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Dear Nadine page 2 | mary salome |
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How other people see me isn't necessarily how I see myself. If it were I'd have an identity crisis every time I started a conversation. But other peoples' perceptions do influence how we see ourselves, because we end up being treated with varying degrees of respect (or disrespect) based on things like race, class, gender, sexual orientation, you know what I mean. So if I sometimes don't feel like a "real" Arab, it is partly because I am not seen as one. I have been taught, not by my family but mostly by media images, that an Arab woman is The Other: exotic, somehow cloistered and sexual at the same time, the victim of a sexist Arab culture, veiled, speaking in an incomprehensible language. My response had always been, "That isn't me!" In some ways it makes no sense that I would have this image come to mind when I hear the words "Arab woman" if all my life I have known real people who were Arab women who were none of the mysterious entities I was taught they should be. But while we're on the subject of mysterious entities, I certainly never saw images of Arab lesbians in the media. Even other lesbians suggested that queer Arabs didn't exist, Arab culture being so sexist it had suppressed them all. It's true you didn't know me, Nadine, but I hardly know myself. But this kind of thing is very familiar to you, isn't it? America is not hospitable to young Black immigrant women, and the only thing warm about Miami is the sun. I remember you standing under a tree in the park, throwing stones at the birds above your head. "This is what society has done to me," you said, smiling cynically. You wanted to harden your heart to protect yourself from all the anger directed at you. I hope you still have soft places, Nadine. I hope you were only pretending to be hard. I remember the way you cried when you told me about a pet you had as a child, that had been killed on a road in Jamaica. I remember when you sat in my apartment crying while you read Frederick Douglas. The memory of you crying comforts me, and the only reason I can think of for this is that it means you are still alive inside.
Dear Nadine, I would call you in Jamaica if you didn't always have your sister say "She's asleep" when I called.
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Dear Nadine
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