I am tired but my exhaustion feels minuscule compared to how people in Palestine have felt for a long time. I am thinking of my own grandfather in these moments.
I have cried and mourned for Palestine for 150 days, i feel foolish by the lack of knowledge ive had till then, the lack of true history that our schools teach, and really the fact that i live in this fucked up country that continues to help fuel this.
I haven’t been able to feel much so ive been trying to put my energy into learning. My mother was born in El Salvador, half of her dna is levant, her father is Palestinian. My grandfather and his family whom she never got to meet, were displaced during the first nakba. Unfortunately, a lot of my ancestry has been based on word of mouth basically my whole life. Some things ive had to decipher on my own through historical timelines and research. It has taken me a long time to figure out these portions of who i am. Through this i grow and learn what my identity in this world is. Thinking of the impact of struggles that both my parents faced, makes it even harder to fully understand where and who i come from.
It is hard to piece together an identity that relies solely on yourself to gather. But if not I, then who, for my own sake and my future families sake. It’s important to keep our histories alive, to help teach myself, because learning about Palestine is also learning of my own identity. Our lineage will not be forgotten, and we will share the stories until and after we see a free Palestine.
My disconnect comes from not knowing names and faces of my lineage.
My connect comes from everything else, they are still my family whether i know their names or not, my extended family is everyone that originates from the lands i do. I have been learning more about my Palestinian heritage and in efforts to continue my own identity research i continue to learn and grow from my people.
I have made a few Palestinian dishes so far, like Musahkan, hummus, babaghanoush, Mutabbel, and ingredients like sumac onions that remain a staple in my home. I started compiling/reading books by more Palestinian and Arab authors, like “They Called me a Lioness” by Ahed Tamimi, “100 years war on Palestine” by Rashid Khalidi, and “Freedom is a Constant Struggle- Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations for a movement” by Angela Davis, although not Palestinian, Angela Davis talks about the intersectionality of issues in the world and how closely relative everything is to each other.
I’m grateful for everyday that i get to learn more through food, music, writing, and documentation. But still, this is happening in live time, our histories are being unfolded right before our very eyes. The things WE are able to learn are not easily accessible to them.
The last 150 days have been infuriating to watch, and im angered more by the dehumanization of just watching. Truthfully, no one should need to see these images and these cries for help in order to show the world their suffering and to prove to anyone that they are humans under an unjustified bombardment. This is genocide, and it NEEDS TO END. What in this universe can justify this? Nothing should. As history is beginning to unveil itself and the reasons why these things are actually happening, i feel the world needs to be just as awake to see it change.
I have woken up everyday to check people ive found, journalists socials, to see if they are still alive. I don’t know why we live in a world that publicizes someone’s death without empathy. The people living in Palestine, in Gaza, are showing us and pleading for help. But why does this feel to others like it is beyond them or their understanding? There was a point that i thought it was beyond my understanding because that is what they teach you to think here in school. Ive lost count of how many times ive heard or even been taught to say “this conflict is just too complicated” or “im not educated enough on the subject”, by the school systems. The knowledge we all think we can’t obtain. This way they keep everyone blind here in America, but there is something heartless about thinking that you could never understand this pain.
What ive become aware of now is that, that information is not beyond our reach, there are people telling their stories to you. Through films, through poetry, literature, music, news…
My issue with these things becoming so accessible to us is the lack of empathy it can come with. Social media bombards you with things, so its easy to post a body of a child or a crying father who went out to find food for his family and has just come home to them under rubble, and then go on with your day, posting the sun or the expensive food you’re eating. The accessibility to posting the reality of someone else’s life and also your personal life that isn’t affected by it feels like a distant strange— apocalyptic, cursory space some of us are living in. ALL I SEE IS THAT DISCONNECT AND IT MAKES ME WANT TO SCREAM. And so, i refrain from posting anything on that platform as ive done for a while now, for the preservation of my own mental clarity. I myself dont see an appropriate balance. I am only grateful for who it allows me to find. And so i write and with this being a space i am trying to create for myself, i share my words.
In November i wrote in my journal
this genocide has gone on for over a month, i feel as though my family, family I don’t know is being stripped away from me. I feel selfish to think of my own struggles with identity and family when people are going and living though this.
I am disgusted to continue to write the same things months later.
Every day i write, the writing feels the same, i am filled with agonizing sadness.
But in moments of this feeling of never ending grief, allowing yourself the room to grow and help in whatever ways are accessible to you in boycotting this genocide and refusing to be complicit.
Below are some lists i’ve written down for myself, if you are reading this maybe they can benefit you as well.
Reading:
They Called Me a Lioness by Ahed Tamimi (current read)
Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela davis
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A history of settler colonialism and resistance 1917-2017 By Rashid Khalidi
19 varieties of gazelle: poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
Cooking:
Made-
Musakhan
Salata falahiyeh
Hummus
Shawarma
Baba ghanoush
Mutabbel
Want to make:
foul Mudammas
Jerusalem sesame bread (Ka’ak al Quds)
Taboon flatbread
Maqlubeh
Qidreh
Rumanniyya
Listen to:
elyanna
Lana lubany
Nehmasis
Saint levant
Palestinian makers:
Canaan Palestine- harvests olive oil from 3000+ year old trees, Canaan works with over 1,000 artisan family farms spanned across 43 different villages. Harvesting olive oil from your land is an act of resistance. It is centuries old traditions that cannot be taken from the Palestinian people.
Nol Collective- handmade garments produced by family owned businesses, artisans, and woman’s coops from Jerusalem to Gaza, Ramallah, and Bethlehem.
Rose Los Angeles for Olive Odyssey- thankfully, my partner snagged a chocolate bar, 100% of the purchase goes to Olive Odyssey to distribute directly and support farmers in Palestine.
Inaash Tatreez Association- they work with woman in the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon (Not so fun fact but important to know: Currently Lebanon hosts close to 450,000 Palestinian refugees in 12 camps.)