Making a new life in Amreeka, Palestinian-style

Amreeka. This is where Muna, a single mother from Bethlehem, and her teenage son, Fadi, find themselves. When a long-forgotten green card application is accepted, the pair leaves behind harrowing border checks, the increasing inconvenience imposed on Palestinians, and their family to try life in Illinois with Muna’s sister. While the youngest cousin instructs Fadi on what to wear so as not to look like a FOB (fresh off the boat), Muna struggles to find a job. Set as America is invading Iraq, Fadi is faced with hostility at school, Muna discovers her two degrees and 10 years of experience mean nothing, and patients at her brother-in-law’s medical practice are walking out every day. A story of family, discrimination, and understanding, Amreeka will take you through the hard times and the moments filled with laughter and dancing as Muna and Fadi struggle to find their places in America.

In her debut feature, director Cherien Dabis makes strong observations without being repetitive. While she doesn’t focus on religion in the film, she shows her viewers some of the intricacies of religious identity and blanket generalizations: Muna’s family are Christian Palestinians, yet in small-town Illinois they are assumed to be both extremist and Muslim simply because they are Arab. And Muna’s understated new friend, one of the few who doesn’t discriminate against her family, is a Polish Jew. Dabis highlights these and other ironies and injustices simply, slipping them quietly into the family’s everyday life.

Winner of 4 awards and nominated for 6 more in 2009, Amreeka is definitely a movie to see.

Living the 'T' with Transgender Teens

Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers is the most human book I have ever read. Cris Beam narrates her experiences with transgender teens in California’s Los Angeles with wit, compassion, and incredible amounts of strength and humanity. Discrimination, back-alley surgeries, hard drugs, prostitution, homelessness – Beam describes how the teens she knew faced each of these problems and so many more as they searched for love, stability, and acceptance in a world where ‘transgender’ is nothing if not stigmatized. Kate Bornstein, author of Hello, Cruel World, aptly notes: “These kids are most usually know about rather than known. But Cris Beam knows them.” And each girl – Foxx, Cristina, Dominique, and the others – is certainly worth knowing. Take the time to read this book – it will definitely get you thinking, and not just about society’s definitions of gender.

Read it.

Selling Children

FACT: two children are sold every minute.

Despite being outlawed by more than a dozen international conventions over the past 150 years, slavery still exists. Over 27 million people are enslaved today, meaning there are more slaves today than ever before in human history. TIME magazine defines slaves as “those forced to perform services for no pay beyond subsistence and for the profit of others who hold them through fraud and violence.” Slavery manifests in many forms in today’s world. One of the most prominent is human trafficking, which frequently leads to forced labor or sexual exploitation.

FACT: over 1.2 million children are trafficked annually.

The majority of females are trafficked into the commercial sex industry. Children in both the developed and developing world are used and exploited for sex, a lucrative business in some parts of the world. In some instances children are sold by family members, sometimes for as little as $10. Other children find themselves forced into prostitution due to destitute conditions, either trying to feed themselves or their families. Many are lured away from their homes by the promise of a job and a better life, only to find they have been sold to a brothel.

FACT: children as young as 5 are sold for sexual exploitation.

Gang rape, drug provision, sleep deprivation, and torture are used by traffickers to “break” new children into the sex trade in Bloemfontein, South Africa, according to a TIME magazine article. Forced abortions and unprotected sex are often part of the equation. In brothels in southeast Asia, “menus” are sometimes offered to clients, describing the children: “#145, age 7; this will be her first [x]; it will cost $100 to [x]”; “#144, age 11; [x] and [x] are OK. $200 for entire night, add $100 for extra [x].”

FACT: over 100,000 U.S. children are forcefully engaged in prostitution or pornography each year.

Trafficking in children is not limited to the developing world, where clients are sometimes attracted for “sex tourism.” The sexual exploitation of children also occurs in developed nations, such as the United States. In South Africa, the continents wealthiest country and host of this year’s World Cup, as many as 38,000 children are trapped in the sex trade. Children in South Africa can earn more than $600 per night, and a recent TIME article revealed that many traffickers are “looking forward to doing more business” during the world cup.

