Luma Simms
Fellow
Luma Simms, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies the life and thought of immigrants. As a humanist writer, she publishes on a broad range of topics, with a focus on the human (individual and communal), ethical, religious, and philosophical dimensions of immigration. She is particularly concerned with the crisis of rootlessness, identity, and dehumanization.
Luma Simms, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies the life and thought of immigrants. As a humanist writer, she publishes on a broad range of topics, with a focus on the human (individual and communal), ethical, religious, and philosophical dimensions of immigration. She is particularly concerned with the crisis of rootlessness, identity, and dehumanization.
Mrs. Simms’s essays, articles, and book reviews have appeared in a variety of publications including National Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, The Point magazine, Public Discourse, Law and Liberty, the Institute for Family Studies, and others. She has been interviewed on Arabic television and American and Canadian radio on topics such as religious freedom in the Middle East, Congress and DACA, immigration and the Middle East, divorce, parenting, and elder care in Eastern cultures. Before joining EPPC, Mrs. Simms was an Associate Fellow at The Philos Project where her research and writing focused on a Christian presence in the Middle East, anti-Semitism, and immigrant life and thought.
Some of Mrs. Simms’s notable essays include Identity and Assimilation at National Affairs; Immigration and the Desire for Rootedness at Public Discourse; I Am My Enemy: A Naturalized American Finds Herself at War with Her Homeland at Plough Magazine; and Thinking Is Self-Emptying at The Point magazine.
Her background includes a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She studied law at Chapman University School of Law before leaving to become an at-home mom. Mrs. Simms was born in Baghdad, Iraq; her parents and ancestors are from Mosul, and she speaks Arabic with a Moslawi dialect.
The Trump Administration Must Defend Syria’s Christians
Luma Simms
Unlike the majority of Christians in the United States, Middle Eastern Christians are not going to live relatively peaceful lives….
Articles
First Things / April 3, 2025
Former Refugee: The United States Should Encourage Less Migration, More Stability
Luma Simms
If we want to help the suffering and vulnerable around the world, it must be done with an eye toward long-term stability for everyone.
Articles
The Federalist / February 18, 2025
What Middle Eastern Christians Want
Luma Simms
Maybe Western people are weary of reports on Middle Eastern Christians. But Janine di Giovanni’s The Vanishing is unique because di Giovanni is not seeking a solution, and indeed knows there may not be one.
Articles
First Things / November 3, 2021
Responding to Persecution
Luma Simms
Where Western Christians would stand and fight, Eastern Christians have learned to endure – or flee.
Articles
Plough / October 11, 2021
Refugees Have the Right to Stay in Their Homelands, Too. How Can We Make It…
Luma Simms
Many people are in desperate situations but do not want to leave their countries. We need to find ways to help them.
Articles
America Magazine / May 26, 2021
A Spiritual Clash
Luma Simms
If there is a clash of civilizations, it is not between the Judeo-Christian West and Islam, as Huntington and others have often seen it.
Articles
Law and Liberty / May 19, 2021
The Heart of Progress
Luma Simms
Progress can humanize and dehumanize; our generation in the midst of a dehumanized world has one task: to seek the progress that humanizes.
Articles
The University Bookman / March 28, 2021
Dining Tables as Battering Rams
Luma Simms
The practice of hospitality can be a salve for the fear, loneliness, isolation, selfishness, and obsession with material gain that drives people away from each other and into themselves.
Articles
Philos Project / March 17, 2021
Pope Francis’s Visit to Iraq Answers the Prayers of the Christians Who Refuse to Flee…
Luma Simms
Pope Francis, who has not stopped seeking those driven to the margins of society since the day he became the occupant of St. Peter’s Chair, understands the existential peril of Christians in the Middle East and in Iraq especially.
Articles
America Magazine / March 4, 2021
INTERVIEW: The Complicated Journey of Becoming an American
Luma Simms
Luma Simms, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, describes learning how to describe her identity, what the American identity should include, and how she synthesizes each day her American self and her Iraqi self.
Articles
The George W. Bush Presidential Center / February 23, 2021