Not Veiled, Not Lost

We’ve all heard it.

“Go back to where you came from!”

In 2016, on the night of Trump’s presidential victory, I received numerous text messages warning me I’d be deported. While it doesn’t seem to matter to these critics, there is a simple fact. I was born here.

Despite being just as American as the people who threaten my deportation, this could not be considered more trivial. In the real 2010’s (if that’s a period I can correctly refer to), the state of Arizona passed legislature essentially facilitating the process of racial profiling. Specifically, it gave law enforcement pulling individuals over the power to locate “illegal immigrants.” In order to reassure the millions of Americans of Hispanic decent, the state government, along with other prominent Republicans, prompted these individuals to simply carry their birth certificates with them at all times in order to prove their innocence.

For some reason, actually, the reason is probably just discrimination and racism, the burden often falls on the person of color to prove their citizenship, whereas the standard-issue European-American faces no such duty. It’s almost like a painfully ironic play on the US judicial system’s moto-“innocent until proven guilty.” As I’m certain nearly every single minority group, religious minority, and person of a different sexual orientation can attest-it seems as though the verdict is often guilty until proven innocent. Illegal until proven not. This issue of course stretches beyond people of Middle Eastern decent, but for the sake of only speaking to my own experiences, that’s what I’ll speak of today.

Interestingly, telling people I was born in California doesn’t seem to ease tensions. Sometimes people press on, and ask where my parents were born. Okay, well yeah, they were born in Iran, I tell them. This is ultimately synonymous to me-I might as well have shredded my birth certificate right then and there.

I’m sure I don’t need to point out the futility of this statement. Everyone and their hamster seems to be familiar with the age old American moto: the melting pot, the land of opportunity. We all know about Ellis Island, and many Americans proudly exclaim their great-grandparent’s emigration from Ireland, Wales, Germany, or England. For some reason, first-generation Americans don’t have this same “American dream” brand of pride. Our stories are excluded, and instead, in school, we learn about the stories of these dated immigrants.

This point to a crucial dichotomy: we understand two versions of the story of immigration. There is the one we cherish, the one we see on those frustrating “ancestry.com” ads. It’s always someone’s great-great-great-etc. grandparent, coming from some charming old world Italian village, or the old grandmas huddled together on steamships, carrying their European vestiges on their back. This is a clean, child-friendly story. We celebrate this heritage locally. The second story is uglier. It’s vilified today on the news. It’s the criminals, thieves, and murderers who are sneaking over the border, or terrorists in disguise. For some reason, we don’t get the same kind of romanticization by modern media.

Personally, I remembered learning about “immigrants” in elementary school. We spent a whole unit on the Irish, the Polish, and the Italians. Our teacher even had a tongue-and-cheek way to bring up African slaves being forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and brought to the US. However, I was the daughter of immigrants. All my friends were kids of immigrants. Where were our parents? Where was our story? Our struggles and hardships?

I imagine if the average “Go back to where you came from” kind of person could see this story, they might be sympathetic. The struggle of coming to America has never been a light passage. For my mother, it involved marrying an abusive alcoholic to try to find a better life for her and her child. It involved struggling to take a citizenship exam in a language that was so different from the one she spoke all her life, and facing countless classmates and professors in a Ph.D program telling her that her accent was heavy and she’d amount to nothing.

Would you really tell this woman to go back? After spending 23 years in America? On trips back to Iran, she’s just as much of a stranger as I am. She speaks the language, but she dresses different. She laughs at different kinds of jokes, and even has acquired a taste for new foods.  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE

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I guess the real question is how do we define citizenship. Technically, it’s rewarded to those who are either born in this country, born to citizens of this country, or those who go through the naturalization process. But when it comes to intersectionality, these definitions become more nebulous. We need to embrace these new and non-traditional definitions of being American. It does not need to be the type of person, or include only one ethnicity. It just needs to be whatever we feel ourselves to be.

In the crafting of the very unique identity that is that of a Middle Eastern woman who has spent most of her life in the Western world, it’s important to distinguish the later part of that phrase. The reality is, our lives are not like the ones of the women who grew up in our home countries. Our lives are also not similar to the lives of women who immigrated to the US or Europe later on in life, this is a fact.

While I am often aware of this on some level, it wasn’t until I read A Feast in the Mirror: Stories by Contemporary Iranian Women translated by Mohammed Mehdi Khourrami and edited by Shouleh Vatanabadi that I realized how drastically different my experiences are from the women I felt so connected to. The book is a collection of stories by a diverse group of Iranian women. Their opinions on their country as as disparate as one can imagine-some fondly recount their days in Iran, others associate it with troubled marriages and struggles for divorce, while some also don’t see it as a defining point in their lives, but a setting for their upbringing.