FACT: the United States spends more money in a single day fighting drug trafficking than it does in an entire year fighting human trafficking.

The Obama administration has pledged to make the issue a top priority. Thus far? No change. The South African president, as well, has pledged to fight human trafficking and the unexpected opportunities for trafficking created by hosting the World Cup. In many places of the world those fighting human trafficking, slavery, and the sex trade find themselves standing alone.

Over the past few days, the child sex trade has been brought to my attention in various – somewhat unusual – ways. This past weekend I attended a concert of eight local bands, both bands I saw play back in high school and bands who are just forming. The show was a benefit concert for Love146 (read more below). This week’s TIME magazine contained an article about the child sex trade in South Africa. Finally, I discovered that today is National Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

Please, take the time to acquaint yourself with the issues. There IS something you can do to help. Let’s do it.

Earlier blog on trafficking of human body parts: Trading in Humans

TIME magazine article: The New Slave Trade

Resources/ how you can help:

Love146: The vision of Love146 is the abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation. Begun in 2004, Love146 works for the prevention of child sex exploitation, to rehabilitate children rescued from exploitation, and to promote awareness. The organization is named for a little girl with a spark of life in her eyes, who was seen by the organization’s founders during an undercover investigation of child sex exploitation in southeast Asia. By the time the brothel was raided and shut down, child number 146 was no longer there.

ECPAT: End child prostitution, child pornography and trafficking of children for sexual purposed (ECPAT); a global network of groups and individuals fighting child exploitation.

Somaly Mam Foundation: Their mission is to give victims and survivors a voice in their lives, liberate victims, end slavery, and empower survivors as they create and sustain lives of dignity. They also sell items hand-made by survivors.

Molo Songololo: a children's rights group based near Cape Town

COFS: combating the sale of human organs

Submitting to Security

Most children think airplanes are really cool. When I was a little girl airports were really cool, too. Sometimes I was allowed in the cockpit to meet the pilot and add his signature to my autograph book, and I could even go through security without a boarding pass to stand at a huge pane of glass, wondering which magical plane held whomever I was waiting to meet.

In the years since I was a little girl passengers have been met with wave after wave of new airport security measures. First, only ticketed passengers were allowed through security. Next, nail clippers and lighters were banned. Then liquids (some airports even include tubes of lip gloss in a passenger’s liquid allowance). In London, passengers are limited to one carry-on, while in the U.S. the size of allowed carry-ons is shrinking even as airlines start charging for checked baggage. Now, full-body scanners and mandatory profiling.

The Christmas Day bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound flight instigated the latest furor over security measures. The EU is discussing the installation of full-body scanners in all of its members’ airports and the U.S. has created a country list for mandatory profiling. Residents of a “sponsor of terrorism” – Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria – or of 10 other “countries of interest” will be required to pass through new security measures; the U.S. government has yet to release exactly what those measures entail.

While some passengers willingly submit to these new security measures as necessary for their safety, others have raised major doubts as to their viability, legality, and necessity. Full-body scanners are eyed with much skepticism by passengers who view them as a major invasion of privacy. Meanwhile, the new profiling regulations have come under fire from both sides: some call them a form of racism and others claim they don’t go far enough.

The debate ultimately comes down to this: what is the acceptable price for security? In an age of increasing trans-border movement, citizens are finding certain of their liberties – such as the right to privacy – curtailed in governmental attempts to guarantee security. In the U.S., we still have it better than most places in the world. We are free to criticize the government, to protest, to congregate. We have the right to a trial by jury and are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. We even have the right to privacy. How much of that are we willing to give up – and what if we didn’t have to? Israelis don’t.

One could easily argue that Israel is a higher profile target for terrorism than the U.S., yet Israeli airports don’t use body scanners and passengers typically make it from the parking lot to the waiting lounge in 25 minutes. Israeli airport security studies behavior, not stuff – and security hasn’t been breached since 2002. Perhaps submission to hours of waiting and full-body scans and searches isn’t actually necessary.

