoyed growing up in Massillon. It wasn’t the easiest of experiences. My father worked two or three jobs and there were times where I felt that he was a ghost rather than a presence. He would come home from his day job, eat and then go to his other job at night and frequently would work on Saturdays as well. It was the same thing with my mother, she worked midnights but was home during the day in case there was something going on at school. But the one thing that they gave me was a sense of security. The sense of optimism and hope about myself. Particularly my mother gave me a lot of confidence about my ability to excel. They pushed me to take advantage of opportunities that were in front of me and that’s what I’ve tried to live by my whole life. Going to the University of Michigan I had to work my way through college because there really was no money that my parents were able to save for me. That was tough but a growth experience for me. I met people from across the country and from around the world and really started to think about myself as being something bigger than that small-town girl; meaning that the world was a lot bigger from what we understood growing up in Massillon.
I worked in Washington D.C. for a couple of years and then moved to Chicago for law school. When you’re in school, especially law school, you’re in a tiny little bubble, because it’s an incredibly intense experience. But when I started to see the greatness of Chicago, I knew this is where I wanted to make my home.