The book reminds me of the differences between my mother and I. When she came to America, in 1996, shortly before I was born, she fought to blend in and assimilate. It was a survival mechanism, most people associated Iran with a hostage crisis, and knew nothing more. She struggled to learn English, put my oldest sister in a very American school, and decorated jack-o-lanterns for Halloween, a holiday she never knew. To this day, it is likely that my mother is grateful to be in America. At the age of 14, at the onset of the Iranian revolution, she once told me a man held a knife at her throat, and insisted she cover her head with a mandatory hijab. In school, instructors would teach girls how to load and operate large guns and rifles, in case of war. At 16, her friend’s entire family was obliterated due to Iraqi air strikes. I know for her, America is not simply a country, but an aspiration.

Unlike me, she does not care about those who mock her accent. It does not phase her when people insist her religion is one of hatred, and condones senseless violence. She turns the other way when we’re called uneducated and stupid, simply for being from another country. Since I never intimately experienced Iran, these are my obstacles.

This is what sets us apart from the generation before us. Their struggles were dramatic, extenuating and extreme. Ours belong to a subvert environment where everything is indirect. The women before us fought the blatant battles, and sought refuge here. Our job is to fight for the recognition of our identities.

If you’ve read any article on this blog, you’ll know my buzz words. Representation matters. As I’ve listed before, the purpose of this blog is to explore identity, but also be a source for representation.

I’ve long been a lover of fashion and couture, and I can appreciate anyone who knows how to put together a good ensemble. This week, I want to shine a light on Deena Abdulaziz Al Saud. Abdulaziz was born in California to Saudi parents, and is now famously married to Prince Sultan bin Fahad bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz, a member of the Al Saud royal family. She’s long been a lover of fashion, opened her own boutique in Doha, and eventually went on to serve as editor-in-chief of Vogue Arabia.

Below are some of her best looks!

Months ago, while scrolling through Netflix movies, I came across “Ali’s Wedding.” It took me a moment to process what I had seen. My little brother’s name is Ali, and it’s rare to see that exact spelling when not referring to a boy, so I flipped back. In Netflix fashion, the trailer began streaming, and it was clear that this was a film I needed to watch. The trailer is attached below, but for the sake of the post I’ll briefly explain. The Australian romantic comedy, written and starring Osamah Sami, follows Ali (Sami) the son of a Muslim cleric, after he lies about his score on a medical school entry exam, and becomes the pride of his community. He’s eventually promised to marry one girl, while falling in love with a different one (isn’t that always how it goes?). Notably, the film has been named one of the very first Muslim romantic comedies.

The protagonist, Ali, comes from an Iraqi family, that spent some time living in Iran before moving to Australia and being apart of a small but significant Muslim community. In this way, any Middle Eastern person who has had any relationship with their local masjid can relate to a lot of the dynamics in the story. There are strong familial obligations, a sense of making your parent’s sacrifices worth it. The pressure to become a doctor, (or for some of us, lawyer, engineer) are extreme, even when it is perhaps not the best suited career choice for you. This theme likely extends to people from all cultures, but the intermingling of a tightly-wound community that knows all your business (and is weary of your words), in conjunction with Ali’s proximity to religion-which is balanced without the film feeling like it’s pressuring anyone into the verses of the Quran-makes it a movie for Muslims living outside of the Muslim world.

This being a rom-com, there are of course themes of choosing between the person you love, and the person your parents want to be with. As a film written by an actual Iraqi Muslim, so the references to Islam are not superficial, but subtle in the same way Islam can tie into even the least devout Muslim’s lives. From explanation of how Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) defined the process of talaq, or divorce, to conversations with clerics at masjid, it’s, for lack of a better word, relatable.

The reason why I say that the film might not be relatable is the Australian aspect of the film. The biggest strains for me were understanding Australian standardizing testing and slang. I’m grateful for this film for all my Australian Muslims-I am still holding out for the American version of this story. America loves to brag about our notorious “melting pot” of cultures, yet I’ve never found a film quite like this one, that has represented so many aspects of my culture so well. I primarily say that the film isn’t relatable since I believe every person of every identity deserves to see their story told in film, books and cinema.

Until then, nothing is really sufficient.

This is a topic that has longed puzzled me, especially living in America, where every standardized test features a bubble in page with the same question. What is your race? Through the list of options, the one I was meant to circle was white, somethings with the caveat that I was not hispanic or latino.