Supposing the security measures passengers face in the U.S. are necessary, however, do they actually work? Less than a year ago I boarded a U.S.-bound flight with a 2.5 inch pocket knife in my carry-on bag. But then, I’m a clean-cut white girl with an American passport who carries a teddy bear around the world. Who could possibly suspect me of terrorism? Racial profiling – right there.

Sources:

"Controversy over body scanners." Al Jazeera English. 5 Jan. 2010. Web. 5 Jan. 2010. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/01/201015183039178220.html.

Kelly, Cathal. "The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother." The Star. 30 Dec. 2009. Web. 5 Jan. 2010.http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother.

Why I Wear the Keffiyeh

This morning I boarded a flight from the DC/Metro area to Atlanta. As I slid into my middle seat, the woman in the window seat looked up. “You’re brave to wear that today,” she said, nodding at the black and white scarf around my neck. I smiled to myself, stowing my backpack under the seat in front of me before responding. I settled into my seat and turned to the woman, who was middle-aged with beautiful dark skin. She wore an olive-colored suede suit, large silvery earrings, and a hand-painted scarf twisted around her head in a very African style. “Believe it or not,” I told her, “I receive many more positive comments from wearing this than I do negative.” Perhaps that’s part of why I wear it, I thought. She smiled.

Yasser Arafat made the black and white keffiyeh a symbol of Palestine back in the 1960’s, much as the King of Jordan made the red & white version of the traditional Bedouin scarf a symbol of Jordan. Today, the black and white keffiyeh is strongly associated with Palestine– the fight for freedom, the oppression of the Gaza strip, the “Middle East conflict.” To some, the Palestinian keffiyeh represents resistance and solidarity; to others, it represents terrorism and the worst kind of Muslim fundamentalist. The latter view is what caused my seat-mate’s reaction.

A Chilean-German friend who lives and works in Europe and has traveled extensively in the Middle East told me once that he would never dare to wear the keffiyeh in the United States. Both friends and strangers have echoed his comment with varying degrees of awe, pride, and trepidation at my “daring.” They expect my display of such a supposedly controversial symbol to attract trouble, or at the very least some sort of derision or negativity. Their expectations aren’t unfounded, yet my experiences over the last year have been exactly the opposite – wearing the keffiyeh brings genuine interest, knowing smiles, and sometimes heartfelt thanks (occasionally discounts and job offers, too).

The only truly negative reaction I’ve received from wearing the keffiyeh came soon after I returned from Egypt around this time last year, and it came indirectly. A friend of the family picked me up from the airport one day in early January 2009, during Israel’s War on Gaza. Her parents have worked for the US Department of State for many years and are close friends of my mother’s. Nothing was said that night, but later my mother told me her friend had made a comment to the effect of noticing I was wearing a “terrorist scarf.”

More often, the reactions I receive are inquisitive or appreciative. A man came up to me in a Starbucks once and complimented me on my scarf. He asked where I got it and then said his daughter wore one every day. I was shopping with my mother in Florence when a shopkeeper asked me where I got my scarf and then if I spoke any Arabic. “Shuwayya,” I said. His Jordanian coworker was thrilled at my little bit of Arabic and proceeded to offer us a discount slightly lower than the “just for you” discount given to most tourists. Vendors in Rome’s Porta Portese occasionally ask, “enti filistina?” Are you Palestinian? Or I receive nods and smiles from strangers on the street or on buses, the sort of looks I understand and always return.

I was waiting for a bus in Rome one evening when an older man commented on my scarf. “Are you anti-Israeli?” he asked me. “No,” I told him, trying to form a response in Italian. “No, I’m not anti-Israeli, but I don’t support their war. I have friends in Palestine, and I wear this for them.” The man, who seemed to approve of my response, asked where I was from and what I was studying. In February I took a shuttle bus from Logan airport to a hotel in downtown Boston. I happened to be wearing my keffiyeh, which started a conversation with the bus driver, who was Egyptian. He and I talked about everything from Palestine and the keffiyeh to Egyptian politics and cultural differences (he also told me the location of the best shwarma in Cairo – down a narrow alley across from the Mosque dedicated to the Prophet’s daughter; I didn't tell him I'm a vegetarian).

