DIASPORA
On Watching Your Identity Disappear
Being Palestinian in the United States of America
I have witnessed my identity and heritage whitewashed my entire life. Many people have corrected me regarding my ethnicity, some in a casual and non-threatening way, others in confrontation.
My father was four years old when he and his family fled Palestine in 1967. The Six-Day War, where Israeli forces occupied and annexed the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai peninsula, and East Jerusalem, was the second-largest exodus of the Palestinian population, approximately 300,000 people were displaced.
The first exodus, known as the Nakba, occurred in 1948. When British forces withdrew from the territory, Zionist militia violently took over, causing 700,000 Palestinians to flee for safety. 531 towns were destroyed and 15,000 Palestinian people were murdered. The land was passed from one occupier to another.
My father first went to Jordan to gain refugee status and then moved to Saudi Arabia. After finishing high school early, he was accepted to a university in the U.S. where he met my mother.
As a child, I was criticized for my looks, with well-meaning white teachers staring into my face as if it were an oddity. My lips were too Black-looking, my eyes were too round and…