Race is a concept I’ve long struggled with. As a child, I remember hearing that Iran or being Iranian meant “Aryan” and of course, being Middle Eastern means that I am, in fact, caucasian. However, and I’m stating the obvious here, I never looked like other people who checked the box, nor did I experience all the privileges of looking this way. When I went to the airport to fly back to Iran, I recall the countless times I was pulled aside and screened again. If someone were to ask me “what I was,” which is a question I’ve probably been asked more often than my name, if I simply said “white” nobody would be satisfied.

In the law school application process, I encountered this very challenge again. At some schools, they offered an additional box, with the option of “Middle Eastern/Arab” or “North African/Middle Eastern.” There clearly is some understanding that individuals of Middle Eastern decent, while technically caucasian, don’t necessarily experience the world in the same way.

Checking this box and living as an Iranian-American has often left me confused. It took many years before I recognized that there were spaces better suited for me than others. I can’t act as though repeatedly checking this box did not confuse me about my identity growing up. I felt lumped into a box with individuals who were culturally different from me. Of course, all categories are intentionally broad. There is a purpose for these questions and the categorization of race.

I’ve always been told that they’re meant to understand performance and to identify diverse candidates. Checking this box, and excluding North Africa and Middle Eastern people, means that we do not constitute verifiable diversity. In many regards, the voices of Middle Easterners are silenced. Aside from Rashida Tlaib in US congress, there is little political representation on a broad level. Today there are many organizations and advocacy groups to represent our rights, but it is meaningless until we’re identified symmetrically as a minority.

For a majority of my blog posts, I’ve discussed representation of Middle Eastern women in media. As a blog that primarily deals with identity, I think representation can be a crucial component of understanding our identities. When we can see ourselves, we learn more about ourselves. Crucially, I can’t emphasize the necessity of positive representation-something that isn’t a stereotype or warped into a negative or evil image. I’ve always believed that if Middle Eastern women were going to be portrayed on TV, it would be by the very women these roles were based on, actual Middle Eastern women.

However, I’m beginning to notice characters, meant to be Middle Eastern, played by non-Middle Eastern actors, or other minorities. This can’t be out of a scarcity of Middle Eastern actors and actresses, tons of them exist, even googling “Middle Easten actors” generates tons of results.

This occurs when all minorities and marginalized people are lumped into one big category. Casting directors will seek out people who simply look like the character they’re meant to portray-which is seemingly fair. When we watch our favorite movies and tv shows, DNA tests aren’t on the corner of every actor’s IMDB page. However, there is a lot to say about authenticity. When this heritage is crucial to a character’s identity, no amount of conversation or research with actual members of the community compare to growing up in it. One example is Dinah Madani in Marvel’s “The Punisher,” a homeland security agent and Iranian-American, played by Amber Rose Revah, an American actress of Polish, English, Kenyan and Asian heritage. She’s discussed the care she endures when researching her character, and her intentions of authenticity, and has mentioned talking with other Iranian-Americans in the portrayal of her character.

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I appreciate her care and empathy, but I can’t help but wonder, did no other Middle Eastern actors try out for this part? Surely the agents of Middle Eastern actors were leaving voicemails for the audition of a life time. It’s exciting to find a character on TV that looks like you, personally, I find this feeling fleeting when its just a character. Acceptance of a group of people does not come until they are unilaterally integrated into a society and given representation on all levels, not asymmetrically and conveniently.

In the end, honest representation matters. Maybe it won’t change the story, or even the theatric portrayal that we see, but it changes how we view ourselves and how the world around us sees us. The more often people can associate being Iranian with doctors, engineers, accountants, actors, and chefs and less with terrorism and nuclear deals, the better the livelihoods we have. The safer we become. The better we feel.

While I could probably spend a great deal of time delving on my opinions regarding the perceptions of Western-born Middle Eastern women, I realize that my own experiences are very much limited to me. Some people could feel the exact same way as me and others could wholeheartedly disagree. For today’s post, I want to examine an artist, whose works speak to my heart, ZYNB.

Her murals and artwork can be found across the country, from California, to Oklahoma, and even in South America. As an Iranian immigrant who grew up in America and spent some time in South America, I was truly interested in examining her artwork, especially from an artist whose identity is so close to mine. On her artist statement, taken from the Arts Council of Long Beach, she describes her work as “a point of convergence between three continents and multiple visual languages, guided by a dedication to exploring the commonalities between marginalized communities and honoring ancestral knowledge. ” She also discusses her interest in complexity, multiplicity, and intersection through a gamete of themes, including immigration.

