Identity is a complex idea. How we define ourselves is something that occurs through layers, years of experience, interest, and self-reflection. We understand completely that we cannot check ourselves into one-word personality boxes that describe us.
Yet as people, we have an obsession with this dichotomy. We take online personality tests, determine our Meyers-Briggs personality types, or what Beyonce song we are based on our choice of breakfast foods. These searches often yield wanting results, especially for those of us with nonconventional identities. I’m writing this to address women like me.
Those of us born to Middle Eastern, Arab, North African, or Persian families yet brought up in a country that does not belong to use at all. Ironically, we are living in a post 9/11 America, where our very identity is something that often becomes a caricature in media. For me, discovering my identity, as an American-born daughter of Iranian immigrants, I’ve often struggled. In America, I’m an Iranian girl. When I visit Iran, I’m an American. There is no world that belongs entirely to me, especially when it feels as though both of my home countries seem to demonize eachother. After speaking with peers with similar background, I’ve found that this ambiguity in identity is a not an uncommon issue.
My effort with this blog is not to create a box for Middle Eastern-American girls to check ourselves in. Within our vast group comes so many differences that should not be disregarded. Instead, this is to be a space to explore intersectionality and embrace the colorful personalities that have formed from our hybridity.
Not Veiled, Not Lost 