“My cousins are people who have all gone to private schools, and suddenly they’re thrust into a situation where they are protecting their homes with kitchen knives,” says Silvia Youssef Hanna, an academic adviser at the College of Charleston. Hanna left Egypt with her family in 1972, but she’s kept up with the recent protests and political standoffs half a world away by following Arabic television and speaking with her extended family — “first cousins and on back” — who still call Egypt home.
