As
you all know, I read the poem “Outcast” by Claude McKay for my poetry reading.
Here’s a complete blog post explaining why
I chose to recite that poem:
To
me, the poem “Outcast” represented the idea of wanting to own and belong to a
culture that I directly relate to, yet am displaced from in time and in distance.
This summer, I decided to record an interview with my grandfather who was born
in 1920 Palestine in attempt to save his legacy and story. In my eyes, my
grandfather is the epitome of Palestinian culture as he was born before the
violent establishment of Israel and still stayed on his land and made/sold his own
olive oil while also building homes for Palestinian villagers.
In
hearing his story, I realized that—no matter how much I try—I cannot be the
Palestinian that my grandfather is (or was.)
If you know anything about Palestine, you’ll know that in 1948 it was officially
occupied by the State of Israel and currently exists under an apartheid military
rule of oppression of the native Palestinian people. I’ve longed to bring back
and belong to the Palestinian culture of my grandfather and his ancestors: a
culture pre-Israel. But that culture is not only separated physically from me,
but also in time. I only get a glimpse of that culture from my grandfather who
is my last living grandparent. I am literally witnessing to that “original”
(non-western) Palestinian culture slowly dying.
In
its place: a powerful Palestinian culture that is fighting for freedom and
basic human rights. (Still a beautiful culture and one I am very much proud to come from and embody.)
I’m lucky enough to still know the language and general culture of Palestine,
but of course living in America makes me more detached to Palestine than my
parents. And if I end up staying in America, and from me comes the third and
fourth and fifth generation of Palestinian-Americans, each one will continue to
slowly detach from that culture until it is completely erased from their lives.
<image: me and my grandfather.>
"Something in me is lost, forever lost,
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,
And I must walk the way of life a ghost,
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;
For I was born far from my native clime,
Under the white man's menace, out of time."
"Something in me is lost, forever lost,
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,
And I must walk the way of life a ghost,
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;
For I was born far from my native clime,
Under the white man's menace, out of time."