“Genealogical Knots” is perhaps my favorite works by this artist. Unlike most of her work, which are done on canvas or on building walls, this one is painted on linen cloth, meant to resemble traditional Persian rugs. Interestingly, she describes this work as something somewhat liberally created, and not planned, but an expirament. Its a work of art that deliberately captures a nuanced identity. For many of us, this is our grandmother painted on the tapestry. We recognize this expression-her silent appraisal as we walk out in ripped jeans, say “that’s lit,” or eat microwaveable macaroni and cheese when she’s prepared rice all morning. The stitching itself is remniscent of a culture and a life that belonged to grandmother, but is foreign to us. My grandmother grew up in a small, Northern village in Iran. She sewed her own clothes, prepared meals, and cleaned clothes in a river. Even today, with her fleeting vision, is always swamped with my family’s clothing alterations.

My grandmother is illiterate, a devout Muslim, and has made her pilgrammage to Mecca many times. Even when visiting us here in America, she keeps her headscarf tied tightly around her neck, and wears long jackets even on the hottest of days. While outsiders might see her as oppressed, we know her as something different. She is powerful. The matriarch. Her words are my family’s demands. She commands our attention, and nothing is done without her consultation.

As these grandmothers look at us, what do they see? Some of us cannot even speak our mother tongue, and for many more, our grandmother’s know nothing more than a few phrases in English. We didn’t grow up in the same country. There are many barriers that can disconnect us from her. When I see my grandmother, when I see this tapestry, I’m not reminded of the barriers. I see the connection to our heritage, our culture. I’m reminded of the things one woman had to do to raise a family of 7 while her husband worked many jobs until they could afford to one by one send their babies to America.

I’m humbled by the sacrifice made by a woman who relinquished her children for the optimism of brighter futures.

ZYNB’s art can be found through her instagram page, zynb.graffiti or her personal blog-zynbart.blogspot.com.

Earlier, I briefly touched upon the dichotomy of the perceptions of Middle Eastern women in America while discussing Barbie and her Arab counterpart. Representation for girls of Middle Eastern or North African hertiage appears to be limited; in fact, Princess Jasmine, from Disney’s Aladdin (1992) was my only example of what girls who looked like me could be in mainstream media for years.

The Princess Jasmine motif is not one that is unfamiliar to many. She’s a highly sexualized, exotic form. These characters are often the embodiment of stereotypical ideals that stem from years of orientalism. Edward Said’s essay on orientalism discusses the “othering” of people of the Orient, traditionally referring to the geographic regions today known as Middle East, Turkey, India, and even North Africa, by the Occident, or the Western world. This stereotype fits well within Said’s umbrella of orientalism. The exotification of Middle Eastern women, protraying them as mysterious, and sexual is to build in an image that separates the “orient” from the rest of the world.

This Disney Princess is in no way historically accurate, women of the Arab world were not clad in crop tops-meaning this image was purely created out of a fulfillment of a stereotype. Interestingly, this perception seems to be a 180 degree shift from the alternative: the oppressed, hidden, and submissive portrayal of a Middle Eastern-often Muslim-woman. I refer to this image as the “Princess Fathima” in reference to princess Fathima Kulsum Zohar of Saudi Arabia. She has little public appearance, which is often limited to her facebook. When she does appear, its in modest clothing, complete with a headscarf. This image is a more popular one, this is the one that appears on news reels of the Middle East; the obedient housewife, dressed in all black-either a burqa or a niquab, who does not work, speak, and functions as an anthesis to modern Western feminism. This, of course, is not true. While some women all over the world are subject to patriarchal households that promote obedient wives, many of us are not this. Those who don religious headdress are not oppressed by default-but this is a point to be made some other time.

This image reinforces a lack of intersectionality amongst Middle Eastern women; it’s as though this ethnicity comes hand-in-hand with being Muslim. While Islam is the most predominant religion in the region, there are many Jewish, Christian, athiest, or Middle Eastern women of a different religious altogether. Conversely, there are Muslim women throughout the world, they are not solely concentrated in the Middle East.

As unlikely as it sounds, there is a crossroads where these two portrayals intersect-it’s most emphasized by TV’s “I Dream of Jeannie.” For those of us unfamiliar with quintiessential 1960’s television programming, “I Dream of Jeannie” is a show that follows Captain Tony Nelson after finding a 2,000 year old bottle containing Jeannie, a scantily clad genie who becomes his slave and grants his every wish. The show follows all the hijinks that ensue after Jeannie, a confused, naive, and beautiful girl fails at granting wishes properly. Jeannie balances the line of being subservient, submissive, and also highly sexual. If you look at pictures of Jeannie, she’s blonde, blue eyed, and pretty pale. However, according to the show, she’s a native of Baghdad. Okay.

