- Being aware that I'm walking around
and people recognize me as either Arab or Muslim,
I was like, oh, okay.
This is just something I have to deal with
for the rest of my life.
- People get to know you,
and like I said, they don't automatically think
you're Arab or Palestinian,
and then they find out you're Palestinian,
and then it's like, oh, well...
It just gets awkward, I don't know what it is.
- If I'm not being mistaken for
being Mexican or Cuban,
I'm always having to explain where I'm originally from,
even though I was born and raised in
Southfield, Michigan, I have to say
my family's Lebanese even though
I only have a US passport.
- In class, if we're talking about Arabs
or if we're talking about Muslims and history
or politics or whatever,
you kinda feel this tension in the air,
and all the eyes start to turn at you,
like waiting for you to say something.
- I will ask students, I will do an exercise with them,
so if I say three words,
like Arab, woman, Muslim,
what are the first things that come to your mind?
And they'll say things like oppressed, backward, veil.
- Everything about my identity is inherently politicized.
Being a woman, being Arab and being Muslim.
Those are three very complex identities.
- One time we were at the airport, my dad,
yeah, he has a very Arab-sounding name,
and in addition to that,
he's way darker than I am.
So instantly, peoples were a bit more on alert,
and it was kinda especially interesting
because we're both Arab, we're both from Syria,
he's literally my dad, same family,
but just that instant,
they felt threatened by him,
even though me and him are practically the same person.
- A driver.
It's like four, five months ago,
like when I was talking about
that I came here and I love writing,
and as an Arab, you're not in the right place.
That's what I understand from the way he was talking to me.
If I'm an Arab,
I don't have the right to say what I think about.
- In 1987, I was four at the time,
and federal agents came into my house
and arrested my uncle.
That was the first moment where I knew
that being Palestinian, specifically,
and Arab probably more, I guess, broadly speaking,
meant something different.
- On the one hand, I'm Arab and Muslim,
and on the other hand, I'm also American,
so sometimes balancing those two sides gets difficult
and I think you reach a point in your life
where you find that balance
and you become proud of that balance.
- I remember this happened to me
actually a couple of weeks ago.
I was in Westwood and we were driving,
we needed to park somewhere.
And we asked this one lady who was stopped,
she had her car lights on,
she was gonna reverse out essentially,
and while she was reversing,
she let us take her spot,
and then she drove up right next to us
and she looked at us and she was like,
"By the way, I just want to say,
"I am so sorry for Trump.
"I'm so sorry."
But I was like, aw.
That's cute.
That doesn't really happen often.
Arabs and Muslims, we don't hate all white people
just because y'all have Trump. (laughing)
- People go to the media 'cause they feel like
or they kind of absorb what the media has to say
'cause they don't always have a peer
from that background to talk with,
and it's just kinda like have an open mind,
listen to listen, don't listen to change
someone else's point of view.
- People are told to be expressive and be themselves
and at the same time, they're being persecuted for that.
In the sense that normal...
Being yourself should be normal.
And I think that's what we should strive for.