‘Can You Really Be a Queer Muslim?’: Intersectionality and the Complexity of Identity
La Herida Colonial: How Becoming an Immigrant Revealed My Ever-Open Colonial Wound
I’m happy about how the job interview is going. Of course, they don’t offer me a contract; it is a freelance thing, which is just fine. I’m ready to leave, but just before getting up the older white man looks at me and asks if I can write in Portuguese, and not in ‘Brazilian’. He even adds, ‘You Brazilians with these gerunds are killing the language.’ And laughs…
‘Palestinian is an Ethnicity, Not a Political Statement’: Coming-of-age as a Palestinian in Diaspora
There comes a sense of separation from our physical environment. Through our blood, we inherit love and care for our country, but we are born into a space where people hardly know what Palestine is. To care so passionately for a struggle that we cannot interact with while being surrounded by people who know nothing about it is frustrating and isolating. From this stems feelings of guilt. Being submerged in a world that cares little about the Palestinian struggle can feel like an act of betrayal…
‘I Celebrate the Tapestry of Places that have Made Me Who I Am’: The Highs and Lows of Being a Third Culture Kid
I had spent my childhood learning how to mould myself into the most acceptable, most unassuming version of myself. Underneath the people-pleasing and the desire to fit in, I had no idea who I was. So much of my Indian identity had been buried away under shame and resentment, and I looked at any American tendency I had with contempt. Meanwhile, every influence from China felt like something that I didn’t have the right to claim…
‘I Would Never Have Known You Were Foreign!’: The Misunderstandings and Microaggressions I Face as an Immigrant
This blending in is often presented as something to feel proud of, as though we should want to be as unobtrusive as possible. The reality is that it highlights two things: the first is that for some people, being a foreigner is a bad thing, something to overcome, and the second is that no matter how hard you try, you will never fully fit in…