Sharing Thoughts on the President-Elect
The following was written by my wife. I asked her to let me reprint it here because I think it sheds a very telling light on the perspective of a mixed-race American regarding the election of Barack Obama as our next president.
In the biz, we call these sorts of things paradigm shifts. They are rare treasures:
My brothers, my sister, and I are Arabs. More specifically, we are Palestinians -- a group that, though scarred with loss, is buoyed up by narratives of community and land and family and endurance. The stories of my grandfather's orchards and the family that he raised, the narratives of my grandmother's lonely trek across the River Jordan after having been ousted from the only home she knew, the accounts of civil war between Palestinians and Jordanians told by the still visible bullet holes in the walls of my aunt's small house -- these are the stories that make up the collective identity of my Palestinian family. Our father's move at 16 to take his first teaching job to help feed his family, his life in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, teaching and learning and sending the majority of his very small paycheck home to his parents and siblings, his time in India where he became a pilot, his move to Texas in the '60s where he struggled, worked blue collar jobs, and eventually became a flight instructor and an entrepreneur -- these are the stories of exile, fortitude, and loyalty that define my Palestinian family.
My brothers, my sister, and I are Americans. More specifically, we are Texans -- a group characterized by its strong idealism and individualist fervor. Family members who fought on both sides of the Civil War, great-great grandmothers who survived rough times and rough terrain, great grandparents who endured the Great Depression and ultimately created a successful small jewelry business, grandparents who worked multiple jobs while caring for small children and ailing parents -- these are the uniquely Texan stories that define my American family. My grandmother's grace and fierce loyalty helped to shape my mother, who at 18 made the decision to marry a Palestinian man and at 28 moved with her four young children to live in Jordan, leaving behind everything that was familiar to her so as to give her children a world-view that she could never have. My mother's silent courage, pioneering spirit, and overwhelming sacrifice -- these are the stories of individual endurance and accomplishment that define my American family.
These stories that define our parents and our grandparents are not the stories that define me or my siblings, however. We are informed by these narratives, moved by them, shaped by their magnitude. However, our unique story belongs to neither of these traditions. It is not a question of divided loyalty or of an inability to commit to a certain identity. We simply have not found our place; perhaps have not been allowed one. It is not a sign of betrayal or a move to dishonor the stories of our parents; it is our rare struggle to weave their identities into our own and to find the place where our story can belong. As mixed-race, Arab-Americans, my siblings and I have never quite fulfilled the expectations of either of the nationalities of our parents, and we have never quite belonged to either. Every attempt we have made to discover our affiliations, to acquire a sense of national and public selfhood, has merely revealed the inadequacy of those attempts and has raised questions that made our hope for self-definition even more elusive than before.
And yet the change that occurred on November 4th suggests a radical turning point in our narrative. On the stage at Grant Park, I saw a man not unlike my brothers; I saw a man with a complex story not unlike my own; I saw a family with an intricate web of histories not unlike my sister's. And while I do not naively believe that the import of this cultural moment will align all of my family's narratives, I do feel that our story now has a place. Minutes after the election was called for Senator Obama, I spoke to my brother who, fighting back tears, said, "We've never belonged anywhere before. I think we belong somewhere now."
I think he might be right.
Originally published at Darin Bradley.
In the biz, we call these sorts of things paradigm shifts. They are rare treasures:
My brothers, my sister, and I are Arabs. More specifically, we are Palestinians -- a group that, though scarred with loss, is buoyed up by narratives of community and land and family and endurance. The stories of my grandfather's orchards and the family that he raised, the narratives of my grandmother's lonely trek across the River Jordan after having been ousted from the only home she knew, the accounts of civil war between Palestinians and Jordanians told by the still visible bullet holes in the walls of my aunt's small house -- these are the stories that make up the collective identity of my Palestinian family. Our father's move at 16 to take his first teaching job to help feed his family, his life in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, teaching and learning and sending the majority of his very small paycheck home to his parents and siblings, his time in India where he became a pilot, his move to Texas in the '60s where he struggled, worked blue collar jobs, and eventually became a flight instructor and an entrepreneur -- these are the stories of exile, fortitude, and loyalty that define my Palestinian family.
My brothers, my sister, and I are Americans. More specifically, we are Texans -- a group characterized by its strong idealism and individualist fervor. Family members who fought on both sides of the Civil War, great-great grandmothers who survived rough times and rough terrain, great grandparents who endured the Great Depression and ultimately created a successful small jewelry business, grandparents who worked multiple jobs while caring for small children and ailing parents -- these are the uniquely Texan stories that define my American family. My grandmother's grace and fierce loyalty helped to shape my mother, who at 18 made the decision to marry a Palestinian man and at 28 moved with her four young children to live in Jordan, leaving behind everything that was familiar to her so as to give her children a world-view that she could never have. My mother's silent courage, pioneering spirit, and overwhelming sacrifice -- these are the stories of individual endurance and accomplishment that define my American family.
These stories that define our parents and our grandparents are not the stories that define me or my siblings, however. We are informed by these narratives, moved by them, shaped by their magnitude. However, our unique story belongs to neither of these traditions. It is not a question of divided loyalty or of an inability to commit to a certain identity. We simply have not found our place; perhaps have not been allowed one. It is not a sign of betrayal or a move to dishonor the stories of our parents; it is our rare struggle to weave their identities into our own and to find the place where our story can belong. As mixed-race, Arab-Americans, my siblings and I have never quite fulfilled the expectations of either of the nationalities of our parents, and we have never quite belonged to either. Every attempt we have made to discover our affiliations, to acquire a sense of national and public selfhood, has merely revealed the inadequacy of those attempts and has raised questions that made our hope for self-definition even more elusive than before.
And yet the change that occurred on November 4th suggests a radical turning point in our narrative. On the stage at Grant Park, I saw a man not unlike my brothers; I saw a man with a complex story not unlike my own; I saw a family with an intricate web of histories not unlike my sister's. And while I do not naively believe that the import of this cultural moment will align all of my family's narratives, I do feel that our story now has a place. Minutes after the election was called for Senator Obama, I spoke to my brother who, fighting back tears, said, "We've never belonged anywhere before. I think we belong somewhere now."
I think he might be right.
Originally published at Darin Bradley.