I may have been born in Mosul, Iraq, but I am from Kansas
As a first-generation Arab American Muslim, I have been grilled by questions about where I am from for most of my life. As a child I found interrogations about my identity to be emotionally disruptive. I processed them as microaggressions even before microaggression was a thing.
But as I got older and more mature, I approached such questions as innocent inquiries inspired by a desire to connect. In fact, I welcomed and encouraged people’s interest. I personally prefer to live in a world where we don’t feel compelled to conceal our curiosity for fear of being misunderstood. Every question, even those that are initially mean-spirited, are opportunities toward more honest discourse.
As the years passed, my responses to probing questions became too complicated to be socially efficient. I would sometimes give my entire geographic history, replete with emotional confessions, starting from my birth place of Mosul, Iraq, and ending with Overland Park. Other times, I would just say, “I am from here” — “here” as in the whole of America. I did not identify with just one particular state.
Now, after 38 years of living in the United States, when people ask me where I am really from, it feels akin to being asked what I want to be when I grow up. It suggests that at 46 and with three adult children, I am not grown up or accomplished enough, or in this case not American enough.
The cumulative effect of such questions over the span of one’s lifetime can induce a great deal of self-doubt. I wonder: Am I American enough?
Even when all indications are that I am not going anywhere, some part of me still feels as if the proverbial rug could still be pulled right out from under me. It’s a feeling that I experience as friction against my desire to make a more meaningful impact on my community.
Last year, Leawood resident Joy Koesten contacted me offering guidance on local elections and reminding me to vote. With that explicit invitation, I felt perhaps it was my turn to ask a few questions about my community and its hierarchy of values. Koesten, now a candidate for Kansas Senate District 11, thoughtfully answered my questions without making me feel self-conscious about my ignorance.
That conversation became the impetus for further discussions and more enthusiastic participation. By becoming more involved in local politics, I began to feel more rooted, more at home. Political participation and a sense of community became corollaries in my mind.
I had spent so much of my life maintaining a defensive posture against the accusation that I do not belong that I was unduly living my life as if I were having a post-traumatic stress response to the constant motion that defines the lives of so many foreign-born citizens.
Of course, I had voted before, but ultimately it was real political participation, however modest, that gave me a sense of community. Finally, I have managed to internalize that feeling of belonging. I am genuinely proud to be a Kansan.
Where am I really from, you might ask? I was born in Mosul, but I want to be buried in Kansas. I hope that answers the question once and for all.
As the years passed, my responses to probing questions became too complicated to be socially efficient. I would sometimes give my entire geographic history, replete with emotional confessions, starting from my birth place of Mosul, Iraq, and ending with Overland Park. Other times, I would just say, “I am from here” — “here” as in the whole of America. I did not identify with just one particular state.
Now, after 38 years of living in the United States, when people ask me where I am really from, it feels akin to being asked what I want to be when I grow up. It suggests that at 46 and with three adult children, I am not grown up or accomplished enough, or in this case not American enough.
The cumulative effect of such questions over the span of one’s lifetime can induce a great deal of self-doubt. I wonder: Am I American enough?
Even when all indications are that I am not going anywhere, some part of me still feels as if the proverbial rug could still be pulled right out from under me. It’s a feeling that I experience as friction against my desire to make a more meaningful impact on my community.
Last year, Leawood resident Joy Koesten contacted me offering guidance on local elections and reminding me to vote. With that explicit invitation, I felt perhaps it was my turn to ask a few questions about my community and its hierarchy of values. Koesten, now a candidate for Kansas Senate District 11, thoughtfully answered my questions without making me feel self-conscious about my ignorance.
That conversation became the impetus for further discussions and more enthusiastic participation. By becoming more involved in local politics, I began to feel more rooted, more at home. Political participation and a sense of community became corollaries in my mind.
I had spent so much of my life maintaining a defensive posture against the accusation that I do not belong that I was unduly living my life as if I were having a post-traumatic stress response to the constant motion that defines the lives of so many foreign-born citizens.
Of course, I had voted before, but ultimately it was real political participation, however modest, that gave me a sense of community. Finally, I have managed to internalize that feeling of belonging. I am genuinely proud to be a Kansan.
Where am I really from, you might ask? I was born in Mosul, but I want to be buried in Kansas. I hope that answers the question once and for all.
