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 Pursuit of Home
Luma Simms
When it comes to immigration, the fundamental question is: how can we help people find a home? The answer is not no borders, but humane ones.
Articles
Law and Liberty / December 30, 2020
Thinking Is Self-Emptying
Luma Simms
Wounds can be a gift to the world, if they can help other people to know themselves.
Articles
The Point / November 30, 2020
The Secret Desire for Barrenness
Luma Simms
Barrenness was considered a curse for most of human history. Even after Christ, and the birth of his church, when fruitfulness transcended the fertile womb, it has been understood as a matter of pain, of something not as it should be. Yet today, barrenness is a condition that is often deliberately chosen, through the use of contraception.
Articles
Breaking Ground / October 9, 2020
What Does Conservatism Mean After The Iraq War?
Luma Simms
An Iraqi-American reflects on the impact of the war in Iraq on Christians in the country and conservatism in America.
Articles
The American Conservative / May 23, 2020
People and Their Relationships
Luma Simms
When our conception of relationships and relationship-building is based on a vision of the human person as an atomized choice maker who forms bonds for his or her benefit, we should not wonder why institutions decay. Our institutions are in crisis because we are in an identity crisis.
Articles
Public Discourse / March 12, 2020
The Need For a Humane Immigration Debate
Luma Simms
The immigration restrictionists at the turn of the 20th century were driven by eugenic doctrine, and they built their arguments on racial theories. So what do we do today with this legacy of the immigration restrictionists of old?
Articles
Law and Liberty / March 10, 2020
Persecution, True and False
Luma Simms
The key for Christians—from the beginning—has always been how they respond to trials and tribulations, and the most genuinely Christian responses historically have not been via force or politics but rather acts of care and love of neighbor.
Articles
Law and Liberty / December 23, 2019
If You Don’t Find Your Identity in a Family, You’ll Look For It in the…
Luma Simms
The ascent of identity politics reveals that people are having an identity crisis, and they are having an identity crisis because the sexual revolution resulted in family—and, by extension, individual—breakdown.
Articles
Public Discourse / September 3, 2019
Immigration and the Desire for Rootedness
Luma Simms
National conservatives need to help create an America that knows who she is, one that can give immigrants more than just a place to get a job—an America that can draw them in, giving them a sense of belonging.
Articles
Public Discourse / July 22, 2019
Conservative Women and the Intra-Conservatism Debate
Luma Simms
The men that are the standard-bearers of conservatism need to make a greater effort to cultivate conservative women’s voices in the public square.
Articles
Public Discourse / June 9, 2019