The keffiyeh has become a symbol steeped in misconceptions over the past years. Some of you may recall the Dunkin’ Donuts/ Rachael Ray “scandal” of 2008, when the popular donut shop pulled an online commercial featuring Ray because she wore a black and white scarf resembling the keffiyeh. Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin discussed the issue in her blog, and on May 28 commented: “Anti-American fashion designers abroad and at home have mainstreamed and adapted the scarves as generic pro-Palestinian jihad or anti-war statements. Yet many folks out there remain completely oblivious to the apparel’s violent symbolism and anti-Israel overtones.” Malkin’s comments reflect the sentiments which many expect I should face.

Yes, keffiyehs are sometimes worn by Arab terrorists and have appeared in videos of hostage-takings, among other things. They are also commonplace at anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian rallies and marches, and Malkin is right that many of the youngsters who wear different colored scarves patterned after the traditional keffiyehs have no idea what their symbolism is. Yet the keffiyehs are so much more than a symbol of “murderous Palestinian jihad,” as Malkin calls it. If terrorists start wearing Gucci jeans is Gucci suddenly going to become a ‘terrorist’ symbol? What about the fundamentalist Christians who have bombed abortion clinics – will wearing the cross come to symbolize violent Christian fundamentalism?

Perhaps the deeper question is, what does it mean to be a symbol of Palestine? A symbol of Palestine is something much greater, something much deeper than modern Islamic extremism. To represent Palestine is to represent thousands of years of rich history. The keffiyeh ties today to the past, to a deep tradition that is not only Muslim but also Christian and even Jewish. The keffiyeh has come to represent strength and solidarity, and courage in the face of adversity. Yes, the Keffiyeh is in many ways a symbol of Palestine, but this does not make it a proponent of violence or bloodshed. The keffiyeh is a symbol of freedom, of hope, of a people’s fight against repression.

I wear the keffiyeh not because it’s a great fashion accessory or because it’s totally in style. I wear it to remind myself and those who recognize it that there is still injustice in the world, and also because I know peace is possible. For me, the keffiyeh is also much more personal than that. The keffiyeh represents friendship. I wear the keffiyeh for my friends in Gaza and Ramallah, for my friends all over the Arab world who support the Palestinian struggle, for all those whom I have never or will never meet. For me, the keffiyeh is personal.

Buzzwords of 2009

TIME Magazine's last edition for the year 2009 includes various lists and quotes looking back over the year - person of the year, notable people who died, various statistics. While I don't plan on reproducing all of that here, I thought some of you would get a kick out of TIME's Buzzwords of 2009:

Sexting n. - sending lewd messages or photos via cell phone

"Because sexting cases are so new, local communities across the country very greatly in their handling, from filing child pornography charges against the teenagers involved to alerting parents and letting them deal with it." - New York Times, March 25 2009

...really? Somebody's... filing charges again teenagers for... what, exactly? Sending dirty text messages?

Birthers n. - conspiracy theorists who deny Barack Obama was born in the US

"The birther movement may be premised on a fictitional belief, but it is savvy: birthers now wear the term as a badge of honor, as if they were a persecuted minority." - Atlantic, July 21 2009

*shakes head* Scot Adams once said, "The most dangerous thing in the world is a resourceful idiot." I think we have a few too many of those...

Death panel n. - a fictitional group alleged to be in charge of rationing care in health care reform proposals

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents of my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide... whether they are worthy of health care." - Sarah Palin, Aug. 7, 2009

Really, Sarah?

Here are a few other tidbits:

• 31.1 million people watched Michael Jackson's memorial on TV; 33.3 million watched Princess Di's funeral
• 200 million people joined Facebook
• 13,505 e-mails, on average, were received per person
• 17 US citizens were arrested or convicted on terrorism charges
• 1 in 7 Germans want to restore the Berlin Wall
• 139 US newspapers folded
• 2,705 miles sq of Brazilian rain forest were cut down (74% less than 2004)

Oh, and Berlusconi managed to make the issue, too - twice. Once for his comment to the homeless after the Abruzzo quake - "They should see it like a weekend of camping" - and he also made #1 on the 'breakups' list (his wife filed for divorce).

