The first and last time Mohammed visited Palestine was when he was 6 years old. He was lost in memory long since revisited as he told me of his grandfather’s donkey and olive orchard. One day he and his brother were playing near the community’s olive press when his brother fell into a vat of ‘olive dirt,’ the remnants of freshly pressed black olives. The 7 year old was drowning. Mohammed’s grandfather grabbed a pole for his grandson to hold onto and pulled from his ill fate. Mohammed’s eyes returned to the present and he laughed and said, “he was all black.”

That was in 1977. The 42 year-old, North side cab driver approached me at my coffee shop-side table and asked if he could sit with me. Always happy for company, I delightedly consented. For the next hour we talked and I conducted an impromptu interview, a game that he fancied.

In 1948, Israel claimed a majority of Northern Palestine. In 1967 they claimed all but the infamous Gaza Strip. The West Bank has been in violent turmoil ever-since. In this small strip of land, the People of the Book collide. According to Mohammed, Israelis “do not want [Muslims] to exist.” The discrimination is multi-faceted, effecting “anything you want to do.” Although Jews, Christians and Muslims share some of the same prophetic figures, moral guidelines and folklore, the groups are voluntarily segregated. Mohammed gathers that Chicago is similar.

The city’s Palestinians congregate in the south suburbs: Oakland, Orland Park, Bridgeview. The Muslim community is much more spread out but is still divided by ethnicity. Pakistanis live and practice Islam in the North while other Arab groups predominantly reside in the South.

Immigrants from the Middle East arrived after World War II (‘like everybody else’). The Palestinians immigrated in large numbers after the 1948 Israeli takeover and even more in the late 60's and 70's. Mohammed’s parents came here in 1988 after spending a short time as refugees in Kuwait.

“The Jews’ voice is heard,” said Mohammed when I asked about the relationship between Americans and Middle Easterners. As a Palestinian, he had some understandable hard feelings towards Israel and the Jews. “The U.S. wanted the Jewish state for their own good,” he said. In 1967, Israel became a proxy state; the region being a way for the United States to have their hand in the Middle East. Mohammed laments that American domestic policy is “always with the Jews” and the Jewish state of Israel.

A star-clad Suburban pulls up to the curb and two policewomen step out and briskly walk towards the Moroccan deli next door. “Cops are like dogs — they love to help out, but they will also bark,” said Mohammed. We laughed at the simile and moved to lighter conversation. I asked him what his favorite thing was about Chicago. After some internal back-and-forth, he said that he loved Lake Michigan.

His least favorite thing was much more decided. “People don’t want me around,” he said bluntly. Chicagoans are solitary, he said, which makes him feel like a stranger in the city in which he grew up. Everyone sticks to their own kind, limited by the color of their skin and the language of their tongue. “Race always plays a role,” said Mohammed.