So what does this mean for us? It’s evident in the way people interact with or talk about Middle Eastern girls. These images are riddled with misrepresentation-they’re not accurate to our history, to our values, to our culture, and they’re one-dimensional. As long as they exist, the responsibilities of Middle Eastern women to combat these stereotypes grow more challenging. Not only do we face the challenges of our peers thinking we’re oppressed at home, but we face the threat of employers misjudging us, and our communities being alienated.

The good news is, examples of positive representation are emerging all around us. Especially today, in the world of social media, there are thousands of examples of Middle Eastern women who aren’t reduced to stereotypes for the world to see us as, and more importantly, for us to see ourselves in. Personally, my instagram feed is teeming with Middle Eastern make-up artists, fashion icons, actresses, lawyers, and advocates. They’re all as diverse as we are, some wear headscarves, others don’t. They emphasize the gamete of opportunities for Middle Eastern women to become.

In my last post, I briefly discussed the roles of Middle Eastern/American women in contemporary media. While there is little acknowledgement of the duality of this identity, anecdotally I can only recall one character who is not a Middle Eastern immigrant in today’s media, as our population grows, celebrities of Middle Eastern heritage and identity have emerged.

Many of us are familiar with Gigi Hadid. Super model, walked in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show, famous friend of Kendall Jenner and little sister of Bella Hadid. Hadid is also the daughter of a Muslim Palestinian real estate developer and is open about her Palestinian heritage. In March of 2017, Hadid posed for the cover of Vogue Arabia, clad in glamorous jewelry, and a hijab. Hadid herself has never publically worn a hijab, and the cover caught a great deal of scrutiny. Upon original examination, I myself was frustrated with the post. Hadid, a blonde and blue-eyed model, was able to easily transition in and out of a Middle Eastern identity when it benefitted her and pass as a white American when that was easiest. For some of us, our appearance is a glarring give away of our identity.

Nobody will ever look at me and assume I’m of Irish or British descent, and if I’m ever mistaken as not Middle Eastern, it will be some other minority group that is disenfranchised in America. Gigi Hadid’s appearance doesn’t warrent “random searches” at the airport, or cashiers scrutinizing her in a store. However, she has the ability to put on a head scarf and embody fashion, then take it off.

After some time, I’m no longer as frustrated by Gigi Hadid’s hybridity, because I recognize it as a hybrid identity similar to that of my own. In an interview with Reebok’s Be More Human campaign, Hadid stated “…I wasn’t ‘Arab’ enough to being representing those girls, even though I’m half-Palestinian.” Her point is one that I understand entirely, when you try to embody one part of your identity, it’s as if the world will find reasons as to why you aren’t enough of that identity. Even though I am fully Iranian, and raised by a Muslim family, I no longer wear the hijab. I do not respond to call to prayer, and my adherance to Ramadan is as noncommital as it can be. I often feel as though I am not Muslim enough, Persian enough, Middle Eastern enough to represent my own culture.

Why do we only accept identity when we believe it is being exonified to entirety? When it comes to a Middle Eastern Identity, we all deserve the right to embrace it to whatever extent we do.

Barbie, the famous, plastic, fashionable doll has long been under scrutiny for her lack of diversity, in her looks and culture. For two years of my childhood, I lived in Kuwait City, where I met an alternative to Barbie, Fulla. Fulla was explicitly created to combat Barbie’s more flamboyant, and inspire more modest “outdoor” outfits. Of course, Fulla also had adorable, less religiously inspired “indoor” ensembles, but when we saw her hair, we saw that Fulla, like Barbie, was light skinned with light brown to blonde hair.

While Middle Eastern girls come in all shapes and sizes, with various hair colors, I often felt like a doll that looked like me never truly existed, as I’m certain many girls did. There was no tan doll, with thick black hair and dark brown eyes with a prominent nose. Fulla may have offered the girls of the Middle East a doll that shared the religion of some, but Barbie would never come with a prayer mat or beads.

What does this mean to us? A variety of things. Representation is a crucial topic in the formulation of a stable identity, but for the sake of time, I’d like to focus more on visibility. Being Middle Eastern in America, or most of the Western world, in fact, meant being broadcasted as something synonymous with terrorism on the news, but invisible everywhere else. Many of us recognize that we are not terrorists, but the lack of visibility in every other domain contributes to how we percieve ourselves. Can we embrace this part of our identity if it becomes synonymous with terrorism?

Dolls that represent us give us the opportunity to associate an often villianized part of our identity with powerful images. Barbie herself has been manifested as a doctor, flight attendant, teacher, veterinarian and more. At such a young and impressionable age, what would it mean to see something positive, that looks like us, doing something innocuous-or better yet-inspiring?