That's all for now, folks!

Fighting for Gaza's Heart

Today "Gaza" is something of a buzzword. It was last year, too. And the year before that, and before that, and back farther than is comfortable to contemplate. Gaza is in the news, on the lips of those who know her and those who don't. Gaza is facts and figures and pictures of bloody children on television and calls of jihad and terrorism on CNN (or perhaps FOX News would be more appropriate). Some of you may know where Gaza is, some may have no idea, and a few of you may know her story.

But how many of you know her heart?

Gaza is more than an occupied territory. Gaza is more than a war zone. Gaza is more, even, than a political nightmare and the breeding ground of terrorists. What, then, is she?

Gaza, a tiny place about twice the size of Washington, DC, is home to more than 1.5 million people. Gaza has - or, in many cases, had - schools, offices, stores, museums, fields. Gaza is a home; one which has persistently persevered. How often have you stopped to think about that? Have you contemplated, instead of the political reality, the day-to-day reality?

Many Gazans cannot get the food they need. The schools cannot get the educational materials. There are shortages of even the most basic necessities - can you even fathom buying toilet paper on the black market? And yet Gazans survive.

Yasmeen: See the TV still in their living room?

I bet they were watching TV and wondering,

when will we be next?

But, what about the "terrorists?" you might ask. A friend of my mother's told me once that Gazans had voted for Hamas, a "terrorist" organization, and in so doing had asked for Israel's January war. I could feel my heart breaking as I tried to explain to this woman, the seasoned wife of a military man, that Hamas' electoral win could not justify Israel's war.

My words fell on deaf ears. It is moments like that which sometimes cause me to wonder why I bother at all... but then I would see another dead or bloody Palestinian child flash across CNN or Al-Jazeera and remember why.

But I am a foreigner who has never set foot on Palestinian soil. What do I know?


My friend Yasmeen is from Gaza. She left home to study at the American University of Cairo. Studying abroad is difficult and risky for Palestinian students, but they have few other options to continue their education. Getting a visa can prove to be an impossible task, and those students who are 'lucky' enough to get one face the possibility of not being allowed to return home - ever.

After nearly two years of being away, Yasmeen was able to return home to Gaza for summer break this year, after Israel's war. After returning to Egypt, she posted albums of photos on her facebook account. One album contained photos of a mass of rubble - what was once the American International School of Gaza. Yasmeen's high school. Her comments under some of the pictures clearly reflect the pain, the sense of injustice and helplessness which so many Gazans feel: under a photo of charred school buses - "The terrorist's buses." Under a photo of a bottle of Crayola powder paint - "the terrorist's gunpowder;" a playground - "the terrorist's training ground;" a textbook - "terrorism for dummies guide."

In another album there are pictures taken all around Gaza - buildings, schools, homes, businesses. Most destroyed beyond repair. Here are stairs leading to air, there a picture of the Wall. And then, suddenly, green grass? Poppies? Is that... wheat, and daisies, and children playing on a beach? Yasmeen's comment: "This is in Gaza too. Don't be shocked."

Even in a place of so much death and pain, there is still beauty. There are still bright daisies and green grass and fields of wheat and poppies and beautiful sunsets over the Mediterranean. There are weddings and birthdays and new babies. Gaza is still full of life.


What does the future hold for that life? Yasmeen offers a chilling observation: "While the world continues to build up, Gaza will build her future underground."

Maybe, if the world remembers Gaza's humanity, her heart, that won't happen. Maybe, instead, Gaza's children will be able to grow in the sunshine.



I've been wanting to write a post about Gaza for a long time now. Sometime after Israel's War on Gaza in January of this year I realized I needed to write about Gaza. But I wanted to say something which has so often been left unsaid. I wanted to capture the thoughts and feelings running around inside myself and combine them with the pain I've seen and heard, the experiences and first-hand knowledge of my friends, the facts themselves. It's taken me nearly a year of thinking and contemplating and wanting to write... and perhaps sometimes that's what it takes.


Special thanks to Yasmeen for her pictures, her insight, and her courage. Allah ma3ak.