I Was Never Meant To Thrive

In the last year or so I’ve been having many conversations with myself about my identity and existence as a whole. A lot these reflections have been heavily focused on my upbringing and existing as mixed Arab woman in this world. These thoughts and conversations begin in my formative years, mainly elementary school. I remember it so vividly. It was the first time I was able to be away from home and my familiar. Growing up I spent the bulk of my time around my cousins on my dads side. All being Arab and raised with the similar Arab values, I never was really given the opportunity to be around other people who weren’t like me, aside from my cousins on my moms side. Even then, I was not around them much. That was the normal in the culture. Your friends are your cousins, and you live in this bubble. So going to elementary school was completely different for me, and I was quite excited.

I started kindergarten and my mom tells me to this day I walked into the classroom and never looked back, while she went to her car and cried like most moms do when their kids go to school for the first time. This was the beginning of me being away from home. I was elated to see what the other people on the outside did. I could be like the kids in my t.v. and make friendship bracelets with somebody named Mackenzie. However, these experiences began to not only cause a swirl of confusion for those around me, but some for myself too. I’m half white and half Arab in a world that doesn’t know what to do with me. At that point I was so proud of who I was. I had curly hair, a beautiful thobe brought home from Jordan, and a unibrow. I wore pretty dresses and had Barbie dolls who looked like me. I went into that school with pride! That was until the Dawali incident. There was a white classmate who saw me eating alone, which tend to happen a lot the more I reflect on it. I was seated at a long table with my tupperware filled with a small handful of grape leaves and a small tub of labneh my Jeddah made me. I was savoring each bite and enjoying the leftovers from the day before, that was until he sat across from me and saw my food. He sneered and proceeded to yell at the table behind him. “Mallakah eats dog shit!”

Time froze for me in that moment and I burst into tears. I probably did not stop crying until my Baba picked me up from school. Then maybe the next day or so, they went to the principal to address that this type of behavior will not be accepted. To appease us, the school decided to put together a program to celebrate different cultures called international night. I wasn’t the only one at my school who had roots planted elsewhere, and I’m sure they were bullied just as much as I was. I remember it being a success. Kids dressed in the traditional attire. Classrooms had decor and food from other countries. It was amazing! My sister was in kindergarten so they decided to let her classroom have Jordan as their table while I remember our teaching picking something like France or Australia that year. I reflect back on that part. A lot of the teachers picked predominately white countries like France, Australia, England for their whole classrooms while countries like Ghana, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Jordan were subjected to tables within the classrooms. All to be seen in passing. I think that was where I began to rewire myself truly.

Me, when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

I saw how people perceived my mom compared to my dad. She has an easy name to pronounce. People weren’t scared of her, she has blonde hair and blue eyes. There weren’t any harmful stereotypes about her that diminished her entire being. She was easily the acceptable choice, as she was more palatable than me. So I began transforming myself, and molding my image to be palatable as well. I would straighten my hair daily, and wear it up in pony tails to hide my curls. I would receive so many more compliments when I’d do that versus when I would wear it curly. I loved hearing how much prettier it was, because that meant it was working. I would get my unibrow plucked to rid the rude comments from other girls and boys in my grade. I was so proud of myself, because why did my family allow me to be a freak for so long? They allowed me to be the wrong kind of person, and for that I had resentment towards them.

So the evolution began. I started to mold myself even more over time. I gravitated towards the alternative artists I listened to Paramore and My Chemical Romance. I loved that they never really fit in either. They got strange looks from people, they moved in between worlds just like me. But connecting with other people who liked that stuff in real life? Boy, was that a challenge for me. I have distinct memories of talking to other “emo” kids and trying my hardest to relate, but often times I fell flat. I couldn’t quite get what they were struggling with? How do I explain to emo white kids that my baba doesn’t let me hang out with my friends outside of school? Or I’d never be able to color my hair like theirs because, again I wasn’t allowed? Their problems always seemed bigger than mine, their emotions overshadowed me. Even while wearing skinny jeans and band tees, I was still called a terrorist. I still was an outsider to the people who were supposed to be the “outsiders”.

Various phases of my high school life, looking back at these I see that I was never going to blend in

As I got older and went through high school, I worked hard to make myself be seen. However, it was just in the slightest. I used my “oppressive” culture on my college essays even though I hadn’t thought in the language or culture in years. I wrote about how I needed to be pitied. I put my heritage and culture under the bus in order to be seen as not one of them, somebody who is better than that. It worked and I got scholarships. I sit here reflecting on them and feel so embarrassed and ashamed I allowed myself to stoop that low.

This leaked into my dating and romantic life. In high school I had a crush on a guy who immediately gravitated towards me because he found out I was Arab. I was Arab and Alternative in our small town, something so rare. Even though I told him many times I don’t speak Arabic and I was not Muslim, he would feed into the stereotypes. He’d write me letters in Arabic and tell me about things that I never knew, to one up me on my Arabness. It was bare minimum, but I felt seen. And I can’t even lie though, at that time I loved the attention. I was exotic. I was something that people could never obtain. It became a talking point on all my tinder profiles. It was my secret fact about myself that blew white men away! I’d show them songs, and tell them about growing up in this restricted house. I’d talk to them about Baba and how he didn’t like me talking to boys. They enjoyed that I was risking it all for them, but in the end they always ended things and ended up with the perfect white girl. I have became lucky though, that I have found a partner who wants nothing more but than to celebrate my heritage and my identity. Learning Arabic on his own, taking me to Arab events, he cooks the foods with me. It took a while but I did in fact find a man who views me as whole person and not a fetish.

Having a white mom, meant having a white family which was also not easy to navigate. I love my family but there were and are still times where I felt like I never could fit in. I think about how my mom told me how my late grandpa did not like Arabs, and would probably hate that she’s with an Arab man. My late nana would even talk about how she feared my dad taking me to Jordan and never bringing me back, due to the hysteria from the movie called Not Without My Daughter. I cannot deny that my father and his family didn’t cause drama and chaos but this being pitted against my two families and two identities really did not help in my confidence and strength in who I am. My mom would often tell me how I am not Arab, I am white, because I came out of her. Or she’d again check me on my Arabness. Quiz me on things that she knew more than me. It was unfair having to constantly trying to validate my right to exist.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been thinking of all these pieces of my story and how I am just now trying to unravel it all. I meet other Arabs, and I discuss these feelings. Some understand, some don’t. Some relate in a different way. I talk to other mixed people and they feel the same way. This existence is already so complex, and to add the fact you cannot be put in a box makes it even harder. White people will never choose to understand how truly lucky they are that they are the acceptable ones. They will never understand that when they have children outside of their race that they too need to do their due diligence to learn and appreciate the cultures that they are choosing to marry and have children into. It will save their children so much time from hating themselves and having to pick where they belong. It will allow them to exist and thrive.

To my fellow mixed kids, and especially my mixed Arab peoples, we will thrive, and we are deserving of love, joy, and celebration of who we are. We will find love and those who appreciate us despite it all. We are beautiful and intricate pieces to the stories of those around us and to ourselves. I hope my children will be proud of being Arab and never be ashamed like me.